Articles
Part 10 of 10 Parts
The Following Message Has Been Transcribed For
Clarity, Continuity Of Thought, And Punctuation
By The LEM Transcribing & Editing Team.
The Greek word translated good means excellent or surpassing, and I remind you that, in the Book of Daniel, the Book of Daniel speaks about an excellent spirit, so I suggest to you that this He- -- this Greek word translated good is signifying not just good and bad in human terms but the goodness of God. He is the shepherd which is perfected. He is the shepherd which is out of the spirit of God.
"The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."
Now this is an important point. Jesus of Nazareth gave up his soul life. There is a big -- one of the big controversies -- one of the big, doctrinal controversies in the church is did Jesus die spiritually on the cross. Men have written books about this. There is a continuous, ongoing debate as to whether or not his soul died or his spirit died or whether or not they both died on the cross. The Greek clearly states that Jesus' soul life died on the cross. What does that mean? His existence as Jesus of Nazareth was sacrificed. I suggest to you that the spiritual life, which made him the Son of God, did not die on the cross. The man died on the cross. If you do a word study in the Greek, you will find out that Jesus never said the Son of God was going to be crucified. He always said the Son of man is offered up, talking about his human side.
The man Jesus had two sides to him. One side was spirit, and one side was soul, and the side of him that was spirit was incapable of dying. Why? Because the side of him which was spirit was joined to the Father and had received eternal life. The spirit that was in the man Jesus, the human spirit, was now joined to the spirit of the Father and had received the life of the ages. It was incapable of dying. It was just his soul and his body, which he inherited from his fallen mother, that was capable of dying.
Now there is a Scripture in one of the books of -- one of the epistles of Peter that speaks about preaching to the souls who -- well, why do we not turn to it? Let me see if I can find that. This is a good message to talk about that on because someone brought it up in a recent meeting. This is a church doctrine that has no sound, doctrinal basis. Let me see if I can find it.
Here it is. It is 1 Peter 3, and verses 18 and 20 say, "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison." Verse 20, "Which sometimes were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water."
Now church tradition, which has nothing to do with spiritual truth -- let me remind you, church tradition celebrates Christmas, the pagan holiday, and they celebrate Easter, another pagan holiday. Church tradition is not necessarily, in any way, associated with spiritual truth. Church tradition says that these three verses that I read to you mean that when Jesus was crucified, in order for him to preach to the spirits that were in prison, verse 19, that were disobedient and that existed in the days of Noah, for Jesus to preach to these spirits, he had to go down to Hell because church doctrine assumes that these spirits are in Hell, in someplace underneath th- -- all the conclusions that are being drawn here, OK, and we talk a lot [AUDIO CUTS OUT] in this ministry. It is not a wise thing to do, although there are some educated conclusions that you could draw. It is very dangerous, drawing conclusions with your carnal mind, because you get into all kinds of trouble.
So the problem starts with verse 19, which speaks about spirits in prison. Now the question is what kind of a prison are these spirits in. What is the spiritual prison? Is the spiritual prison underneath the physical earth of this planet? As- -- is the spiritual prison a place called Hell which is a big cavern in the ground, or is it a place in another planet where you go to where you are burnt with fire and the devil sticks you with a pitchfork for eternity? Listen, brethren, before you can be drawing all these conclusions, you have got to know what a spiritual prison is. Does anybody know what the spiritual prison is?
[?Your carnal mind?].
Your carnal mind is the spiritual prison, and your carnal mind is imprisoned in this physical body. Every human being walking on the face of this earth is a spirit which is in prison. Brethren, this is Hell, and your spirit is buried underneath the earth of your carnal mind and your body. So for Christ to be preaching to the spirits in prison, I suggest to you what the Scripture is saying is that he is preaching to everybody whose human spirit has not been liberated from the dungeon of their carnal mind and their physical body, which is everybody in the world today except him.
Let us read verse 18 again. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh" -- that is -- his soul was put to death, "but quickened by the Spirit." But after his soul and his body died, they were raised from the dead by the Spirit. Well, right then and there it tells you that his Spirit could not have been killed because it was his Spirit that raised his f- -- his soul and his body from the dead. And who was the Spirit of Jesus of Nazareth? The Father, so his Spirit was not killed, if you can read -- if you can hear it, hear it.
And then we are told in verse 19, "By which Spirit also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison." Now I do not know, but I do not see the word Hell there. I do not see the words that say he went and he preached to the spirits in he- -- in prison. I do not see it saying whether he did that before he was crucified or whether he was a- -- or after he was crucified. I do not see any of this information there at all. He preached to the spirits in heaven, which sometimes were disobedient in the days of Noah.
So the church reads about the days of Noah, and they assume -- they draw this conclusion that, after crucifixion, when Jesus' soul life died, that he descended down into Hell where the spirits that lived in the days of Noah were and preached to them, but I suggest to you otherwise. I suggest to you that verse 18 is saying that the same Spirit which quickened or made alive Jesus' soul and his body after he was crucified, that is the same Spirit by which Jesus incarnated -- by which Christ incarnated in the man Jesus and enabled the man Jesus to preach to the spirits in prison right in this world system, and that verse 20 is telling us that the spirits of the men in this world system that Jesus preached to, that they are the same spirits that were disobedient in the days of Noah.
[AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] today in the prison houses in our bo- -- [AUDIO CUTS OUT]
Let me remind you that the doctrine of reincarnation [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] cycle of rebirths of the soul. Reincarnation does not preach about an endless cycle of rebirths of the spirit, but the Scripture preaches, I suggest to you, about the rebirth of the spirit. So when Jesus incarnated or when Christ incarnated in the flesh of the man Jesus, he did it by the power of the Spirit of the Father, and his purpose for incarnating was to speak -- was to preach to the spirits in prison, which are all the fallen human beings.
And this Scripture is saying that the same spiritual man who was in the earth in the days of Noah is still in the earth today. His name is Adam. He is fallen, and, excuse me, he is in eternal torment. He is a spiritual man who is incarnating in this world system in a series of h- -- of souls [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE]which the Scripture likens unto garments. And the reason he keeps changing his garment is that, because this man is dead, he does not have the spiritual power to sustain the existence of his garment, so he has to keep on taking a new garment as the old garments wear out. But there is one spiritual man; he is a many-membered man who fell down into Hell after the carnal mind killed his Christ mind at the time of the --
Fall.
-- of the fall. Well, wow, that does not sound anything at all like what the church preaches, and you might say to me, Sheila, where did you get all of that stuff from? Well, I got all of that stuff from other deep studies in the prophets. I have some scriptural basis for what I am saying, whether you believe it or not. But I suggest to you the doctrine that is preached in the church that says these three verses declare that Jesus went down to Hell and preached to the spirits in Hell has no scriptural foundation whatsoever. It is pure fantasy, and it is conclusory without any basis in fact.
So in case you have not understood from what I have said so far, in my opinion, Jesus' Spirit did not die on the cross, and I am basing that, at least, on the one Scripture in 1 Peter 3:18, which says that he was put to death in the flesh but quickened by his Spirit. And I do not see any scriptural proof at all that Jesus went down to Hell after he died. Actually, Jesus -- let us not -- I keep getting this backwards. The Christ incarnated in the man Jesus who was in Hell because Jesus was born of a fallen woman, and any fallen human being is in Hell. The Christ incarnated right into Hell for the specific purpose of preaching to the spirits in prison.
[AUDIO CUTS OUT] [?I lost?] my place. [INAUDIBLE] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [?let me?] get back there. I feel the Lord wants me to go on with it. Well -- Celia, please. [AUDIO CUTS OUT]
Going on with chapter 4, in verse 6, we see the reason for hi- -- for the incarnation of Christ in the man Jesus, and for his preaching to the spirits of the disobedient ones before the days of Noah, verse 6, chapter 4, "For for this cause was the gospel preached to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."
Jesus -- Christ incarnated in the man Jesus right in the midst of Hell so that he could preach to the dead spirits who are locked up in their carnal mind so that their judgment might come in the flesh, that they might live or -- after the spirit or that their spirit might be raised from the dead.
So, brethren, Jesus' soul life was crucified on the cross. Please, come with me back to the Book of John. Jesus' soul life was crucified on the cross. His spiritual life was crucified but did not die. Who died when Jesus' spiritual life was crucified? The carnal mind died. Jesus' spiritual life called Christ, the mind that was in him, was crucified to the carnal mind. But Christ did not die; the carnal mind died.
I told you something like that this morning. I was talking about pushing against the pricks. God is likened to a big, five-pronged pitchfork, and he is coming after you. And when that pitchfork comes after you, it is supposed to be directing you. When those prongs touch your skin, you are supposed to go in the direction that you are pushed in. It is like a horse -- a rider riding a horse with spurs on his heels, spurring the horse. When you feel that pricking in your skin, you are supposed to go in that direction, but if you turn in rebellion and you push against the pricks, that pitchfork is going to go right through you and slay you.
So do not push against the pricks, brethren. When you feel that little bit of pain on your skin, please go in the direction [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] all love you here, and we do not want to see anyone pierced through by a five-pronged pitchfork by the name of Lord Jesus Christ because he will not give. If you come against him, you are going to be pierced through because he does not give. He does not back down, and he does not bend, and he does not yield, and there is no compromise with regard to his righteousness. You will go in the direction he is pushing you one way or another. He will do it of your own accord because you feel the pinprick and your legs will move in that direction, or he will pierce you through, impale you on his pitchfork and put you where he wants you. You can go easy way, or you can go the hard way.
"I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."
Well, now why would the Lord Jesus Christ give up his life for the sheep? First of all, let us establish that the sheep typifies humanity, and, brethren, that is no compliment. To be likened unto a sheep is no compliment. Sheep are very dumb. Sheep are one of the dumbest animals around. They are dumber than goats; they are dumber than cows. They are really dumb. They are defenseless. That is why a shepherd is -- they have dogs protecting the sheep against the wolves. They are dumb, defenseless animals, and all they know how to do is eat and sleep and go, bah, bah. And they have something of value; it is called fleece. It is the wool that grows on them. It can be shaven off of them without damaging them and sold for a profit, and the sheep just grows more.
So human beings, like sheep, are, spiritually speaking, very dumb. That is what the Bible says. At least, Jesus' sheep are dumb. We are told that the children of darkness have -- are smarter than the children of light, but Jesus calls his people sheep. That means we are spiritually dumb, spiritually naïve, bli- -- I think sheep have very poor sight, if I am not mistaken. They cannot see; they need to be protected; they need to be guided; they need to be led. And they have something of value that can be stripped from them without killing them. And what is it that we have which is of value that Satan wants and needs?
[CROSSTALK]
[?A?] soul.
A spirit, the human spirit, your human spirit. Satan needs the spirit which is in man to keep his power. He needs the spirit which is in man to keep the image or to sustain the image of this world. There is a measure of spiritual power in the spirit that God placed in man, and Satan is not spirit. He is really soul, and he is functioning as spirit [AUDIO CUTS OUT] soul [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [?does not?] have the spirit which is in man. [AUDIO CUTS OUT] our function is spirit. He needs her authority, and he has captured her, and he has joined himself to her, and he keeps shaving off fleece. He is using -- what God placed in us for God's own purposes, Satan is using it for his own purposes.
So we are the sheep; humanity is the sheep, and Jesus died for the sheep. Well, why would Jesus die for the sheep? We find a lot of sheep going around say, well, Jesus died so that I could live, and because he died and was raised from the dead and ascended up into heaven, therefore no I am in the image of God, and I have eternal life. Well, sister and brother, have you looked in the mirror lately? How can you say you are in the image of God? How silly you are, you must truly be one of God's sheep. With all your problems and all of your sins and all of your pain, you really think you are in the image of God. That is amazing unto me.
Jesus died because you are a bastard, and you are not in the image of God. You are in the image of who? Your daddy, the devil, Satan himself. You are in your daddy's image. If you were in God's image, why would you need to be adopted? You are in your daddy's image. And when Jesus receives you and reconciles you unto himself in a renewed relationship with him, you are adopted by faith, but this adoption must be made legal.
In a court of law with human beings, it requires a judge's signature, legal papers, legal documents, consent forms, whatever. Spiritually speaking, to complete the adoption, our nature must be changed. In humanity, when a man adopts a son or a couple adopts a son, the legal documents are drawn, and the little boy receives the father's name. He can legally use his name. Well, in the Scripture, name means spirit. Brethren, when the Father adopts us, he wants us to have his name, and he is not going to have some no good bastard running around giving him a bad name.
So when you take the name of Christ, you have to start acting like Christ, and from the minute God gives you his name, Christ, every time you do not act like Christ, he is all over you because you are dirtying his name, and he is not going to have it. So because he loves you and because he has received you as a true son, every time you act or think in a manner that is reflecting your natural daddy, the devil, Christ is all over you to rip that activity out of your mind and out of your behavior and to teach you how to behave like God, and the instruction is specific. He will come to you in a specific circumstance and say that thought, that word, that behavior is devilish. It is not of me, therefore I not only want to rip it out of you, but I want to teach you how God would behave in this circumstance. And this is called the white throne judgment of Christ.
So we see that the Lord Jesus Christ gave up his soul life. He died on the cross so that he could be raised from the dead and ascend back up into heaven in a new form. He is no longer a single human being called Jesus of Nazareth; he is now a spirit, a glorified spirit which appeared to Paul as a bright light from heaven. H- -- [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] upon [?humanity?] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] has the power to join with your spirit and reproduce the life -- the saving life of Christ in your heart. So the fact that Jesus died on na- -- on Calvary and was raised from the dead and ascended is not doing you any good until and unless that glorified life enters into your heart and joins with your spirit, at which point he begins to correct your sins.
So salvation, we see, is a process, and it is a cleansing, and you shall not be allowed to be a shame unto your Father's name. And he is laughing at some of your mistakes, and he is winking at some of your mistakes, and he is going goochie goo to some of the evil things that you do, but only for the beginning, only for the moment. He has no intention of letting you continue on in your sins while you are bearing his name. It cannot be. Either you will change, or he will cut you loose, and it is a very rare occasion that he cuts you loose once his Son begins to be formed in you, but you need to know that it can happen. You must change. You cannot bear the name of Christ and act like the devil. If you want to bear the name of Christ, you must act like Christ.
"I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."
Verse 12, "But he that is a hireling" -- he that is a hired man -- "and not the true shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep."
So we see that there are people or men acting like a shepherd, but they are not the shepherd. They are a hireling; they are a hired man who was hired to take care of the sheep, to tend the sheep. And the sign that a man is manifesting the Christ, which is the true shepherd, is that when the wolf comes, he does not put his own safety first.
Now who is the wolf? Who is the [INAUDIBLE] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] of this world, and when Satan's [INAUDIBLE] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] and even with other human beings that are not gravitating towards Christ, Satan wants power over them and possession over them because he has need of their spiritual substance, typified by the fleece of the natural sheep.
So Jesus tells us that there are men out there, they are calling themselves of God, but when the wolf comes, they leave. And the Greek word that is translated leave means that they give up the sheep. They will not fight the war. They will not fight the spiritual war. They turn them over to the wolf. They say you can have them. I have another 500 more in my congregation, and, Satan, you can have this one. And they will not engage in a spiritual warfare on behalf of a human being that is in their congregation.
So we see that the hireling, the man -- and what is this? The man that is a hireling, he is a preacher whose mind is carnal. The preacher whose mind is Christ will do what Christ does. They will lay down their life for the [?sheep?] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] godly thing necessary to save their life. You do not -- you never compromise righteousness, but you go that extra mile, and sometimes God requires a lot from you. You do whatever God tells you to do to save that person's life. You make the sacrifice, even of your own comfort and whatever else God requires of you because every- -- anything that you would give [UNINTELLIGIBLE] -- give up or lose because you are laying down your life for a sheep that the Lord has assigned you to, anything that you would lose, if it is truly God that has assigned you, in due season, it will be restored unto you. There is nothing that you can lose for Christ that you will not get back twofold, if not a hundredfold.
That is why the only problem is determining -- whatever it is that God is asking of you, your only problem should be is it really Christ asking it, or is it your carnal mind? Because if it is really Christ requiring you to give up something that your brother could live, you should know without even thinking about it that, in due season, you shall reap a hundredfold back for that which you gave up. The only danger is that it is not Christ, that it is your carnal mind.
So we see that when the hireling sees the wolf coming, he gives up the sheep. He will not fight for them, and he flees. And the Greek word translated flee means he seeks his own safety, "and the wolf catcheth them." That Greek word translated catcheth means claim the sheep for himself, "and scattereth the sheep." The Greek word translated scattereth means cuts to pieces, and I suggest to you what this is speaking about is that the wolf comes in. He claims the sheep for himself. He pulls his Christ mind apart. Now, remember, the Christ mind is formed through a union of the Holy Spirit with the spirit of man, and the wolf comes in -- Satan comes in, and he dissolves this formation of the Christ mind and lays hold of that human spirit, joins himself with it and raises up his carnal mind to dominate that human being.
And the pastor, or whatever you wa- -- he wants to call himself, the spiritual leader of the human being that is being stalked by the wolf, if his leader is a hireling, if his leader does not have the mind of Christ in him, if he is a carnal man calling himself a man of God, he will allow this to happen to the member of the congregation. Why will he allow it to happen? Because, if his mind is not Christ, he does not have any weapons with which to fight Satan. Satan is operating in the realm of the spirit. Although he is soul, he is operating as a spirit. He is not in the flesh. His weapons are not carnal; his weapons are spiritual. And a pastor who is not spiritual cannot fight for the safety of the sheep without a spiritual weapon, and the only spiritual weapon is Christ. So if his mind is not Christ, there is nothing he could do, and he runs to save himself from the wolf. And the wolf lays hold of the sheep, pulls his Christ mind to pieces, raises up his carnal mind in this human being, and the church calls it backsliding. Did you know brother so-and-so backslid? He was on fire for God, and now he is back in the world. That is what this is talking about.
Verse 13, "The hireling fleeth, because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep."
Well, I did -- careth, to be concerned with. Well, the Scripture says the hireling is not concerned with the sheep, but I feel that the Lord is telling me by the Spirit the reason -- well, first of all, if he is not concerned with the sheep, it is because he is concerned with himself and that the reason for this is that his mind is carnal. He has no power to help the sheep, and he is very concerned with himself. [?On?] -- twofold. He has no power to help the sheep, neither is he willing to die for him, neither is he willing to put his own spiritual life on the line, believing that Christ will not let either one of them die because he just does not have what it takes.
Verse 14, "I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep, and am known of mine."
This word -- the Greek word translated know, it is used in the biblical sense. It is speaking about intimate knowledge. It is the word that is -- it is likened to the word that is used in the Book of Genesis. "And Adam knew Eve, and she conceived." It is speaking about intimate knowledge. Jesus said, I have intimacy of the mind, which those -- with those which are my true sheep, and I know them because my spirit is one with them, "and am known of them." He says, those who are my sheep, those whose human spirit has had an intimate interaction with Christ, recognize him. They hear his voice; they understand his instruction, and they are saved from the wolf because they hear and they obey him.
Verse 15, "As the Father knoweth me," as the Father has intimate knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth who was Christ, "even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep."
So Jesus is saying I have this intimate relationship with the Father, and he says in another place, "I and the Father are one," and he says in another place, "I only do and say what my Father tells me to do." This is an intimacy that, in our humanity, we would call the ultimate codependency, and amongst human beings, it is ungodly and unacceptable to be so one with another human being -- that two human beings should be so much one person that neither one of them can tell where their individuality begins and lets off.
[?Dependence?] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] spiritual [AUDIO CUTS OUT] it is desirable. And once it [?indicates?] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [?soul realm?], or that [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] realm of the soul or the spiritual realm are mirror images or the [AUDIO CUTS OUT] spiritual realm. That which is acceptable in the [AUDIO CUTS OUT] in the soul are exact opposites.
So this form of symbiosis that is being taught in the Scripture is not acceptable between two human beings, that the two should be so one that there should be no individuality. Yet, in the spirit, it is not only acceptable, it is desirable, and it is hard for fallen human beings to comprehend it because we have a built-in fear of losing our individuality, of losing our autonomy, of losing ourself, and this fear is built into fallen man, and a lot of men that hear this kind of preaching, they panic at the thought of this close relationship with the Lord, at the thought of being so controlled by Jesus Christ that you stop making your own decisions in life. Fallen man cannot comprehend it, and it frightens him because to have anybody so rule over you in this soul realm is destructive to one's soul, but with God, it is not destructive. It can only impart life to you and a measure of freedom that I myself cannot even comprehend. I just know that I believe the Scripture, that it is good and that there is life in it.
"As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep."
Well, that is saying two things. It is saying that he is going to agree to be crucified, and he is also saying that he will stand between a man and Satan and fight for him. Excuse me. He is going to stand in the gap.
Verse 16, "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd."
Now I have heard this preached on many times. There is all kinds of speculation who the other fold is. Was it the Gentiles? Was it the Muslims? Who is Jesus talking about? Was it the 10 dispersed tribes? Who is Jesus speaking about? Well, I suggest to you that this was a spiritual communication. When I looked up these words, I found out that the word fold -- "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold." This word could be translated an uncovered space around the house, enclosed by -- well, it is speaking about a courtyard, and it can also be translated the house itself or a palace. So I suggest to you the one group of sheep, the sheep that Jesus knows, are the ones who are inside the house, the one that he is intimate with, the one who know him and the one that he knows.
And the other group of sheep that he has are the people out in the courtyard, the people who have faith. They have read this word, and they believe it, but they have not yet moved into an intimacy with Christ. And what he is saying is that he has other sheep which he does not have this intimacy with, and them also he must bring. And the word -- the Greek word translated must means righteous. It is the right thing to do to bring them also. And to bring -- the Greek word translated to bring is speaking about to lead by laying hold of, and that is talking about forcing people, brethren.
We hear a lot in the church today about Jesus being a gentleman because the church world cannot comprehend why the Lord lets people walk away from him. And the reason the Lord is not forcing people into submission to him in this hour is that only a man without sin is allowed to force men to submit to God. Why? Because fallen men who are filled with sin will abuse the men that they are forcing. So only a righteous man filled with the love of God, whose motive is that person's well-being is qualified to force them into a relationship with Christ, and in this hour, there is no such man in the flesh.
But in the hour that the sons of God appear [?in?] [INAUDIBLE] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] can live. Those men are qualified to put spiritual pressure on fallen men, to bring them into a relationship with Christ that will save their life, and this is about to come upon the earth in the very near future. So we see that there is a group of sheep which must be laid hold of. They will not come willingly. They are afraid. Their mind is darkened with foolishness. They do not understand, and they are opposing themselves and suicide -- spiritually suicidal, do they must be laid hold of. And Jesus says, "Them also I must bring." Jesus says, the righteous man that is going to gather up these fallen, reprobate human beings that are spiritually suicidal, and he promises that this group too shall hear my voice.
"And there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." The Greek word translated fold the second time is a different Greek word, and it simply means flock. There shall be one flock and one shepherd. So we see people with different spiritual qualifications being loved equally by Christ, and when he finishes with them, they will all be the same, and the equalization is in the Spirit of Christ, which will possess them. Brethren, when the mind of Christ is formed in you and the Spirit in the mind is Christ, you will be equal to every other human being whose mind is Christ. He is the great equalizer.
In this world of fallen man, man is in many different forms. Some men are smart; some men are not smart. Some men are rich; some men are poor. Some men are very inte- -- well, I already said intelligent. Some men are better looking than other men. Some people are talented; other people have no talent. Some people are wise, and some people are foolish because Adam -- fallen Adam is divided, but Christ is not divided. And when the mind of Christ appears in his fullness in every human being, men shall be equally wise, equally desirable, equally beautiful, equally talented, yet they shall not be clones, one of the other. They shall have individuality because Christ is so enormous, and he is so filled with talent that, as he expresses a different aspect of his talent through each man, we will see an individuality. But, nevertheless, everyone will be glorious.
There will be no more caste system, and whether we admit it or not, we have a caste system in this country. There are the haves, and there are the have nots, and anyone that is spiritual knows that this is true. This will come to an end. Everybody in Christ is a have, and there is enough for everybody, and everybody shall be serving God. He is the great equalizer. Every man on the face of the earth shall be equal yet individualized -- if you can hear it, hear it -- to every other man. And every man shall be in submission to the one shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And, of course, we have a doctrine in the church today that says otherwise. We have a doctrine being preached in the church that says Jesus Christ is totally absorbed by his people, and man, who is still yet imperfect, is the only manifestation of Christ available. Brethren, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God. He is preeminent, and he shall always be a cut above every other son. He shall be the Father to us, and we shall be his son, and he shall be the great shepherd, and we shall say that we only say and do what our Father in heaven tells us to say and do.
We shall not be without authority in this flesh. The only time we shall be without authority over us is when we are glorified and absorbed into the spiritual eternal realm of the Father, but so long as we are in this flesh, we shall have the Father over us because over the Christ is the Father. We talked about this earlier. Christ is over the man, and the Father is over the Christ. The only one who does not have a head is the pure, glorified Spirit of the Father. He is the only one that does not have a head.
Verse 17, "Therefore doth my Father love me."
The Greek word translated love is the agape love. Jesus is not saying that the Father has feelings for him; Jesus is not saying that the Father gets a fluttery feeling when he looks at him. He is not talking about that at all. Jesus is saying the Father loves him; the Father has made a commitment to him; the Father honors him, protects him, witnesses that he is his own; the Father is in a union with him that he has no intention of breaking. The Father is faithful to him. The Father respects him. That is the kind of love that he is speaking about. Agape love is not a feeling. Agape love is sacrificial love that puts the other party ahead of yourself at all times. When push comes to shove, you choose the well-being of the other party. That is the agape love of the Lord Jesus Christ. You do what is best for the other party, even if what is best for them is going to hurt you. That is the way God loves.
Man loves with the phileó love, which is a friendship type of love which is on a very wide-range [?scale?] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] [?form of?] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] that man [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] we would call heroism, which, once again, is the [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [?laying down?] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] his life so that someone else could live. That is what heroism is. We do not see it very much today.
And then phileó love at the bottom of the scale is doing something for your friend, giving up a $10 bill because your friend needs it and you could live without it. But, brethren, the true sacrifice is giving up something that you need for a better cause. Not many men would do that today.
And then we have the third Greek word for love, which is érōs, which is the love that is manifested through lust. Now if you are married and you have all three aspects of love operating in your life, you are a blessed person. Érōs love by itself destroys. Phileó love, depending on where it is on the scale, can be beneficial and edifying. But it is the agape love of the Lord Jesus Christ that imparts eternal life to us. Jesus said he who loses his life shall find it, and he who tries to save his own life shall surely lose it. So when you know that Jesus is your Father, when you know that he is apprehending you, when you know that Christ is in your life moving powerfully, give it up, as he calls for it, as he asks you for it, as he challenges you to give up.
Give up what? Give up anything he asks you for because the end of it is life, and your denial and refusal is death. You may think you are saving your life, but the end of it is death. Life is in complete submission to Christ. We must become lost in him. We must become so codependent with Christ that we cannot tell where he lets off and we begin. And who would even want to begin? If we have an opportunity to be Christ, why would you even want to be your old, carnal, wicked self and reap what you sow? Be your new self; be Christ, and reap what you sow, life eternal.
Verse 17, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it up again."
He says the purpose of his Father loving him is that he could lay down his life. What is he saying? He says my Father loves me. He is joined to me. He is committed to me, and his Father is loving him. His Father is making that total union with him for the specific purpose that he should lay down his life and take it up again because he could not lay down his life and take it up again if the Father was not joined to him.
So we see the Father has joined to the man Jesus for a specific purpose, that Jesus should lay down his soul life and take it up again. And I declare to you that Jesus is speaking here in a great mystery, OK. Now check this out. Jesus said -- listen to this with me -- "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life," soul life, "that I might take it up again."
Now Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on the cross. He gave up his soul life. He was raised from the dead, and he ascended, and he is now in pure, spirit form. So how did he take up his soul life again? He did not take up his soul life again. This Scripture is not yet fulfilled. Can you hear what I am saying? He laid down his life as a man and returned to pure, spirit form. But he says here that the Father fully intended for him to be a man again. Well, when is that going to happen?
Everybody is waiting for the second coming of Jesus Christ, and I suggest to you that when Jesus takes up or lays hold of his soul life again, it will be in a many-membered company because salvation has gone to all humanity. And he will be appearing not only in the flesh of one man, but he will be appearing in the soul life of a many-membered, spiritual man whose other name is humanity -- called humanity. He will be appearing in all of us.
We are told in another place, if a corn of wheat fall into the ground, it shall bring forth a great harvest. Jesus was saying I am the seed. By giving up my soul life and being converted into spirit form, I have become the seed that will bring forth a great harvest, the same life of Christ that was in me appearing in the many members of humanity that I will pour out -- oh, that I will pour upon when I pour out of my spirit. That is what he was saying.
So we see that he has not yet but is in the process of taking up his soul life again. He has as problem though. Christ has a problem in taking up his soul life. The soul lives that he wants to take up, which is us, is already inhabited by another mind, and that mind has no intention of laying down its life so that Christ can take up these kingdoms or these cities which we are. So the Lord Jesus Christ must come in and take up by force because we are occupied; we are presently occupied by an enemy king. He has no intention of letting us go. [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [?kill?] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] not going [AUDIO CUTS OUT]
And the problem is that we are so codependent with Satan, through our carnal, that we cannot tell where Satan ends and where we begin. Therefore, we think what we think we are. We do not know it, but we think we are Satan, and we are fighting against the Lord Jesus Christ who is coming to deliver us from our captor. Our mind is so one with Satan through the carnal mind that we think that Jesus is our enemy.
And we are told in another place in the Scripture that when Jesus c- -- when the warfare that Jesus is waging reaches a certain proportion, when we are free to a certain measure, that clarity comes into our mind, and we understand that we are married to the wrong man and that we have been deceived and that our spiritual husband is not the one who we thought he was and that we are, in fact, in Satan's stable. When we get that understanding, we shall willfully turn away from our present husband and turn towards Christ. And when we join Christ in the battle, that is the beginning of our liberation.
Brethren, humanity has married the wrong man; we married the serpent. How do I know we married the serpent? The serpent had a baby. I am sorry. We had the serpent's baby, us. We are not in the image of the Father; we are in the image of our daddy, the devil. God's wife married the serpent. She could not tell the difference when he came to her tent. And the one who was supposed to be guarding her did not guard her. Who was supposed to be guarding her? Everybody is sleeping. Adam. Thank you. Righteous Adam was supposed to be guarding the reproductive potential of the creation, and he was not doing his job. So when the serpent came to her, to Eve, she was deceived, and she married the wrong man, and she bore his illegitimate child, and the whole creation fell down to Hell, into this devilish, physical, carnal condition where we labor to survive.
Remember, before the fall, there was no labor. We thought, and our need was provided. Can you imagine? Jesus. Now, once again, in this world, that kind of a life for any human being is destructive. To be raised up in a wealthy family where all you do is think and your need is provided makes you a weak and almost nonfunctioning human being. If you saw the movie, "The Last Emperor," you would see what happened to this man who was a Chinese emperor, the last Chinese emperor before the dynasty was brought down by the -- I think f- -- I think it was first by -- well, eventually by the Communists it was brought down. He was a messed up person
But in the spirit of God, to think and have your every need met is acceptable to God. Now what we will be doing all day, if there is a day, I do not know. The Scripture says eye hath not seen and ear hath not heard what Christ has in store for us. So once we are in full stature, our work is to get the whole creation in full stature, and once the whole creation is rescued from Hell, I do not know what we will be doing all the time, but I know that we will have peace and satisfaction and spiritual joy and safety, and that means w- -- that whatever activity we have -- that there has to be activity and that it has to be good because we will be satisfied without labor. So what that is going to be, I do not know. We will find out.
Verse 18, Jesus says, "No man taketh my life from me, my soul life, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power." That is the Greek word exousia. It means authority to lay it down, "and I have authority to take it again. This commandment have I received from my Father."
What Jesus is saying is that Satan, the god of this world, has no power to demand My life. Do you know that Satan has power over the life of every human being in this world? He has power to kill your body. He has authority to kill your body. And when he calls in the chips, unless the Lord Jesus Christ sovereignly intervenes and says to him, no, you cannot take this person's life because I am sovereignly intervening, overriding your authority, Satan can kill anybody he wants to in this world. But Jesus was saying he has no power to take my life, but he says I have power to say whe- -- how long I stay in this flesh. I have power to say that I stay in this flesh or that I come out of this flesh, and I have power to say whose flesh I will arise up in, in the second generation of Christ. Jesus is saying my power, my authority is greater than the established, existing authority of this world system. That is what he is saying. And he says that his authority comes because he has received a commandment from his Father to lay down his life, the f- -- soul life of Jesus of Nazareth, and rise up again in the soul life of a many-membered soul, which he is raising from the dead.
Now we are just doing the words of Jesus, but I will touch on a couple of other verses just for the comprehension here.
In verse 20, we hear the Pharisees saying, "And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why do you hear him?" This expression, he hath a devil, it means he is demon-possessed, and he is insane; he is crazy. Why are you listening to him?
And then, in verse 24, we read, "Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly."
So we hear the Pharisees -- well, there was a division amongst the people. Some people said he was crazy, OK, that he was demon-possessed. But then we see another group saying to him, "How long will you make us to doubt?" The Greek that is translated "make us to doubt," it really means -- the true translation is how long will you to take to raise up our soul? Raise up our soul, that is what it means.
And I declare to you that these Pharisees knew what Jesus was talking about. They knew what Jesus was talking about. They knew. They understood what he was saying. He said -- they understood that he was saying I am going to lay down my life so that I could raise your souls up out of the Hell of this world system. They understood what he was saying, and they came to him, and they said, well, how long is it going to take you to do it? How long is it going to take you to raise our soul up?
And then they said, if you be the Christ, tell us plainly. The Greek mean- -- and the Greek word translated plainly means tell us in speech. We want to hear you say the words that you have the power to raise us up out of the Hell of this world system. They were spiritual enough to know what he was saying to them. And Jesus' answer to them was I already told you plainly, and you did not believe me. But, you see, the Greek word translated plainly means speech. Jesus did not tell them the way they wanted to be told. He did not tell them with speech.
Verse 25 tells us, "The works that I do in my Father's name," or my Father's spirit, "they bear witness of me."
Jesus said I am not yielding to your mind control. You want me to tell you in plain English that I am the Christ so that you can use it to arrest me. You see, they knew what he was talking about. They knew that he was saying he had the power to raise them up out of Hell, and they wanted him to say it in speech so that they could betray him and arrest him, and Jesus knew it.
He goes on in verse 26 to say to them, "But you do not believe." The reason you do not believe me, it is "because you are not my sheep." That means I am not joined with you. "I said unto you. My sheep would hear my voice." If you were truly my sheep, if you truly had intimacy with the Father. You would know that I was the Son. And he said you would know it was me, and I would know you. And if you were truly my sheep, you would follow me. So Jesus is saying I am one with the Father, and the Father is me, and if you knew the Father, you would know that I am sent by him, and you would follow me.
Verse 28, "And I give unto them." I give unto my sheep "the life of the ages." The King James says eternal life. It means the life of the ages. "And they shall never perish." It means that they shall not come to an end. Now the soul man comes to an end. If your spirit is not made alive, when you pass out of this world system, it is the end of you. But he is saying the ones that follow me, the ones that are joined to me, they shall not come to an end, but they shall have the life of the ages, and "neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hand." The Greek word translated pluck, it is the same word translated catcheth in verse 12. And what it means is that Satan will not be able to pull apart their Christ mind, OK, and reform it. That is what it means.
"And no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." And then he said, "I and my Father are one." Verse 31 says, "Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him."
So that is our proof right there that they really did not want him to say the words in their spoken language because they did not understand. They wanted him to say the words so that they could kill him, OK, and he knew what he was up against. He knew what their motives were. He knew what was in their heart. He knew that they were not honest men. And he said unto them, if you kn- -- in another place, "If you knew my Father, you would know me." And he says but you do not know me, but my sheep, they know me. And he said, even though you are in the Scriptures day and night, y- -- [UNINTELLIGIBLE] -- you do not have the Spirit of God in you. And they tried to stone him.
And Jesus said in verse 32 -- now stoning was the form execution that was acceptable in Israel, and Jesus said in verse 32, "Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of these works do you try to kill me?"
Verse 33, "The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we do not stone you; but for blasphemy; because you said that you are the Son of God."
So they knew what he was saying when he told them that he was laying down his life and then that he could take it up again. They knew what he meant, and they hated him for it and tried to kill him for it.
And Jesus answers them in verse 32, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods."
You know, brethren, I have had this same controversy with Christians in the church. They have said the same words to me that are in the Scripture. How could you make yourself equal with God? The Scripture is very clear that Christ shall appear in us and that, when he appears in us, we shall not be greater than, but we shall be one with God. As a matter of fact, our Father will always be greater than us, but we shall surely be gods.
So Jesus said in verse 34, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?" If he called them gods -- who? Jehovah. If he called them gods, "unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken."
What does that mean? If you have access to the word of God, you are a god. It is the word of Jehovah. If you have the word of God, he is calling you gods. Now what does this mean, brethren? I suggest to you that what it means is that anyone who is living out of their spirit is a god to someone who is living out of their soul in the same manner that man is a god to any animal in the jungle.
Brethren, if you have a dog as a house pet, you are a god unto him. He gets his food from you. He gets all of his needs met. If he is sick, you take him to the vet. If it is raining out, he has shelter in your house. You provide his every need. You are god unto him. Man is a god to the entire animal kingdom. We are of another order. We are of a higher spiritual realm. We are far superior to the smartest animal in the jungle. And any man who is living out of a spiritual existence is a god to any carnal man. What does that mean? It means the carnal man is no match for the spiritual man.
And the Scripture said to the Jews, ye are gods, to whom the word of God is given. What you need to make you a spiritual man, therefore make you an order of man that is higher than natural man is in the Scripture. Nevertheless, that Scripture says, ye are gods, but you shall die as men. Why? Because you had the mechanism to be gods, but you did not use it, and you did not develop your spirit, and you are therefore going to die like men because, even though you had the potential, you did not lay hold of the potential.
So Jesus says to the Pharisees, "If he called -- if God called the Jews gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father has sanctified, and sent into the world, that he blasphemes; because he said, I am the word of God."
Do you hear this? Jesus is saying that Jehovah said to the men that got the written word, you are gods, and yet you think it is blasphemy for the human being in whom the mind of Christ is appearing to say I am the Son of God? Can you hear this? Let me say this again. The Scripture says, and it cannot be broken, the one to whom the written word is given gives you the potential to be a god, but you are going to die like a man because what was in the book did not get in your heart. But, still, just the fact that God gave you the book makes you a god. You are far superior to every hu- -- other human being on the face of the earth. So would you say to me, the personification of the word, the human being in whom the living word is manifesting in, that it is blasphemy for me to say I am the word of God? Something is wrong with your reasoning. Something is wrong.
Verse 37, "If I do not the works of my Father," Jesus said, "do not believe me. But if I do the works of my Father, though you do not believe me, believe the works: that ye may both know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him."
Now what are the works that Jesus was talking about? We know that occult workers can perform healings. By the spirit of Satan, people can be healed. I believe that. By the spirit of Satan, demons can be cast out. So what are the works of the Father? And by the spirit of Satan, the dead can be raised. So what are the works of the Father? Basically, the works of the Father are on the o- -- on one end, the creation of something that was never there, OK. The man that was born blind that had no eye, this is not a healing. We are talking about a creative miracle, that an eye that was never there was formed. OK, I do not -- to the best of my knowledge, Satan or any worker of witchcraft does not have the power to do that, OK.
And the other thing, which is really the sign, which is the work of the Father, is the ability to form Christ in the hearts of men, thus raising them from the dead not to die 20 years later but raising them from the dead in a condition that will give them the life of the ages. That is the sign. But sometimes that sign is not obvious right away, although we know that Jesus did it with the Gadarene Demoniac, for all intents and purposes, raised the man from the dead, to turn an insane man, suicidal man running through the tombs, into what would be called a normal man. That is a work of the Father that I do not believe a witchcraft worker would have the power to do. But the ultimate sign is the spiritual raising of the dead, that Christ should appear in a p- -- in a human being who has a dead spirit.
And we are told in verse 39, "Therefore they sought again to take him: and he escaped out of their hand."
So, you see, their ears were closed. They were not listening. Their hearts were hardened, and they continued in their evil ways. And we see, brethren, that, as far as I know, none of these Pharisees were killed. You say, what kind of judgment fell upon them? What judgment fell upon them was that they lost whatever anointing they had. They lost their authority in the earth. The author- -- the spiritual about that was on Israel was given over unto the church.
So those of us that are carnal, still carnal, including me sometimes, when I hear that someone is going under judgment, everyone is waiting to see what is going to happen. Are they going to lose their job? Are they going to get divorced? Are they going to lose their house? No, brethren, they lose their anointing. Jesus made it very clear. If your heart is not right, you are going to lose that which was given unto you. If you are blaspheming the anointing that God gave you, if you are misusing the power that God gave you, he takes it away, and you go back into the world whatever you were before he took you out of it.
The judgment of Christ is spiritual. He takes away his authority from you. And whatever curses are operating in your life have a free reign with you. It is not -- that is not the [UNINTELLIGIBLE] -- God forbid something unhappy happens to you. That is not God doing it to you because you are under judgment. The judgment of God is the withdrawal of his authority from you. And if there are curses in your life that open you to some kind of physical illness or financial disaster, well, that is Satan's judgment. That is not God's judgment.
And you better believe that if you have been in Christ in any measure, at all, and God withdraws his authority, Satan is going to push every button that he can find on you, and he shall punish you severely for every minute that you were disloyal to him and -- because you were entering into the service of Christ.
And I just did want to give you -- in verse 36, it says, "Say ye of him, whom the Father has sanctified" -- that word sanctified means separated, the one that the Father has separated out from his carnal mind, "and sent into the world." The Greek word translated sent means appointed.
It was not an accident that Christ was sent into the world. We had a message this morning about a teaching that we find in the new age, that m- -- humanity is evolving and that we are about to see human beings appearing in the earth who are going to [UNINTELLIGIBLE] -- start to become immortal merely because humanity is evolving from mortality into immortality and that there is no particular rhyme or reason as to which human beings will begin to n- -- to live longer and longer lives.
And we are talking about a TV program where the star of the show is now 400 years old, and the only way he could die was if you cut his head off. So he was entering into immortality, and [UNINTELLIGIBLE] -- did you hear my point, that according to this doctrine or this teaching, it is a h- -- it is -- I am getting slain in the spirit again. I cannot speak English. It is not preplanned who the human beings are that will start to have longer life. The teaching is that it is just a human being here and a human being there, haphazardly shooting forward out of the human race.
But we see that Jesus was not such a man but that he was appointed specifically by the Father. He was called. He was the Father's specific choice, that he would be the one to go on to immortality out of all of Israel in that time, that Jesus of Nazareth was the one who was appointed by the Father. It is not an accident, that a man here or a man there is going to be lifted up towards the beginnings of immortality, as we see it taught in the new age.
God has full control over this creation. Everyone that is called is called by God himself, and he has full control over this plan. It is not going on automatic pilot. The elevation of fallen humanity from mortality up into immortality is not going on automatic pilot. There is a plan, and there is a head of the plan, and his name is the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is in full control. He is the perfect executive. He rules completely and perfectly. It just looks like things are out of control.
Do not let your eyes deceive you; do not let the circumstances deceive you. It just looks that way because of the construction process, but everything is going according to plan, and the plan shall be completed and fulfilled and culminated, and this whole creation shall be restored into a relationship -- right relationship with the Father.
10/02/15 Transcribed by VerbalFusion
10/15/15 1st Edit BP
