Part 1 of 8 Parts
The Following Message Has Been Transcribed For
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1 Kings 19. Now this -- for those of you who have been reading the Bible for a few years, this is an old story to you. It is the story of Elijah being chased by Queen Jezebel. So I am just going to give you some back up from chapter 18, just in case there is someone here or someone listening to the message that is not familiar with the story.
Elijah was a great prophet -- or if not the great -- well, they say Moses was the greatest prophet. Elijah was one of the great prophets of the Old Testament, and he was the prophet of the Lord God Jehovah unto King -- anybody know?
[INAUDIBLE] Ahab.
King Ahab, amen. And King Ahab’s wife’s name was Queen Jezebel, and Queen Jezebel was a notoriously wicked woman. We have a spirit named after her today. We have a spirit named after her today, and that is a manifestation of the carnal mind which tries to take authority over someone that has authority over you. We call it a spirit of Jezebel. Why? Because Queen Jezebel was always usurping her husband’s authority.
Her husband was king, and her husband was weak, so when we find men who are weak spiritually because they are yielding to the ungodly demands of their wives, or if we find ministers who are spiritually weak and are demanding to the ungo- -- and are yielding to the ungodly demands of their congregation, we tend to call them Ahabs because Ahab was weak, and he let his wife run the country.
Some people say we have that situation in the White House today. I am not saying it, but I have heard a rumor that a lot of people think that, that the king is not ruling, but the queen is ruling from a position that was not given to her by God. God said the king will rule, and that the queen is to minister to the king. But Queen Jezebel was clearly ruling, and she brought her husband into submission to her and made him what would in modern language be called an Ahab. That is where we got the name from. He was immature. He was weak. He was cowardly, and his wife protected him like a mother would protect a child. It is not a godly relationship for a man and his wife, where the man is the child and the wife is the mother. This is very ungodly. It is ungodly. It is an ungodly relationship, you see, where the woman is the strong one and the man is the weak one.
You can have a strong women -- a woman. You see, there is nothing wrong with women being strong. The question is -- or the issue is submission to authority, and my example is always the military. The military wants everyone strong down to the lowest recruit. You are supposed to be physically strong. You are supposed to be mentally strong but you are not supposed to use that strength against your superior officer. If you are a captain, if you are a lieutenant, if you are a colonel, you are supposed to be strong, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically strong, but you do not use your strength against the general. You submit to the general.
And this is the situation in our family life. Women are not supposed to be weak, but they have areas of authority, and they are not supposed to try to move in authority in those areas of authority which have been assigned to the husband. This is in marriage. This is in families. Children are supposed to be strong. Once they start becoming -- well, when they are little, they are supposed to be everything they can be, but they are not supposed to be taking authority over their parents. Even when they are teenagers, even when they are young adults in their 20s, they are supposed to be strong, but you do not use your strength against the one that has authority over you.
That is the whole key. Some people think women are supposed to be weak. It is not good to be weak. It is never good to be weak, never, ever good to be weak. It is a question of what you do with your strength. Your strength must be directed, your energies must be directed in a godly direction because if they are left to their own devices, they will wind up -- your strength will be wind up being used for ungodly purposes. Why? Because man is fallen, and he is fallen in his mind.
So we find this situation on the throne of Israel, a weak King who has a temper tantrum when he cannot get his way, and mother Jezebel says, “Do not worry, Ahab. I will get for you what you want and you can have.” And Jezebel in the Scripture uses ungodly devices to meet the needs of her husband, a total role reversal. Aside from the fact that she abused the citizens of Israel, total role reversal, very ungodly.
So we see in Israel, at the time that Ahab and Jezebel reigned, a backslidden nation, and I want to suggest to you that it is highly unlikely that the nation would be backslidden if the king and the queen were not backslidden. Now, first of all, Jezebel was not an Israelite. She was a pagan woman. Ahab, king of Israel, had married a pagan woman whose God was -- anybody?
[INAUDIBLE]
Baal. She worshiped Baal.
And she invited the prophets of Baal -- I almost said to the White House. She invited the prophets of Baal to the castle, to the palace, and the Scripture says -- I believe there were 450 prophets of Baal that ate at her table and 400 prophets of the Grove, 850 false prophets welcome with free entrance to the palace of the king of Israel who was supposed to be appointed and anointed of God, the Lord Jehovah, to rule over the people. So is it any surprise when we read in the book of 1 Kings 18 that the nation was backslidden?
And Elijah, we are told in another place, was the only prophet -- the only true prophet of the living God -- one prophet, Elijah, 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the Grove, a queen that hated Elijah for his service to God and a king who did anything that his wife said. I do not know that I would want to be a prophet under those circumstances. You could get killed being a prophet under those circumstances. And, in fact, Queen Jezebel did try to kill Elijah, and King Ahab had no love for him either. They both tried to kill him.
But we find that the Lord had given Ahab -- had given Elijah supernatural powers. Elijah was known, very similar to the account of Jesus, to disappear in the midst of his enemies. They could not lay hands on him. He would disappear. The way the Scripture describes it is that he would fly away, and they could not find him.
So we see Elijah, a prophet of God, under very difficult circumstances, and we are told in chapter 18 of 1 Kings that the word of the Lord came to Elijah and said to him, “Challenge the prophets of Baal.” Challenge the prophets of Baal, and the Scripture says that all of Israel came out. Elijah called all of Israel, and he called up the prophets of Baal, and he openly challenged the 450 prophets of Baal in front of the people of Israel.
And we are told that not one person said a word. They are seeing this showdown, this tremendous showdown between one prophet of the living God and 450 prophets of Baal, and nobody said a word -- totally backslidden, reprobate Israel. And Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal, and he said, “Prepare a sacrifice, and I will prepare a sacrifice. Make it an unusual sacrifice, sacrifices which are normally consumed by fire. Cover that sacrifice with water. Surround it with water, and we will see whose God sends down fire from heaven and consumes the sacrifice.
Well, to make the story short, we are told that the prophets of Baal did everything they could to invoke their god. They danced. They sang. They chanted. They cut themselves to draw blood, but there was no manifestation of fire in response to their rituals. And then Elijah called upon the name of Jehovah and said to him, “Show these people that I am your prophet and that what I have done has been at your instruction.” And fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice and burnt up the water that was surrounding it, and the people of Israel acknowledged that Jehovah was God. Now, remember, before the sign, they had nothing to say, before the sign, that Jehovah was God. They did not know Jehovah was God. They were silent. And then we are told that Elijah the prophet took the 450 prophets of Baal -- I believe the people of Israel helped him -- gathered them together, and Elijah slew every one of them. That must have been pretty tiring, swinging a sword 450 times, killing 450 people.
Let me tell you something, this takes a very brave man. These were Jezebel’s prophets, and he killed every last one of them. He openly, boldly challenged them publicly, and at one point in this account in Scripture says [sic] that Elijah laughed at them. He laughed at them. And I would just like to comment on that for those of you that are still struggling with the fact that sometimes a prophet of God is -- or that a prophet of God is not always sweet and smiling and happy, and that sometimes the Spirit of God in them can mock as well as do many other things that would be sin if it was a spirit that was not the Spirit of God.
And we see Elijah mocking the prophets of Baal saying, “Where is your God? Perhaps he is sleeping. Perhaps he is on a business trip.” That is probably my own addition there, but they were saying things like that. He was saying things like that. Elijah was not kind to the false prophets. So I once again encourage you to understand that the Spirit of God is not always nice, and when confronted with sin He can be very stern. He can be mocking. He can be sharp. He can expose sin, which if you do not understand it is the Spirit of God, you will think it is accusation, but truth is not accusation. Accusation is a spirit, and when sin is being exposed, if it is the spirit of truth, it cannot be the spirit of accusation.
We are coming out of the church age where the gentleness of the Holy Spirit has been the rule, and we are entering once again into a very serious age where the power of God is moving in the exposure of sin, in the execution of judgment and in every other stern manifestation, including mocking of false prophets. I abjure you to get before God with this because you are going to make a mistake. If you do not believe that it can happen, you are surely going to misjudge the Spirit of God when you see it. You have a lot of praying to do, all of you.
So we see this very brave man who has moved in the supernatural ministry of God, flying away -- not soul travel, taking his whole body with him -- disappearing for weeks at a time. Now, all of a sudden, he gets a letter from Jezebel -- from Queen Jezebel at the beginning of verse 19, and she says to him --
Well, let me read you verse 1, chapter 19, 1 Kings: “And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done” -- look at that. He went running to his mommy, and he told her -- “and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. And then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, ‘So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.’”
Now, if you do not understand old English, Jezebel just said to Elijah, “Let me be dead if I have not killed you by the sword by this time tomorrow.” She threatened his life, and this brave prophet who has heard the wor- -- not only heard the voice of the Lord, but heard and executed the instructions of God. Let me tell you something, you have to be pretty sure that you are hearing from God to be murdering somebody because a voice told you to kill 450 people. That is a prophet of God, to know that it was his God telling him to do that.
Well, this brave prophet, what does he do when he hears Jezebel’s message? He gets up and he runs for his life. Now, how could this be? This is inconsistent. It makes no sense at all. This man is running for his life, and we will find out further on, filled with fear and self-pity and suicidal. What happened to him?
And I would like to suggest to you that when the Spirit of God moves upon a man he becomes as bold as a lion. There is nothing he will not do. There is nothing he is not afraid of, but when the Lord’s purposes are completed, and that manifestation or that move at the Spirit of God withdraws from him, we find in our midst a natural man who turned around and saw that he just killed 450 people and Jezebel was after him, and he was scared out of his mind.
When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon you, you are a new man. It -- the way it is expressed in the Scripture is that -- well, this Scripture was about King Saul. He received a new heart, and when the heart of God is your heart, you are as bold as the Lion of Judah. There is not anything you cannot do or any victory that you cannot take. And the life of a prophet, therefore, is extremely stressful for many reasons. This is just one of the reasons. Extremely stressful because you obey God. You do what God tells you, and then when that heavy anointing pulls off, you are left to face the music. We are down here in hell.
And I would like to share with you that I have experienced this. I have never killed 450 people, but I have experienced this where I have been extremely bold in Christ. I have been -- I have done all -- well, nothing like this, but I have been very bold with people. I have been very bold under circumstances, and the Spirit of the Lord withdraws from me for whatever reason, and I just --
Well, let me put it to you this way. I have had a tremendous victory in Christ, been very bold in Christ, executed His instructions, and Jezebel appears to me. Someone that has authority in this world will show their face to me and threaten me, threaten my safety, threaten my finances, threaten my health, threaten my family. Jezebel shows her ugly face, and I want to tell you that I have experienced it. I have experienced being in high places in God, and the very next day Jezebel manifests and gets me right in my weakest area, knocks me down and leaves me a mass of quivering jelly. I have experienced it. So it is, therefore, very stressful being a prophet of God. You are up and down. You are in and out.
So as we go along now in 1 Kings 19, I think I have some interesting things to point out to you about what happened to Elijah, and I would also like to comment on the possibility of his being a -- as the church -- as some scholars put it, a pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ, or, as some people call it -- call him, an epiphany. Some scholars say that Elijah was Christ before -- was -- well, let me explain that, a pre-incarnate Christ.
Jesus Christ of Nazareth died and was raised from the dead and still lives, but before that time under the old covenant Christ did make appearances in the flesh of a man, but he never died. He was never raised from the dead. It was just a temporary appearance in this world. And I do not think that Elijah was a pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ because of chapter 19 of 1 Kings -- of qu- -- of Kings. He was a natural man who was terrified at Jezebel’s threat to kill him.
And let me go back to chapter 18 one more time. I believe it was in chapter 18. I’m -- well, [UNINTELLIGIBLE] -- you may -- you have to forgive me. It is either chapter 18 or chapter 20. I got my chapters mixed up here. But at one point Elijah goes to the prophet Obadiah, and he says to Obadiah, “Tell Ki-” -- it is probably chapter 20. And he says to Obadiah, “Tell King Ahab that I want to see him.” Bold as a lion. There is a sentence of death on his life, and he comes to the prophet Obadiah and he says, “Set me up an appointment with King Ahab.”
And Obadiah says, “How could you do this to me? They have been looking for you to kill you for a long time, and every time they have got you in their midst, you disappear. And now if I go and tell Ahab that you want to see him and you disappear, they are going to kill me.” And Elijah said to Obadiah, “Do not have any fear. I will show myself. Go tell Ahab I will show myself to him.” This is the same man that was running for his life from Jezebel. What happened to him?
And I suggest to you the only thing that could explain this variation in attitude, this variation in personality, is that when he was bold, Christ was manifested in him to a very high measure; and when he was a quivering mass of jelly, Jezebel had wounded him, had frightened him, and he fell down out of Christ. Now, this is very important because it happens to us. We must know that Christ can be up very high, and the higher he is manifested in us, the more likely Jezebel is coming out of the clouds to zap us wherever she can get us to bring us down.
We need to know this. Why? Because it does not glorify God when we enter into condemnation. It does not glorify God when we become suicidal, and, as we will find out when we go to chapter 19, the reason Elijah was suicidal was that he was saying to Jehovah, “I am no better than my fathers. Despite all the great works that I have done for you, here I am a quivering mass of jelly because Queen Jezebel put out a death -- pu- -- she put out a contract on me.”
So we must know that this will happen to us. As we hope for full stature, we will ascend in Christ, and we will come down; five steps forward, four steps backwards. And we must fight condemnation and rejection and suicide and anything else that is bothering us when the anointing is not heavily upon us. It is stressful to be moving in an office in Christ. In this hour we are not -- well, in this hour we are sons. We -- well, we can operate in the office of prophet. We can operate in the office of the apostle. But we are told in the book of Hebrews, “In times past, God spoke through the holy prophets, but in this hour He speaks through the Son.”
So if you are a son, what makes you a son? If Christ is in -- if the seed of Christ is engrafted in you and if Christ is being formed in you, you have the potential to move in all five manifestations of the fivefold ministry depending on how much your Christ is in you. As you mature, you will recognize that you are moving in all five manifestations of the fivefold ministry. That would be a sign that Christ is in some measure of maturity in you.
So we must know that this is a very stressful calling, to be a son. If the Son is not at a point of maturity in you when you are manifesting in the five offices, you may be manifesting in one office. When God first raised me up, I was just manifesting as a teacher. My first -- the first office He called me to was that of teacher. At this time, I am manifesting in all five offices. Christ is maturing in me. The last office that I entered into was evangelist, and that was two years ago. The evangelist was born in me.
So what I mean -- what I am telling you tonight is that you have to know that this is a very stressful calling and that it is going to be up and down and that we have no control over when we are -- Christ is ascending in us, and when He is descending in us; and when he descends in us, we become a natural man again. We have no power over it. It is all His will, and we have to know how to handle it when we go from the heights of a glorious spiritual experience to finding ourselves as a carnal person again. We have to know how to handle it. We have to know what is happening to us. We have to know what it means. We have to know how to protect ourself because we become very vulnerable when we become carnal people. After beating up on Satan’s kingdom and all of a sudden we are a carnal man, we are very vulnerable. We have to learn how to handle it.
Sometimes I hide. I know when I am vulnerable. If I can possibly do it, I go in my office and lock the door. I do not want to talk to anybody. Why? I do not want to get into trouble. I do not want to sin. I did not want to say something that would be a mistake. And I just pray for God to raise me up.
So Elijah, in my opinion, was not an epiphany. He was a natural man that moved in the high realms of God’s Spirit. I believe that this -- the administration of the Father which was upon him was the spirit of heaven. If you recall our teachings about the different administrations of the Spirit of the Father, he had a powerful administration of the Spirit of God upon him that is much more powerful than the Holy Spirit. It was a -- an administration of the Spirit of God which had the strength to, at his will, completely crush Elijah’s carnal mind and give him, for lack of a better way of saying it -- this is not the ideal way of expressing it, but to use the language that you are used to, giving him a temporary imparted anointing of full stature. It was a temporary condition of Elijah’s carnal mind being so completely crushed that it was only Christ moving through him, but it was not permanent.
Those of us that are entering into Sonship in this hour -- well, I have had a couple of experiences. I do not know for sure, but it is possible my carnal mind was completely crushed. Three or four experiences I have had like that, and they were temporary. What is happening to us in this hour is that Christ is increasing in us slowly. Christ is overcoming our carnal minds slowly, and when we ascend to that place where our carnal mind is completely crushed, we are going to stay that way. We are going to stay that way. Does anyone not know what I am talking about?
The spirit of heaven, which was available to the -- certain chosen men of natural Israel, had the authority to completely crush their carnal minds for a temporary period of time for the specific purposes of God, either to bring forth the prophecies that we find in the Bible or to do other deeds such as Elijah did that we are talking about in this message, but it was temporary, and it was only a few isolated, holy men of Israel that had this authority.
In this hour in the church today, those of us that are called to Sonship in this hour are experiencing small experiences, some measure of dominion over our carnal mind, but it is permanent. It is permanent. Once God gives you the victory over a certain manifestation of your carnal mind, you are victorious over it. We are on a journey. We are fighting a war, and every victory God gives us, we have that much more dominion over our carnal mind until the day comes that we ascend to full stature and that carnal mind is completely crushed permanently.
That is what happened in the man Jesus of Nazareth, and that is basically the difference between the New Testament prophets, or the sons, and the Old Testament prophets. The anointing on the Old Testament prophets was temporary; the anointing on the New Testament sons will be permanent. It is permanent in Jesus, and it will be permanent in us, but we are attaining to it slowly, little by little, as a small child grows up from infancy.
Elijah never grew up from infancy. From the first day God decided to use him, the spirit of heaven, the full crushing of his carnal mind, was his experience. We are experiencing this as -- at an in- -- we are experiencing this little by little at a consistent increase, each time greater and greater and greater. Is everybody OK? You all know what I am talking about?
OK, let us try 1 Kings 19:3: “And when he saw” -- when Elijah saw that Jezebel had put out a contract on him, “he arose, and he went for his life.” He ran for his life! “And he came to Beer-sheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.” Excuse me. He left his servant behind.
Verse 4: “But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree, and he requested for himself that he might die and said, ‘It is enough now, O Lord. Take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers.’”
Now, I believe that this account actually happened, but we are told that everything that happened in the Old Testament is for an example for us to help us understand spiritual things. I think Elijah did go into a natural wilderness, but I also think that he ascended into the -- or I should not say ascended. He went into the wilderness of the soul realm. This is taking place on two levels. I believe Elijah went into a physical wilderness, but he also went into the wilderness of the soul realm.
And we are told, “and he came and sat down under a juniper tree.” Now, Elijah was in the high realms of God’s Spirit, so he would not be ascending, as I just said. He would not be ascending; he was descending into the soul realm. He was coming down. He was running from Jezebel. He just killed 450 of her prophets, and now he is running from her. He was descending in his mind. He was descending in his thinking. He was descending in his spirit. And he came down from the high amount of God’s Spirit into the soul realm, and the way the Scripture expresses that is by saying he sat down.
Now, you may recall that the way the Scripture would explain someone being in the high realms of the spirit ha- -- does anyone know how the Scripture expresses that? As compared to sitting down? He was standing. He was standing. When you are in the high realms of the spirit you are standing, and every demon and scorpion and devil is in under your feet. The lower you get to the ground, the more vulnerable you are.
So Elijah came down out of that high anointing. He heard Jezebel’s contract against him, and it produced fear in him. Now, fear, brethren, stimulates the carnal mind. It strengthened his carnal mind, and it wounded the Christ in him, and he fell down a notch. He was standing, and he fell down to a sitting position. Now, probably Elijah physically sat down because this is the old covenant, but it is a type and an example. And I am convinced that spiritually speaking he fell down one big notch. That fear was a spiritual wound against his soul.
I know. I have received such blows. They have to be resisted with every strength that we have. The second you can recognize it -- what? Recognize what? Fear or news of illness in a loved one, anything designed to hurt your faith or to bring you down out of the high realm of the spirit, you have got to rebuke it immediately. The circumstances are determined by the spiritual condition of our mind, and when we fall down out of Christ into our carnal mind, we are doing the worst thing that we could do to help whatever the problem is. We are hurting the problem. If we stay in Christ despite the problem, this external world must respond to the mind of Christ in righteousness.
So no matter what we see out there, no matter what we hear out there, we must fight with all of our strength to keep our mind in Christ. And that is why you may have been taught in your earlier years in the church no matter what is going on in your life, do not let it interfere with your service to God. Now, to a carnal mind, that sounds like a very cruel thing to say. And it sounds -- and although it may be true in the case of some ministers, I do not know, it sounds like the person telling you that just wants you for themself.
But I do not -- I cannot answer for everyone who would tell you that, but I tell you that, and I could answer for myself. Do not fall out of Christ. Do not be seduced away from a meeting. I mean, I understand that there are circumstances, sometimes, under which you cannot come. I understand that. I missed a meeting once for a funeral. I missed a meeting once -- my daughter, I had to take her to the emergency room of the hospital. Sometimes there are things that you have to do, but, by and large, as a general rule, do not let circumstances affect your service to God.
Why? Because it w- -- that will be a toehold which will pull you right down out of the realm of the spirit, and the victory is in the spirit. The victory is in the spirit. Your mind must stay in the spirit, and that mind of Christ will correct the circumstance in the external world. So if you leave your obligation to Christ and you try to correct the circumstance in the natural world, you are doing the exact opposite of what you are supposed to be doing.
And if you check it out, if you have an opportunity to speak to anyone in the ministry, to several people in the ministry, especially evangelists, people who travel, you will hear common testimonies from them that their daughter is having a baby or someone in the family was hurt, and God does not let them go back. Now, I am not talking about a primary responsibility. I was talking about an adult daughter who had a husband to take care of her. I am talking about a grandchild that had a full set of parents. He did not let them return. And the child was healed and life went on. So I encourage you all to not compromise your service to God. This is not a very popular message, and I have been severely criticized for it, but I do not care how -- who is criticizing me. I am telling you the truth. I am telling you the truth.
So Elijah sat down. The fear wounded hi- -- the Christ in him, strengthened his carnal mind, and he went from a standing position in the high realms of God’s Spirit to a sitting position in the spiritual realm of the soul, and he sat down under a juniper tree.
Now, I looked up what this juniper tree meant. Unger’s Bible Dictionary says a juniper tree is a desert almost leafless shrub furnishing a very poor refuge from the sun’s rays. Its roots make good fuel and charcoal. So it is a tree that grows in the desert. It has very few leaves. It is a poor refuge from the sun. It is not a very good tree, and its roots are good for fuel and charcoal. And you might recall some Scriptures indicating that fallen man is good only to be what? Burned, amen.
So I am suggesting to you that the juniper tree typifies this fallen soul. And what is really interesting is that y- -- if you look at this in the Hebrew in the Interlinear, it does not say a juniper tree. It says the whole juniper tree -- the whole juniper tree -- which I find very interesting, and to me it is just another witness that this is saying that Elijah fell down under the authority of the carnal mind. That is what I am saying. He came down under the whole Juniper tree. He was up in Christ. He had ascended beyond the carnal mind, but he fell down underneath the authority of this world’s god, or the god of this world.
“And after he came down, he sat down under the authority of the carnal mind, and he requested for himself that he might die. And he said, ‘It is enough now, O Lord. Take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers.’”
This guy just killed 450 prophets of Baal, and he is asking God to kill him because he realizes that he sat down under the authority of the carnal mind, and I do not believe that he willed to do it. I believe Jezebel -- well, those of us that have some experience in spiritual warfare know that she operates with witchcraft. Jezebel has spiritual authority. There is only two kinds of spiritual authority in this world: the spiritual authority of God and witchcraft. Jezebel has witchcraft. She has [?warheads?]. She has weapons. She is armed. She is powerful. Let me tell you something, when Jez gets mad at you, you have got a cannon going off at you. I tell you the truth, I have felt her arrows many times. Jezebel is no one to fool with. She is a heavily armed spirit that attacks authority.
So what happened to Elijah? Did he consciously choose to sit down and come back under the authority of the carnal mind? I do not think so. I think Jezebel shot out her rage and anger and her wrath, and there was probably pride involved also. He killed all her prophets, and it attacked him, attacked his -- the Christ in him, strengthened the carnal mind in him and turned his world upside down.
If -- you may recall that we recently found out that in the book of Acts, where it -- where the -- where it is said about the apostles they are the ones that turned the world upside down, the Scripture was talking about their own world. They were men who were no longer under the authority of the carnal mind but who had flipped it over and now had authority over the carnal mind.
Jezebel’s witchcraft flipped Elijah back around. It was not his choice. He went down in battle. He was overcome by Jezebel’s witchcraft. There is a difference between backsliding and being overcome. There is a major difference between backsliding and being overcome. It may be difficult for us to tell the difference, but God knows the difference. God knows when you yield to sin in your mind when you have the strength to overcome if you would just fight, that is backsliding. And God knows when you fight with everything that you have got and that sin is just too strong for you and you are overcome -- and God knows the difference.
And I cannot give you a firm rule, but I can give you a rule that could possibly be wrong sometimes. I can give you a general rule. Does anyone not know what I am talking about? How to tell the difference between backsliding and being overcome? This rule can work a lot of the time, but it may not work all of the time. If you see somebody go backwards or look like they are in trouble, spiritual trouble, and they come back real fast -- God raises them up real fast, the chances are excellent they did not backslide, but they were overcome. It is a general rule. If you backslide, if you really have the strength to resist that sin, but something in you really loves the sin and you yield to it, the chances are it could be a long time before God brings you back. But if you bounce back real fast, you have every reason to at least ask God or to believe that you were overcome and God just raised you right back up again. Does anyone not know the difference? This is important. [INAUDIBLE] people who knew that they were backslidden and could not get back to God, one woman for 30 years.
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So Elijah was overcome by Jezebel’s witchcraft. This great prophet of God was forced to sit down under the authority of the carnal mind by Jezebel’s wrath and rage and vengeance and retaliation. And he said to the Lord God Jehovah, “Kill me. I am no better than my fathers. I have flown in the spirit. I have challenged the prophets of Baal. I have done all these wonderful things, but I am no better than the rest of them. Kill me.” And I want to tell you, this is a manifestation of pride. So once again I say to you Elijah could not possibly have been a pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ. He had pride.
Let me tell you something, brethren. We are here for God’s purposes. Yes, He loves us while we are here, and He will meet our needs while we are here, but His ultimate reason for keeping us here is that He has a plan for us. He wants to manifest through us. He wants to appear through us. He wants to use our hands and our legs and our mouths. So for anyone to say to the Lord “kill me” is the sin of presumption. And you will see as we go on that God never even answered him. God’s response to this cry of self-pity and pride was to instruct Elijah to go out anoint Hazael king of Syria, anoint Jehu and call Elisha to be his assistant prophet. God never even addre- -- answered him. He never even addressed the issue. He just totally ignored it. So Elijah was very, very human.
We are in verse -- OK, we are in verse 4: “And he said, ‘It is enough now, O Lord’” -- and that word Lord is Jehovah -- “‘take away my life’” -- if you look it up in the Hebrew, that is my soul life, take away my soul life, take away the life of this existence -- “‘for I am no better than my fathers. I was overcome by Jezebel’s witchcraft.’”
Verse 5: “And Elijah l- -- as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him and said unto him, ‘Arise and eat.’”
Now, the words in the Interlinear are a little different here: “And he lay and slept under a Juniper tree.” And the Interlinear says “he laid down.” And the word laid down is Strong’s 7901, and it is used to describe those who are sick, those are mourning or those who are dying.
So the Scripture says “he laid down and he slept.” Now, the Hebrew word translated slept is Strong’s 3462, and that is a word that is used described leprosy, which is unto death. It is also used to describe something that has become dried-up, and I want to suggest to you that it is suggesting spiritual death.
Now, notice the descent. Elijah was standing. He sat down. Then he laid down as if he was a sick person, and then he slept. He died spiritually. He was in the high realms of God’s Spirit. He came down under the authority of the carnal mind, but Christ was still in him somewhat. Christ was still manifesting. He was a double-minded man. Christ was there, but He came under the authority of the carnal mind, but then He laid down and He was dying. Christ in him was dying, and then He died. Christ in him died, and he was 100 percent a carnal man. So we might say -- well, and of course we said the juniper tree is the carnal mind. So I did not do any formal studying here, but an Alternate Translation might be as follows:
“And as his carnal mind ma- -- and as Elijah’s carnal mind manifested, he began to descend spiritually, and he became spiritually sick, and he died unto his Christ mind.”
Christ in him completely dissolved. It started out with a missile from Jezebel’s witchcraft, knocked him down and killed or broke the bones of Christ in the prophet Elijah. He broke the bones of Christ.
And we talked about this on our series “The Christ.” I want to tell you that Christ has been having His bones broken by the carnal mind since the fall, that Christ has been arising in humanity all the time. In every age, there has been a manifestation of Christ -- somewhere, somehow in some man there has been a manifestation of Christ, but the carnal mind has always broken His bones until -- until who? -- until the man Jesus of Nazareth, who was the Christ. The prince of this world came for Him, but He had nothing in Him. He could not break the bones of Christ.
And what does that mean, He had nothing in Him? The Christ in the man Jesus of Nazareth was so mature that it had completely crushed His carnal mind. Satan had nothing to stimulate in the man Jesus. You see, when Satan comes for us, he stimulates our sin. There is nothing outside of us that can hurt us. He can only hurt us when he can stimulate sin inside of us, and there was no sin in the man Jesus; and, therefore, Satan could not break the bones of His Christ mind.
So we are in verse 5: “And as Elijah lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him and said unto him, ‘Arise and eat.’”
Now, let me remind you, there are good angels and there are evil angels. So, in verse 5, we do not really know who this angel was. The Hebrew word translated touched him means to draw near to him.
“And said unto him, ‘Arise and eat.’” Now, we will find out in the next verse that it was the angel of the Lord that spoke to him, and I want to point out to you the similarity in this verse to the Scriptures in Daniel, where Daniel finds himself in a deep sleep on his face and the angel touches him and says, “Stand to your feet, Daniel.”
So what I am suggesting to you -- you may recall me talking about it with regard to the Daniel Scriptures -- is this: Elijah had -- the Christ in Elijah had completely fallen down and was dissolved. The bones were broken, but the angel of the Lord came to him and said, “Arise.” He said to the ju- -- he said to the potential for Christ in Elijah, “Come on back. Come on back.” He came and he tried to stir up Elijah’s spirit. He said, “Come on back.”
Now, remember, Christ was fully manifested in Elijah, and Jezebel’s witchcraft wounded Christ and strengthened the carnal mind. Well, now, the angel of the Lord is coming to an Elijah who is completely carnal and attempting to stir Christ up again. He is attempting to stir Christ up again.
And the angel came, I suggest to you, out of Elijah’s spirit. Now, let me remind you about what we learned in the book of Daniel. That angel was the Spirit of the Lord that was in the man Elijah, but the angel was not the formation of Christ. The angel came -- we also found this in the book of Revelation, I believe chapter 20 or chapter 21, I guess chapter 21. The angel comes to an unregenerate man, joins with his human spirit, and there is a temporary manifestation of Christ. Christ is the product of the joining of the Spirit of the Lord and the man’s human spirit, and there is a temporary manifestation of Christ.
We saw this happened in Daniel. We saw this happen with John in Revelation 21, and here we see it happening in Elijah. The angel of the Lord came and tried to build Christ again. He tried to do it again. He came to Elijah, and he says, “Wake up, Elijah. Wake up. You have been downed. You were do- -- you are down. Come on, stand up.”
Just like they would say to a man in a prizefight who has been p- -- knocked out and after the count of 10 the fight would be lost, he -- the angel of the Lord that was within Elijah came to him and says, “Come on, come on, come on, let us get Christ formed here again. Come on, stand up!” Just like everybody is yelling at a prizefight, “Get up, you bum!” Did you ever see any of those fights? That is how they talk at the prizefight. But the angel was not saying that. He was just saying, “Elijah -- get up, Elijah. Get up!” In this hour, you might hear the angel of the Lord saying that to you through a man. “You went down; get up. Get up. Get up.”
“So as Elijah fell down and the bones of Christ broke in him,” verse 5, “and he was subject to the carnal mind, behold, the an- -- an angel drew near to him and said unto him, ‘Arise and eat.’”
I just have another thought I would like to give you. You may recall me teaching you that the carnal mind is going to be dissolved. Peter talks about it. He says the elements will be melted and that the carnal mind is going to break down into Satan E- -- and [sic] Satan and Eve, and the carnal mind is going to disappear. Do you remember me telling you that? Well, that is what happened with Christ. Christ -- this temporary formation of Christ broke down into the angel of the Lord and Elijah’s human spirit. It broke down. The carnal mind broke it down. And the angel of the Lord was saying to Elijah’s human spirit, “Come on, let us get it together again. Come on, let us get together again. We were knocked out.”
“And the angel drew near to him and said unto him, ‘Arise, let us build Christ’s bones again and eat.’”
And that word eat, the Hebrew word translated eat, does mean food for the body, and I want to suggest to you that in this spiritual warfare you really have to feed your body. You have to take care of your body. This spiritual warfare exhausts you emotionally and attacks your body. And we will find out as we go on in the next verse probably, or the next two verses, that what the angel of the Lord was really saying to Elijah was, “You have got to strengthen your body because this spiritual warfare -- or the stress or the pressure of being a prophet of God -- is a great strain on your body.” So let me show that to you in the Scriptures.
Verse 6: “And he looked -- and Elijah looked and, behold, there was a cake baked on the coals.”
And if you study that through, it is [sic] really means a matzoh, unleavened bread. And so what would that symbolize? It means that the food that he was given was light bread. It was not any succulent kind of roast meat, but it was light bread, just enough to strengthen him. Nothing to feed his appetite, but food that would strengthen his bones. And, of course, also it is a type of Christ. The light bread is a type of Christ also. But I believe that this happened in the natural.
“And Elijah looked, and, behold, there was some matzoh by his head and a cruse of water at his head, and he did eat and drink and laid him down again.”
Now, this phrase “and laid him down again” is very different in the Interlinear. In the Interlinear it says “and turned and laid him down” -- well, I am sorry. In the King James it says “and turned and laid him down again.” But in the Interlinear it is three different words: “and turned, laid down and returned.”
“And he did eat and drink and turned,” the Hebrew word translated turned is 7725, and it means to turn oneself or to be converted. And we have had this word in several of the s- -- of our studies on the prophets, and what it means is that the prophet turned from a carnal state of mind and turned and looked towards the realm of the spirit where God was giving him a vision.
So what I am suggesting to you happened here is that the angel arose and said, “Come on, Elijah. Get up, get up, get up!” And Elijah st- -- and Christ started to arise in Elijah. He started to turn from being a completely carnal man back towards Christ. Christ started to form in him again at the prompting of the angel and as he strengthened himself with physical food. So the Interlinear says, “He turned back towards Christ, and then he laid down.”
7901, “he became sick again.” It is the same word that is used in verse 5. He turned towards Christ, but he could not sustain it. He became sick again. And the King James says “and he laid him down again.” Well, he did manifest the bones of Christ again, but he could not sustain it.
And in verse 7 it says, “And the angel of the Lord came again the second time.”
Hmm. Excuse me. Just a minute. I did not write this down. And he turned -- the -- Christ was formed again, but he could not sustain it and laid down, OK, and the angel of the Lord tried to stir him up again. The angel -- the reason -- you know what, I have been praying about this message for a couple of days and said why would the angel come to him twice? Because the angel formed Christ again and Elijah lost it again, so the angel had to come back again. Am I -- is -- are you all with me? The angel came to Elijah and said, “Come on, Elijah. You lost it. Let us form Christ again,” and Elijah turned. And Christ was formed in him again, but he could not sustain it and he laid down. And the angel came back again and said, “Come on, Elijah, get up, get up, get up!”
“And the angel of the Lord came again the second time and drew near to Elijah again and said, ‘Arise and eat because the journey is too great for you.’”
And this Hebrew word translated journey means -- it does not mean journey. It means course of life. It means lifestyle. And I want to suggest to you that the prophet [sic] was saying to him, “You have got to eat some food because of the stress on your body of this ex- -- spiritual lifestyle that you have.”
So I think that we all have a similar experience. Everyone that is called to be a son has a similar experience. Every time we fall out of Christ, an angel of the Lord is coming to you and saying, “Stand up, stand up!” It may be a spiritual angel of the Lord. It may be me. It may be anyone who is strong in Christ at the moment. God will send them to you to strengthen the Christ in you to get Him formed again.
Verse 8 -- or let me comment [UNINTELLIGIBLE] one more comment on verse 7. “Because the journey is too great for thee.” It is not that the journey is too long -- well, I guess I told you that. It is that -- well, this -- the word translated -- the Hebrew word translated great can mean a leader or a chief, and I believe the angel was saying to Elijah, “Eat because of the stressfulness of this lifestyle of spiritual greatness.”
Spiritual greatness will produce a great stress upon your physical body and upon your soul life. The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit lusteth against the flesh. And I want to tell you that if you are called to a life of spiritual greatness, you will have problems in your soul life; and if you are not having problems in your soul life, at least at that moment you are not called to a life of spiritual greatness.
I tell you this without hesitation. I hear the Pharisees screaming in the realm of the spirit, but I tell you this without hesitation. You will not experience spiritual greatness and all the comforts and blessings of this soulish life -- you will not -- because you cannot mix oil and water. You will be one or the other. Not that you cannot have anything of this soul realm, but only one lifestyle can predominate. If the lifestyle of spiritual greatness is predominant in your life, if that is the emphasis in your life, you will be experiencing some stress in your soulish life. And if there is no stress in your soulish life, you are not called to spiritual greatness, at least at that time. And just to ward off anyone getting lifted up in pride, what is spiritual greatness? Spiritual greatness is the manifestation of Christ in you, and it will produce stress in your soul life.
Verse 8: “And Elijah arose, Christ’s bones were formed again, and he did eat and drink. And he went in the strength of that meat 40 days and 40 nights unto Horeb the mount of God.”
Now, I would like to remind you of our recent studies on “The Temptation” where we established that this expression, 40 days and 40 nights, was talking about the transition from one age into another. When Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights, it was descri- -- the Scripture was indicating that the man Jesus went from being a man with a carnal mind and a mind of Christ, but a natural man who also had the mind of Christ, that He entered into the new age at the other side of His fast. At the other side of this 40 days and 40 nights, He became a spiritual man who had a carnal mind that was completely under His control.
And whether or not it was a natural 40 days and 40 nights with Elijah, I think it may not have been. I believe Elijah went into it a physical wilderness. I believe that food appeared to him because it was the old covenant, but this 40 days and 40 nights, it may have been a natural 40 days and 40 nights; it may not have been. But with Jesus I am convinced that it was not. It was a -- strictly a spiritual experience.
So we see that the prophet -- the great prophet Elijah arose in verse 8. Christ’s bones were formed in him again. He ate and he drank. Now, by the way, he not only ate and drank natural food, he ate and drank of the angel. He partook of the angel. He joined with the angel. And he went in the strength of that meat, both physical and spiritual meat, 40 days and 40 nights unto Horeb -- by the strength of that meat, he transferred back into Christ, Horeb the mount of God. He re-ascended back into the mount of God. Now, you cannot ascend into the mount of God by eating natural food, so there had to be spiritual food present also in the form of that angel. Hallelujah.
Verse 9: “And he -- and Elijah came thither unto a cave and lodged there, and, behold, the Word of the Lord came to him, and He said unto him, ‘What doest thou here, Elijah?’”
Now, let me point out to you that we have a progression here. First, we are told about an angel. Then we are told about an angel of the Lord, and now we are told that the Word of the Lord came to Elijah. This is no accident. There is a progression of the intensity of the manifestation of Christ in the man Elijah, an increase in the maturity of the expression of Christ in the man Elijah.
Now, I would like to suggest to you that the word angel typifies an angel that was -- just the word angel suggests that this angel was not joined to Elijah’s mind. Sometimes angels are seen outside of people. [UNINTELLIGIBLE] if we go back to the Daniel series, Daniel 7 in particular, you may recall at first Daniel was speaking to the beast. In that Scripture, it did not say angel, but it said beast. Daniel was speaking to someone outside of him. Then in the second stage of communication, Daniel was apparently talking to himself, but actually it was the Christ forming in his own mind, and in the third stage of that communication, Daniel was prophesying. He was under a full-fledged anointing that had utterly suppressed his carnal mind.
Three stages of communication between a natural man and the Spirit of God: the first stage that sometimes appears outside of you or appears separate from you. The second stage of this, the initial joining of the Spirit of the Lord to the human spirit of the man, but whereby the carnal mind is not yet completely crushed.
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And the third stage, such a complete joining of the Spirit of the Lord with the human spirit of that man, that the carnal mind is completely crushed.
So I am suggesting to you that the angel was the Spirit of God drawing near to the man Elijah, but not yet joining with him. The Word of God -- the Word of the Lord was the condition of the initial joining. The Spirit of the Lord had begun to join to the human spirit of the man, and we will see in a few verses down that Jehovah himself spoke to the man Elijah; and, at that point, Elijah’s carnal mind was completely crushed. Three stages: One, communication without joining; --
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-- two, communication with some measure of joining; three, --
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-- communication between the man and the Spirit of God, whereby his carnal mind is completely crushed and the Spirit of God is completely joined to him, so completely that it has utterly crushed his carnal mind.
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Is everyone OK?
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So we see the Word of the Lord, verse 9, coming to Elijah. That Spirit -- that angel of God was joining with Elijah’s human spirit.
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“And He said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah? Why are you here?’”
Verse 10: “And Elijah said, ‘I have been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts, for the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars and slain Thy prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it away.’” Boo-hoo, woe is me. Boo-hoo, woe is me.
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Now, remember, at this point, Elijah has both the mind of Christ and the carnal mind, and the mind of Christ asked his carnal mind, “What is your problem?” And his carnal mind answered and said, “Boo-hoo, woe is me. They are trying to kill me.” Now, listen, for someone who has experienced such a powerful manifestation of God, only his carnal mind could be worrying about getting killed.
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Listen to what happens.
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“And the Word of the Lord said to Elijah, ‘Go forth and stand upon the mountain before the Lord.’”
He did not say, “Do not worry. You are not going to get killed.” He did not respond to this statement at all. The angel did not respond to Jeho- -- to Elijah’s request for death. The Word of the Lord did not respond to this boo-hoo self-pity about his problem, but He says to him, “Go up higher.” He says, “Go forth and stand upon the mountain before the Lord.”
Now, this word before -- I have something on this word before. Let us see what I wrote down.
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“Stand on the mountain before the Lord.” If you look that up in the Hebrew, what it is really saying is ascend to a high place. The Word of Jehovah was giving Elijah permission to ascend to a high place whereby the Spirit of Jehovah would cover him over. Now, remember, Elijah was at this point a carnal man with some manifestation of the mind of Christ, and the -- that mind of Christ said to Elijah, “I give you permission to ascend higher to a place where you will be completely immersed or completely baptized in the Spirit of Jehovah.”
Now, how come that the Word of God would give this kind of answer to Elijah’s problem? I want to tell you why. Because every problem is solved in the spirit. I talked about this a half an hour ago or 45 minutes ago. There is no external problem that cannot be corrected by the condition of your mind. The Word of the Lord was saying to Elijah, “The answer to your problem is to get your mind ascended into Christ.” The Word of the Lord did not deal with the external problem. The Word of the Lord said, “Ascend into Christ.”
“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.” No matter what your problem is, I do not care how bad it looks, get into Christ. Petition the Lord to help you, to let you, to give you permission to, to give you the strength to ascend in your mind. Every problem known to man is a result of wrong thinking. I am going to say it again. Every problem known to man is a result of wrong thinking. No matter what your problem is, I have the same answer for you. Get into Christ. Serve the Lord. As much as you could bear it, read the Bible, listen to messages, attend these meetings. Do not let your carnal mind keep you from doing any of these things because deliverance is in pursuing the things of God, and when you do that, your external circumstances will fall into place. When you try to manipulate and control and bring healing in the outer realms, it can only be temporary because the spiritual condition of wrong thinking still exists.
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It is the same principle with healing. Sometimes doctors heal you, and sometimes they do not heal you. And the reasons for it is that the root of all illness is spiritual problems, and they can only heal you when God has chosen to immerse in you. They do not know that, but when a doctor cannot heal you it is because God has ordained otherwise.
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That is why God is the healer of the hopeless. When you come to the Lord, if He has mercy on you, He will heal your spiritual root, and then your body will heal.
We are in verse 11: “And the Word of the Lord said to Elijah, ‘Look, go forth and stand up on the mountain -- stand up on the high place’” -- does anyone remember what the spiritual high place is that we worship God from? How are we to worship God? In spirit and in truth. The high place -- this -- the mountain of God in our mind is our human spirit. That is where we find God, in the spirit. In the spirit, not in your soul, brethren.
Now, there is a place for soulish worship. When I came to the Lord I needed soulish worship. I was so hurt I needed that music. I needed that dancing. I needed that shouting and that clapping. It healed my soul, but, brethren, communion with the Lord is in the spirit. So if you still need that soulish ministry, I will not condemn it, neither will I condemn you, but I do tell you that that kind of soulish worship is spiritual immaturity.
And I say this without condemnation, you have to be immature before you are mature. So why am I telling you this? That you should know that this soulish worship is not where it all ends, that there is a maturing beyond that soulish worship, and there is a communion in that maturing with the Lord that is glorious. Very, very different than the soulish worship, but very glorious.
“So the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, ‘Go forth; stand upon the mountain before the Lord; ascend in the spirit.’ And, behold, the Lord passed by.”
“The Lord passed by.” Excuse me, I thought I had a note on that, but I do not see it. Ah, there it is. “And the Lord passed by.” That word translated by can also be passed over, and I want to suggest to you that Jehovah passed over Elijah’s carnal mind. Elijah responded to the Word of the Lord. He got -- he asserted all the will that he had to get out of his soulishness.
However he did it -- it does not say here how Elijah stood on the mountain. It does not say how Elijah got spiritual. As I always tell you, do whatever you do to get spiritual. I study. If you are a musician, you might want to play your instrument.
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Some people speak in tongues. Do whatever you do that will bring you closer to God, and then God will pass over your carnal mind and crush it down.
And Elijah’s suicide went, Elijah’s self-pity went, Elijah’s pride went. I think he used the word “I” three times in verse 10. “And I, even I only, am left; they are seeking my life to take it away.” And God’s answer to his problem was to get out of that soulish realm of thinking about yourself, get into the spirit, and the Lord Jehovah passed over Elijah’s carnal mind.
“And, behold, the Lord passed over and a great and strong wind rent the mountains.” The Hebrew word translated wind is the word for spirit. The word great can be translated elder, and they were not strong can be translated hard or impenetrable. And I want to suggest to you that what the Scripture is saying here is that a mature spirit that was impenetrable, that could not be defeated by Elijah’s carnal mind, passed over.
“And it rent the mountains.” This is likened unto the Scripture that we have studied, the separating of the soul from the spirit and the bones from the marrow. That is what the Scripture is talking about here. The Spirit of God, that mature, impenetrable Spirit, ripped apart the mountains. And what is the mountain? The mountain is the carnal mind. I want to suggest to you the mountain is the soul realm, and the rocks, which comes next, is [sic] the spiritual -- is that which is spiritual within the carnal mind. And we know that -- who was spiritual within the carnal mind? What is the spirit within the carnal mind? Satan and Eve, OK?
So we find that this impenetrable Spirit of God passed over Elijah, and it ripped apart the carnal mind. It dissolved the carnal mind. That is what Peter talks about, the melting of the elements. And I want to suggest to you that the reason the Scripture says the Spirit was impenetrable is because the carnal mind is a weapon. The carnal mind has warheads. The carnal mind surely tried to rip apart the Spirit of God as it passed over it, but the Spirit of God was impenetrable. Hallelujah. That is ex- -- that excites me. That excites me very much.
So we see the carnal mind was dissolved, and Eve was separated from Satan. And the next thing that happened was that the Spirit of Jehovah “brake [sic] in pieces the rocks before the Lord.” OK, now, I may have just said this wrong. I am not sure. Let me go back over it.
What happened when the wind rent the mountains was that the spirit was separated from the soul. The spiritual aspect of the carnal mind was separated from the soul, and in the next step, when the rocks were -- wait, let me get the word right -- “the rocks were brake [sic] in pieces,” that is the separa- -- now, the rock, typifying spirit, that is the separation of Eve from Satan.
So the Spirit of the Lord completely dissolved the carnal mind, first by separating the soulish aspect of it from the spiritual aspect of it, and then He broke in pieces the spiritual aspect of it, which was Satan and Eve. And why would the Spirit of the Lord be doing that? Because it was the intention of the Lord to join with Eve and produce a powerful, overwhelming, all-consuming manifestation of Christ that would utterly crush whatever was left of the carnal mind.
“But the Lord was not in the wind.” Now, listen, this word is Jehovah. The Lord -- this word Lord -- translated Lord is Jehovah. He was not in the wind. The Hebrew word translated wind is spirit. The person of the Lord is not in the spirit. That is what it said. The person of the Lord is not in the spirit. [UNINTELLIGIBLE] is Christ. [UNINTELLIGIBLE] is Christ, brethren.
Is this not an issue that we have been preaching about for a long time here, that the Holy Spirit is not enough? The Holy Spirit is not the whole thing. The Holy Spirit is not the very person of God. Christ is the very p- -- shape of God. Jesus said, “I am the shape of the Father.” The Holy Spirit is not the shape of the Father, and we get another witness to that right here. The Spirit is not the shape of the Father. He is the Spirit. He is not the personality of the Father. That is in Christ. The image of the Father is in Christ.
So we see that Elijah experienced the Spirit of the Lord -- the Spirit of Jehovah, but it was not the Spirit of Jehovah -- let me give you the exact words. “But Jehovah was not in the Spirit.” What it means was -- what that means is that the image of God that would relate to the man Elijah was not in the Spirit.
And then next came an earthquake, and we have had studies, particularly in the book of Revelation, also in, I believe, the Gospel of John, where we have found out that an earthquake in the Scripture symbolizes the piercing through of one realm to another when the Spirit of the Lord, which is in the high realm of the spirit, wants to speak to a man, He pierces through into our mind, and the mind of man is the soul realm. So this piercing through of the Spirit of God from the high realms of the spirit, which is outside of the mind of man, into the mind of man to communicate with him is typified by an earthquake.
So, you see, it is the manifestation of the Father that appears in the mind of a man that communicates with us. That is why the Scripture says that Jehovah, the Lord, was not in the Spirit. The communication of God to man takes place in man’s mind. The Spirit of God penetrates us, and when that Spirit of God enters into a man’s mind, His name changes, and His name is --
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-- Christ. The Spirit of the Lord in the mind of a man, in a mind which is in the image of the Father, is Christ. So the h- -- the -- Elijah found out that there really was not any communication with the Spirit of God, could not understand Him, could not understand the things of the Spirit. The Spirit of God had to get into his mind in the formation of a fully manifested Christ for him to hear from Jehovah.
So the Scripture says that Jehovah was not in the Spirit. The Spirit is the power of God, but the mind God was not in that Spirit. Neither was the mind of God in that earthquake, which was the piercing through. “But the Lord was not in the earthquake.”
Verse 12: “And after the earthquake, a fire” --
12/01/14 Transcribed by VerbalFusion
12/08/14 1st Edit CAS/MJS
