Part 5 of 6 Parts

The Following Message Has Been Transcribed For
Clarity, Continuity Of Thought, And Punctuation
By The LEM Transcribing & Editing Team.

 

This is Zephaniah, Chapter 2, Part 5, and we shall start with the recap of Zephaniah, Part 2, Verses 8-11, OK. Recap, Zephaniah 2:8-11.

And for those of you that follow these teachings very carefully, I would like you to know that I have, excuse me, amplified verses 8 through 11 more than you will hear them amplified on the prior message, on Part 4. I have further amplified them. And wh- -- excuse me. Why do you do that? Well, I was rushing with the last message, Part 4. I did not really have enough time, but, basically, what I am doing is that I try to put these translations in the most simplest, understandable English, but the changes that I made from the last message was more than that. I noticed that because I was rushing, in my Alternate Translations, I was using symbols. In other words, s- -- the Lord has promised to dry up Satan’s sea. Well, someone who does not know anything would have no idea what that means at all, so I think that was one of the changes that I made. I took that expression, “And her sea would dry up,” and I put it into understandable English. I developed the symbol; that is what I did.

Zephaniah 2:8, the Lord speaking, “I have noticed that Satan has formed her carnal mind in my people and that she has killed Christ and woven herself together with their human spirits,” OK.

Now some of you might know that Satan had to kill Christ before she formed the carnal mind in the people, so it is this kind of thing, which is a sequential problem. What does that mean? I put the wrong event first, OK. The carnal mind could not have been formed and was not formed until -- well, that is not true. Sh- -- that is not true. The carnal mind was formed, and then she killed Christ. What am I talking about? OK. Let us just go on.

Verse 8, “I have noticed that Satan has formed her carnal mind in my people and that she has ha- -- and that she has killed Christ and woven herself together with their human spirits.”

Verse 9, “Therefore, their carnal minds shall be prison houses for their hurtful spirits, and they shall occupy a dead soul until the end of the age. Nevertheless, says Jehovah, the living God of the armies of Israel, I shall boil their unconscious mind so that they can pull their conscious carnal minds to pieces. And their carnal minds shall turn into dead salt and be reformed into Christ, and they, Christ, shall judge the nations.”

Now we see the expression dead salt. In our exhortation today, we were speaking about the Dead Sea. It is all there. It is so exciting if you can hear it. Is it not? Glory to God. Now I made myself a note for some reason. See Micah 3:3 below. What did I do? OK.

“And they shall you will their conscious carnal minds to pieces.” Now I have a reference with regard to that, Micah 3:3. Oh, I see what I did, OK. That expression, “They shall pull their carnal mind to pieces,” the significance of that is that spirit is typified by bone and soul is typified by flesh, and the pulling of the carnal mind to pieces, if you are looking for a natural example, can be likened to a piece of meat that we are preparing for natural food. The best way -- well, you want to get the meat off of the bone. You want to eat the meat off of the bone, and the only way that you can really separate every last shred of meat from the bone -- does anybody know what form of cooking?

            [?Boiling?].

Boiling. You have to boil it; that is the only way you can 100 percent separate the meat from the bone. So this is another witness to you that our unconscious mind in which the conscious mind abides must be brought to a boil. Boiling is the only way that our soul will be fully separated from our spirit, spiritual typified by the bone and soul typified by the flesh.

And I have a scriptural reference for you: Micah 3:3, “Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin,” remove the skin from them, “and they break their bones, and chop those bones in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.”

I used to read these Scriptures in the Old Testament about chopping bones and boiling them, and I used to say what in the world is the Lord speaking about. Well, brethren, we now know because the ends of the ages have come upon you, and God is opening your heart to understand mysteries that have been hidden from the beginning of time. The New Testament describes this event as separating the bone from the marrow, the bo- -- b- -- the s- -- bone -- the soul from the spirit and the joints from the marrow. And I remember years ago, I said, Lord, why in the world would you want to separate my soul from my spirit? Just like I said to him when I first said to him, well, Lord, what di- -- have I done that I should need to be chastised? Oh, I found out what I did: I did wickedness just like everybody else in this world. I did every kind of wickedness, well, spiritual wickedness, just like everybody else in the world.

Everyone’s sin is not exactly the sin. Brethren, we are ignorant. We are in darkness. Who is we? Humanity. Every judgment that God pronounces upon us is justified. Every word of his is truth, and there is a reason for it. So in the event that you come up against something that you do not understand, either in his word or spoken through one of his ministers, do not be a fool, and do not show your ignorance, but humble yourself before God and say, Lord, if there -- this does not sound right to me. That is OK. Any honest response is OK. This does not sound right to me. Please, explain it to me, or show me if I am right, you know, which is not likely. And I want to tell you that I pray this way every time -- well, certainly with regard to the word of God, every time there is something I cannot understand, I know that I am wrong.

But when Christ is manifesting in an imperfect minister, then, of course, the possibility that that minister is wrong is present, but not necessarily likely, if the person is really called, not likely; could be, but not likely. Now I am not talking about quoting a Scripture wrong or something like that. I do that all the time, OK, quoting the letter wrong. I am talking about a spiritual principle that is coming forth in power. It is not likely that you are right and I am wrong. It could be; it is not likely. So humble yourself and say, Lord, if I am the wrong one, let me assume that I am wrong unless you show me otherwise. Let me assume that I am wrong, and let me be taught. But in the event that I am right, straighten it out because we all want the truth, including me. Glory to God.

Going on with verse 10, Alternate Translation, Zephaniah 2, “And Adam shall be fully joined to the mind of Christ when the gentiles pull their carnal minds apart and weave their human spirits together with the mind of Christ, just like the sons of God did. And they shall respect Jehovah when his righteous judgment separates their human spirit from Satan, and Christ shall be worshipped in his own house by all of the souls of the heathen.”

Now please note that when the carnal mind reads this verse, he is saying, well, when Jehovah beats them, when he puts that judgment down on them and when he hurts their flesh, then they will respect him. That is not what the Lord is saying. The Lord is saying that the carnal mind shall never respect Jehovah. Brethren, Satan cannot be subjected to the law of God. He is incapable of obeying the law; that is why brute force must be used against him. The carnal mind shall never respect Jehovah, but when God pulls your carnal mind apart and your mind becomes Christ, you shall respect Jehovah because Christ respects and submits to Jehovah. Can you hear the difference? OK.

Now one thing the Lord just corrected me on: The carnal mind can respect Jehovah or the Lord Jesus Christ, who is one with him at this time, when that carnal mind is influenced by the Lord Jesus Christ. The carnal mind left to its own devices shall never respect God, but down here in Hell, there is some -- the Spirit of God is always in Hell; he is the fire that is down here purifying. And there are some people who are influenced by the power of God. Either there are people on their family line who have served God or they read the Bible or they pray or there is just some move of the Spirit operating in their life down here in Hell. That is whereby the Spirit of God is influencing them, and those people can respect Jehovah. But the carnal mind, of her own accord, will never, ever, ever respect or reverence [sic] or fear Jehovah.

But when humanity’s carnal mind is pulled apart, when the soul is separated from the spirit and the joints from the marrow and the human spirit is reformed into the mind of Christ, humanity shall respect and submit to and revere and honor Jehovah because our mind shall be Christ, and that is what Christ does. And humanity shall be righteousness, and they shall never sin. Why? Because Christ is righteous, and he never sins.

This is so important, brethren. Hear this, especially all of you people, I say this with all love, who are inclined towards phariseeism because of your upbringing. Hear this word, that you might be fighting with all of your strength to be righteous. You might be in a battle every day to crush sin in your mind and crush sin in your behavior and keep it down, and that is good. You are supposed to be resisting, but if your nature was righteous, this activity of fighting and crushing and repressing sin would not be necessary.

The promise of the Lord to you, brethren, is rest. God wants you to enter into the seventh day, which is the Sabbath. What are you resting from? You are resting from your wrestling match with Satan and your carnal mind who wants to do sinful behavior through you, who wants to s- -- think sinful thoughts through you, who wants to speak sinful, hurtful, ignorant, self-destructive words through you. And you labor every day of your life to restrain your flesh from sinful behavior and to restrain your words from destructive behavior and to restrain your mind to the extent that you can. God has promised you rest, and the way this rest shall be imparted to you is that he fully intends to utterly destroy and pull to pieces the mind which is ke- -- giving you existence in this hour because all of your sin, body, soul and spirit, is originating in that sinful, perver- -- in and from that sinful, perverse mind.

And in that day when Jehovah kills your strong enemy, which is your own mind, and establishes his Son as your mind, you shall rest from your labors because the Son of God does not sin. And the only thing emanating forth from him and originating in him is righteousness, so your mind shall be righteous, and your thoughts shall be righteous, and your words shall be righteous, and your behavior shall be wor­- -- righteous without effort, for righteousness shall be your state of being.

So even if you believe, brethren, that you have the power to restrain sin within yourself to the extent that you are righteous, I do not believe that, but even if you believe it, are you not tired? God has something better for you. If he forgives you every time you sin, he has something better for you. Submit to the chastening, brethren, and join with him in the destruction of your sinful flesh, that peace might be imparted to you through the birth of his righteous son in your own being, that you might rest from your labors and lie down in safety in a place where he shall take care of you.

We found that in the Alternate Translation of Revelation, Chapter 16. He shall -- who? Christ shall meet your every need at the end of the war. When your carnal mind is completely defeated and your nature is converted into the image of Christ, you will not have to use the violence that is present in the fallen man to obtain your needs because Christ shall be the ruling law and power and authority of your life, and he shall provide your every need.

And as offensive as this is to your carnal mind, we shall be as sheep put out to pasture. We shall not decide where we go or when we go or what we do, but we shall be fed, and we shall be clothed, and we shall be cared for, but on a high spiritual level, brethren, not on a bestial level. And our intellect and our creative potential will be used unto the uttermost, and we shall be an expression of creativity and life that far surpasses any potential for creativity that we could achieve to under the best set of variables in this fallen world. If you can hear it, hear it.

Lay down your weapons, says the Lord, for I have called you, and I shall have you, and I shall break your witchcraft, saith the Lord, whether you fight with me or whether your fight against me, for I am the Lord, your creator and the creator of the universe, and you shall be in my image, and you shall be a glorified expression of me with your consent or without it. Lay down your weapons, saith the Lord, or I shall take them from you, and I shall break them in front of your eyes, saith the Lord. I shall break your power. I shall break your carnal strength. I shall weaken you, saith the Lord. I shall touch the inner thy and shrink your sinew, saith the Lord. And I shall render you helpless in this world, but I shall not abandon you. I shall move on your behalf, saith God, and I shall prove myself unto you, that I am able and capable of and willing to be your sole support, saith the Lord, yea, even the foundation upon which your new life shall be built. And I shall hold you up, and I shall sustain you, and I shall live through you, and you who were dead shall experience my life. Hallelujah. Jesus.

Continuing with Zephaniah 2:12, “Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall be slain by my sword.”

Gesenius tells us that “the Ethiopians,” Strong's 3569, are the descendants of Cush, and I remind you that the desce- -- that Cush is one of the descendants of Ham, Ham being the father of the black races and Ham also being the one righteous offspring of Noah.

Those of us -- those of you who have studied with us may recall that the Lord revealed to us here, excuse me, that Noah, Shem and Japheth were corrupted by the spirit of Cain, which means that the Christ mind which imparted the righteousness to them before the flood was corrupted and brought down and killed by the carnal mind which arose in those three brethren after the flood. Ham was the only survivor of the past age who stayed in Christ, and he sounded the alarm. He made the announcement that the carnal mind had appeared in his father and was overtaking or had already overtaken the Christ. And when he sounded that alarm, he called his brothers to help. He found out that the carnal mind had appeared in Shem and Japheth also.

Ham was the hero of the hour, but, nevertheless, his father Noah rose up in the spiritual witchcraft authority of the carnal mind, and instead of praising his son for exposing his sin, cursed his son for the righteous exposure of Noah’s own sin. And because of the spiritual authority present in Noah, both because he had been in a very high place in Christ -- and you may recall my teaching that the p- -- s- -- the witchcraft power that you have available to you is specifically proportionate to the spiritual power that you had attained to in Christ. If you are very high in Christ and you fall, you go over to the other side, you go over to the carnal mind’s camp, you will be proportionately powerful in witchcraft as you were to the degree of power that you had in Christ.

So Noah was very high; the Scripture says he was the only righteous one on the other side of the flood. He heard from God to the extent that he received instructions on how to prepare the ark that saved the lives of the eight souls. Noah has three sons and their four wives. In addition to that, Noah had the spiritual authority that rests in parenthood or in fatherhood, so when his carnal mind rose up to refuse to acknowledge Ham’s pronouncement of his sin, Noah cursed his own son so that his own righteousness could be defended. And, of course, at this point, Noah’s righteousness was self-righteousness.

We have had a lot of teaching about this in this ministry, where we might express that Noah sacrificed Ham and all of Ham’s millions of descendants so as to preserve himself. But, nevertheless, Noah, despite the fact that he sacrificed millions of people and relegated them to difficult, painful existences for thousands of years to come, Noah still did not have the strength to save himself; he died. How do I know that he died? Everybody has died up until the time of the Lord Jesus Christ. Noah died. The Scripture says he died. Glory to God.

So we see the Scripture which was given through an Old Testament prophet, originally given unto Israel, although we know that this book is for the church in this hour, but we see a prophecy originally given to the nation of Israel, telling the Hebrew children Ham’s descendants shall be saved also. So we see instruction in the Old Testament to Israel, telling them clearly that salvation is not just for Israel, but we see some Scriptures saying salvation is for all the earth, all of humanity, but s- -- God has a specific word for the descendants of Ham in many places in the Scripture, that even though the beginning of God’s plan of salvation was with Israel, for whatever God’s purposes -- that is up to God -- the Lord is clearly telling that Jews that Ham shall be saved also.

“Ye Ethiopians also, you shall be slain by my sword.”

Well, someone listening to this message and that does not me is saying what is wrong with that woman? Does she not read English? The Ethiopians are going to be slain by the sword of the Lord. Well, hallelujah, Lord, slay me please because this flesh must die.

The Hebrew word translated “slain” is Strong's 2491; it means “to be pierced through,” “to be mortally wounded.” Who is going to be pierced through, brethren? The carnal mind. She is going to be pierced through unto death, and the name of this experience is -- the piercing through unto death -- what happened --

            [CROSSTALK]

-- to Jesus? The crucifixion. And the crucifixion is which stage of the resurrection?

            [CROSSTALK]

The third stage of the resurrection. Brethren, you cannot be raised from the dead until you die, and the method of death is crucifixion. So why are you pushing against the pricks? I just had a vision of all kinds of people desperately trying to run away from the Lord, and he had them on these horsey reigns that you put your babies on, you know. They can only go so far, and he is pulling them all back, and they are all trying to get away from him. You have to die, brethren. There is no other way; there is just no other way. But be at peace because after the death is the resurrection. Hallelujah.

            [INAUDIBLE]

Yes, but we are going to die to this existence of death. It is called the second death; it is the death of death. We will die to our death. We died unto life, and we became dead. We will die unto death, and we will be made alive, lo, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the twinkling of a spiritual eye. It takes the Lord a long time to blink.

            Oh, that is right.

Jesus, help us, Lord. Glory to God. So the Ethiopians shall be crucified also by the sword and the -- by my sword. That is Jehovah speaking. The Hebrew word translated “sword” is Strong's 2719; it means “the circumcising knife.” It is not speaking about the sword of battle, but a small sword, and the -- some of you might know that in the Greek also there are two different Greek words which are translated “sword.” One is speaking of that big warrior sword which we read about being in the hand of Christ Jesus at the back of the Book of Revelation, but this Hebrew word translated “sword” is speaking about the circumcising knife.

So we see in this one little verse, verse 11, two stages of the resurrection mentioned, the circumcision without hands and the crucifixion. Remember when Christ is fir- -- when Christ first appears, he is lying underneath the carnal mind, and he has to cut his -- circumcise himself. Christ circumcises himself. He cuts the carnal mind away, which is a condition of increased power over the first stage of resurrection, where Christ is lying under a full carnal mind. And then after Christ cuts away the carnal mind, he turns around and pierces back through again, thus crucifying or joining himself to the carnal mind. And of the twain, of the two minds, he made one new man of the carnal mind and the Christ mind. The crucifixion resulted in a joining so complete that there was now only one mind in the creation in that individual man. He made one new man. Hallelujah.

So the Hebrew says, merely, “pierced sword,” two different words. You may have heard some teaching here that, frequently, the verbs are missing in prophecy. There are just two words, that if you do not have the revelation in your heart, you really would not even know what the Lord is speaking about. In this instance in Zephaniah 2:12, there are just two words present: “pierced” and “sword.” So I got ahead of myself. I am just reading you my note. As -- I suggest to you that each word signifies one stage of the resurrection, “pierced” signifying crucifixion and “sword” signifying circumcision. The first 11 verses of Zephaniah 2 identify the fallen condition of God’s people and God’s answer to their problem: the appearance of Christ in full stature in their mind. God’s answer to every problem of fallen man is the appearance of Christ in full stature in your mind, and that is just the first stage of God’s deliverance.

Let me take a minute to show you some increased -- or share with you some increased information that the Lord has given me on that circumcision.

            [INAUDIBLE]

Not so much the circumcision, but the three stages of the resurrection. There was a question here; I think it was asked in a meeting. And when I prayed about it, this is what the Lord showed me. Yeah, this was the -- what was the question? Could you put that on pause for just a minute? Do you remember? [AUDIO CUTS OUT]

The question was this. Well, we -- well, it was really -- came forth as a statement, which I said I did not know the answer to. Full stature, someone said to me, must mean Christ getting up on the carnal mind, OK, and I said, no, the Christ does not go on top of the carnal mind until the second stage, which is the circumcision. But we must have had a Scripture here which indicated that full stature also would mean Christ on top of the carnal mind, and I did not know the answer. Did I make the question clear?

Let me say it again. Let me restate it. I have been teaching here, ever since God gave me this revelation, that the experience of full stature -- let me put it on the board for you. Here we are, OK. We are drawing our soul as a circle, and there is a mind in the midst of that soul, and the mind is carnal. And when the mind of Christ begins to be formed in us, he begins to be formed in the midst of the carnal mind, and the carnal mind dominates Christ to the fullest extent that he can, and the flesh mind lusteth against the spirit mind, and they are waging war against one another the whole time that Christ is developing. So there is an area of tension. They are pressing against one another. Christ is trying to come forth, and the carnal mind is trying to keep him down. We know this experience as spiritual warfare.

So the first stage of the resurrection is that Christ takes dominion over this carnal mind while the carnal mind is still lying on top of him. Christ defeats the carnal mind to such a measure that the carnal mind becomes paralyzed, and the way I have taught it to you is that, if you can think of Christ as a wrestler lying on his back on the mat while the carnal mind has his shoulders pinned, Christ, by the power of his mind, is still controlling that wrestler. Now this is the way the Lord showed it to me. The dominion over the carnal mind results -- well, let me back that up a little bit. The mind of Christ, which is being formed under the carnal mind, is both spirit and soul. What is the name of the Spirit in the mind of Christ, anybody?

            The human spirit.

No. The name of the Spirit in the mind of Christ is the Spirit of Christ, and then we also have -- which is the unconscious mind, and then we have the conscious mind of Christ, which we pretty much just call the mind of Christ. So let me draw this more clearly here. We have the Spirit of Christ dwelling within the mind of Christ. I hope you can follow me. This is the carnal mind here, and this is the mind of Christ within the carnal mind, and within the mind of Christ is the Spirit of Christ. Is everybody OK? The Spirit lives within the mind, and the mind lives within the soul.

So we see the Spirit of Christ; the power is in the Spirit, brethren. And we see this condition of full stature coming to pass when the Spirit of Christ, which is abiding within the mind of Christ, becomes powerful enough to vibrate through his own mind, which is his own territory, and he succeeds in penetrating the enemy territory of the mind of Christ and pierces through the borders of the s- -- of the mi- -- the spiritual borders of the mind of Christ and appears beyond the spiritual borders of the mind of Christ. This is the actual technical event of the experience known as full stature because, when the Spirit of Christ -- let me write it here.

When the Spirit of Christ appears or succeeds in penetrating the spiritual borders of the mind of Christ and appears beyond it, he begins to exercise authority over it. Can you see that? OK. He exercises authority over the border that he has penetrated. And the result of this exercise of power upon the b- -- external border of the carnal mind -- and there also is a penetration, OK -- results in the paralysis of the carnal mind. The mind of Christ has penetrated completely through the carnal mind from his very center, has succeeded in piercing him through to the fullest extent of his borders, and the result of this is that he has paralyzed the carnal mind. That is the first stage of the resurrection.

The second stage of the resurrection now is accomplished by the mind of Christ. The Spirit of Christ, the Father; the mind of Christ, the Son. The Father dwells in the Son; the Spirit dwells in the mind; the mind dwells in the soul, OK; and the Father and the Son are one. After the Spirit of Christ, which is the Father or for us, is the Lord Jesus Christ who has already overcome the world. He has now penetrated through the complete mind of Christ and pierced his borders. He has now made a way for Christ Jesus in you and Christ Jesus in me to come forth. So the mind of Christ, Christ Jesus in you, now starts along his journey in the paralyzed soul to penetrate the borders of the carnal mind.

And we now have the mind of Christ who is the circumcising knife, coming forth, following the path of our big brother and our Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the mind of Christ penetrates completely through and pierces through the external border of the carnal mind. And when the mind of Christ comes through, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Father, and Christ Jesus in us gather together on the external border of the carnal mind, and the Scripture says that the carnal mind is circumcised because what has happened here -- we are told in another place, if you recall the teaching on the circumcision of Christ, which took place in the Garden of Gethsemane -- and if you have not heard this before, the King James translation of what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane is just way off. I cannot redo the whole thing now.

But what happened was Jesus was asking the Father if he was strong enough to penetrate that enemy territory of the carnal mind, and the Father said you are strong enough; do it. And when Christ, the -- Christ Jesus, the conscious man, Jesus, by a spiritual exertion of will, penetrated his carnal mind, the carnal mind was forced to the inside, so I am now going to make his border with a dotted line. And when Christ Jesus joins up with the Spirit of Christ, which is now outside of the spiritual borders of the carnal mind, what they did -- what happened was the border formed by the mind in the creation was changed. Do you know that after every war the borders of the nations engaged in the war are changed? Do you know that the map of Europe before World War II is different than the map of Europe after World War II? Christ -- the Father and the Son together, known as Christ, penetrated the border of the carnal mind and changed it.

We are told in our study of the circumcision without hands that Christ, typified by his blood -- Christ is typified by his blood, right? -- actually penetrated the carnal mind that was lying over him, but he penetrated him as a sponge would be penetrated by water. If you take a dry sponge and you drip water on the top of it, eventually the water comes out at the bottom. The water penetrates through the porous surface of the sponge. When the mind of Christ pierced through the carnal mind, following the road that his Father, OK, in the c- -- that his Father made for him, the blood of the life of Christ oozed through the porous surface of the carnal mind and appeared on the top of that surface, just like the water coming out of the bottom of the sponge. And we are told that his life appeared as large drops of clotted blood, and the King James tells you that drops of blood appeared on Jesus’ person because he was so chicken scared that he sweated blood, and I do not accept that translation.

I believe that the blood of the life of Christ in the man Jesus penetrated his carnal mind and appeared on the surface as large drops of clotted blood and that those drops eventually came together and congealed and formed a scab over the carnal mind, sealing her off because the carnal mind is considered by God to be an infection in our spiritual life. Just like when you cut your skin, you put int- -- disinfectant on it and you hope that the natural defenses of your body will s- -- that the blood coming up from underneath your skin will clot over that wound and heal it, and this is what happens in the second stage of the resurrection when the blood of Jesus, which is underneath the carnal mind, rises to the surface as a healing agent and will seal off this open, gaping wound which is killing us.

So the first stage of the resurrection is the Spirit of Christ which is -- for you and me, this is the Lord Jesus Christ who got deep inside of us when he engrafted to our human spirit and became the Spirit of Christ. He is now penetrating through. Remember, the Lord Jesus Christ has already overcome the world, OK. He is piercing through our own carnal mind, coming to the outside of its borders and paralyzing her. Why? So that Christ Jesus in you can now follow in his footsteps, pierce through the hostile territory of our own carnal mind without being destroyed, the whole time cutting her away, circumcising himself. And when he gets to the external borders of the carnal mind, he is appearing as clotted blood, sealing off all of the poison which is in the wound of the carnal mind.

And the borders -- when this happens to you, the borders of your mind have been changed, and now Christ is your external border, and that which was your carnal mind is no border to speak of at all. She is completely sealed off. So the first stage of the resurrection is the paralysis of the carnal mind, and the second stage of the resurrection is the sealing of the wound which is the carnal mind, or you can say the circumcision or the cutting off of the carnal mind, except that, in a natural boy baby, the foreskin is cut off and discarded, but in the spiritual circumcision, the foreskin is cut off but not discarded; it is forced to the interior of the mind.

And the third stage of the resurrection, we see, the Lord Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus -- now, of course, I am drawing this as a circle for argument’s sake. It is not a circle, but, just to stay with this diagram, this border of our mind is a sharp cutting edge. It is a defensed border. Nothing can get in, and nothing can get out. You will find further on in Zephaniah, if we get to it today, that the defensed Christian, the Christian in whom Christ is erected in a military stance, is typified by a porcupine: many swords, many sharp spikes emanating from him, completely defensed. This border of Christ is a sharp cutting sword, is now going to turn around because it was going in one direction, piercing [?in?]. So they are going to turn right back in and pierce through that carnal mind and completely crucify his, dead, dead, dead. The carnal mind is not dead during the paralysis; you are still alive when you are paralyzed. Neither is -- does circumcision kill you, OK, neither does the sealing off of a wound kill you, but the crucifixion, brethren, it kills you dead.

            [INAUDIBLE]

And coming from another place in the Scripture, Isaiah 53, I do not remember the exact King James translation, but in that passage of Isaiah 53, we are told that Christ is going to restore us unto the Father. I know the Alternate Translation is we shall be restored. We shall be sown together, that we died when our spirit separated from the Father, and our healing is in the sowing together of our spirit to the Father’s Spirit. And this, I suggest to you, is a stitch. The needle was the Holy Spirit, which penetrated our fallen carnal mind, engrafted himself to our human spirit; that was the needle going in. Then as the Holy Spirit joined with our human spirit and Christ began to be formed, eventually we experience the first and second stage and third st- -- first and second stages of the resurrection. And Christ comes out to the external border; that is the needle going all the way into the garment.

And please remember the teachings here, that the mind is the garment of the spirit. The Father or the Lord Jesus Christ is dwelling in the mind of Christ or Christ Jesus; that is his garment, and that the mind is contained in the soul. The soul is the garment of the mind. We have two garments, brethren: We have an undergarment, and we have an overgarment, OK. So the needle who began to enter into our mind in the form of the Holy Spirit comes all the way through and turns around and goes back in and makes a stitch, brethren, that sews us back together completely to our Lord and savior, and that stitch is also known as the crucifixion. Hallelujah.

So this is what is happening to us, but, brethren, when the needle sticks in, it hurts, you know. You know, when you get a stitch in the emergency room, it hurts. Depends -- depending on where your stitch is, they may give you some novocaine to dull the pain, and if the stitch is internal and the surgery is internal, the -- you are out completely. This is a painful process. It is not unbearable. You can bear it. You can make it through. God is going to get you through, but for me to tell you it is painless, I am going to be lying to you, and you are not going to be prepared for it, and I am not going to lie to you.

Prepare yourself for difficulties. Preci- -- prepare yourself for pain, but know that you can tolerate it; you can bear it; you can and shall survive it. And the end of the procedure is that you shall live, and no matter how frightened you might be, the Lord Jesus Christ has utterly refused your position to let you continue to abide here in Hell forever. He is going to give you the stitches, and he is going to give you the operation, and he is going to save your life, and do not you be telling me he is a gentleman. He is no gentleman; he is the captain of the host. And if it just looks like he is a gentleman, it is because he has not gotten around to you yet, but he is coming, and he is not going to leave anyone behind.

What we do not understand, those of us who are a little immature spiritually, is that he may not take you specifically; he may take you in the form of your offspring, and that is a high spiritual truth that you are just going to have to deal with if it is true for you because you cannot change it. What did I just say, for people listening to the message? Every human being that has ever appeared on the face of the earth is not going to be raised from the dead. There is one spiritual man which is being raised from the dead in many members. We can call each member a family line. Every family will be raised from the dead by its representative member or members. If you can hear it, hear it. If you can receive it, receive it. If not, take what you can get and run with the ball. This message is so rich, and it is so good. If there is something you choose to reject for a season or whatever, reject it, but do not reject the whole message. Take whatever you can handle. It is just incredible.

So we are still on verse 12. Hallelujah. “Ye Ethiopians also, shall be slain by my sword.”

Alternate Translation, Zephaniah 2:12, “And Ham’s descendants shall also be circumcised and crucified by Christ,” speaking about spiritual circumcision, brethren, and spiritual crucifixion. What we are really saying is and Ham’s descendants shall be saved also, and Ham’s descendants shall experience the three stages or third st- -- second and third stage of the resurrection also.

And there is a very deep warning, hidden warning, in this message. It is here for the church today. It is very dangerous for any individual to think that there are  human beings on the face of this earth in any form, in any shape, in any color, practicing any religion at this moment, who are not eligible for the great salvation of our great God and king. You are in great spiritual danger if you are believing that. And there is anti-Semitism in the church, and there is prejudice against black -- the black races in the church. If you are hearing this message, I encourage you to go before the Lord and tell him that, if it is not true, that he -- you are willing to accept his correction if he corrects you, and repent because that is a manifestation of the sin of pride.

There is one Spirit, brethren. Does the Scripture not say one Spirit, one baptism, one Lord Jesus Christ? And the color of your exterior vessel, which has nothing to do with God anyway -- it is -- this body, this flesh is in Satan’s flesh anyway, OK -- in no way can keep you out of the kingdom. You have bought a lie, and you have bought it because you have been -- you received it because your pride loves it, and you would like to believe that you are special above other peoples or people of the Earth. And the truth is that you are not, that we all stink, and we are all -- we have all been dead for a long time, and we all need the same mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you deny it to your brother, the Lord Jesus Christ just might deny it to you. I do not know whether he will bring you to repentance or he will deny it to you, but beware.

And if you have heard this message, if the Lord has brought this message to you, you have been warned. What does that mean? It means the test is coming. Once you are warned, the test is coming, and if you fail the test, judgment is coming, if you are blessed. If judgment does not come, the Lord will just let you go, but you are not coming into the kingdom and you are not going to execute the office of the member of the two witness company or a son of God believing that there are groups of people in this world, that you have categorized by their religious beliefs or the color of their skin, who are not qualified for this salvation. You are not going into the high-order ministry of Christ with this erroneous belief. You may be in the church today with that belief; you may have the imputed anointing with that belief; you may have ministered the power of God with that belief; you may have cast out demons with that belief; people may have been healed through your ministry with that belief; but you will not become a son with that belief. Either that belief will be ripped out of you, or you will not be in the sonship company, and that is the truth. The Lord is not winking at this sin of hatred and pride any longer.

Continuing with Zephaniah 2:13, “And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh’s d- -- and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness.”

“Stretch out,” Strong's 5186, can be translated “to turn aside one’s right in judgment.” Now let me jump ahead to point out to you and remind you that the north typifies Satan, and the reason or the way we get that is that the north is known for its darkness and for its coldness and for its long nights and short days. And through a series of other studies, we have found that the Lord uses the north to signify Sa- -- spiritually speaking, Satan. And the east signifies the eternal realm of God. The west signifies this world of appearance that we live in, which is fallen, and the south signifies the world of appearance that we live in, which we will see appearing on the earth when Christ is forming the image of this world. So the north signifies Satan primarily because of its cold and dark qualities.

“And Jehovah will stretch out his hand against the north,” so we are speaking about Satan. In that context, to translate the Hebrew word that is translated “stretch out” as “to turn aside one’s right in judgment,” what we are saying is -- and that word can also be translated “to push out of the way,” so what we are saying is Jehovah shall push out of the way, to overturn, to withdraw, to call back, to turn aside one’s God-appointed right to execute judgment.

Satan has a God-given right to execute judgment. He is the god of this world. He is the prince of the power of the air, and we have been sold unto him. We have been ch- -- bound to him by chains of darkness because of rebellion, and that rebellion originated with our original ancestor, Adam, and we repeat the sin in every generation. We repeat the sin that is stamped on the genes that we are born with. So how is God going to turn away Satan’s right to judge us?

Satan is our custodial authority. God help us. He has the right to not only punish us in this existence by l- -- giving us tormenting experiences, by making us physically or mentally ill. Satan has the right to take our life. He kills our body. Why? Because our mind and our spirit is already dead because this is the god -- this is the world of death. The Lord said -- Jesus said God -- he is the God of the living, not the god of the dead; that means there must be a god of the dead. Satan is the god of everybody who is dead. That means if you are -- and what makes you dead? What makes you dead is that your spirit is dead, so if you have a dead spirit, you are part of this world of death called Hades or Hell, existing underneath the ground of the fallen soul and this jailhouse body.

So if your spirit is dead, that means Satan is your god, and he can do anything that he wants with you. So how will Jehovah --- which is now one with the Lord Jesus Christ. How will the Lord Jesus Christ turn away Satan’s authority to kill your body? How will he do it? I suggest to you that the Lord Jesus Christ will raise your spirit from the dead, thus removing you out from under the authority of the god of the dead and translating you into a position where you are now under the authority of the God of the living. Can you hear it? The Lord Jesus Christ is not so much destroying Satan as he is removing us out from under Satan’s authority through the -- anybody know? The renewing of our mind. And when the whole of humanity has been renewed in the spirit of their mind and there is no longer any people in this world of the dead, the god of the dead is going to be unemployed. And when he is u- -- and this -- is this not a world of continuous employment? We found that in Daniel, Chapter 2 and Chapt- -- I think it is all through Daniel, OK. So when -- who wants a world with nobody or nothing in it?

And also, as a part of our deliverance, this whole world shall cease to exist, and we shall find this promise also in Zephaniah 2. This whole world will self-destruct or disperse; disperse is a more accurate translation because this world is only a shadow in any event, and it is a shadow which will disappear because that which is standing in the line of the sun’s rays -- and that is how a shadow is cast. You have a beam of light and some solid object standing in front of it, OK. First of all, the sun of this world system is being taken down; it is going to be darkened as if sackcloth has been stretched out over it. And also the shadow -- or I am sorry, not the shadow, but that object over which the light is being shown is going to be dried up and dispersed. So the light of the sun of this existence is going to cease to shine, and the object or the matter over which she is signing, which is casting the shadow, is being taken down, and therefore -- and what is that? That is the carnal mind, OK.

Satan is the sun, and he is casting his light through his carnal mind, so the carnal mind is being plucked to pieces. Satan is being dried up, and the result of it is that this world, which is just a shadow, will disperse. It is going to just disappear, so self-destruct is not even accurate. It is going to just dissolve into nothing because it is nothing, and the only reason it appears to be something and the only reason that it feels like it is something, because it has the power to inflict pain upon us -- the only reason for that is because we are trapped down here. So this illusory world is only real to those of us who are caught in its trap, but when the Lord Jesus Christ raises us up out of the spiritual -- raises us up above the spiritual authority of this realm through the renewing of our mind in our spirit, it shall be make-believe unto us, and we shall walk out of it, and it shall disappear as a shadow disappears when you shut off the light.

Brethren, let me give you a parable. Let us take an abused child, an abused 2-year-old child who was being abused by a 4-foot-2 adult. That 2-year-old child is subject to beatings and mental abuse and severe pain and distress from a 4-foot-2, 90-pound adult, but that child grows up and becomes a 6-foot-2, 200-pound bodybuilder. The threat of that 4-foot-2, 95-pound adult becomes virtually nonexistent to this 6-foot-2, 200-pound bodybuilder.

Now a lot of people in this world grow up under parents who mentally abuse them, and even though these children’s physical body -- bodies mature, because of that abuse, they do not mature mentally. And unless there is an intervention of a higher spiritual authority, Christ or there are high spiritual authorities in this fallen world that will intervene and help the mind of that physical adult to mature, that physical adult can remain in mental bondage to a parent or a caretaker until one of them dies. And if that is the case, you are considered a dysfunctional person in this society. And some people who are truly, severely dysfunctional or even mentally ill will think that their deliverance from the mind control of the one who was their caretaker when they were small children is in the form of the death of that caretaker.

Brethren, some people believe that the only way they will ever get free from an emotional or a mental bondage to another human being is through the -- either their death, and that person might be tempted to commit suicide, or through the death of the person whose mind is tormenting them, and that just may be true for some fallen people in this world. But, brethren, I declare unto that there is deliverance from mental and emotional bondage in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that deliverance comes from the renewing of your mind in the spirit. And when your mind becomes Christ and you receive the love of Christ and the wisdom and the spiritual authority of Christ that goes with it, you shall find deliverance from any mental bondage or emotional bondage formed by a caretaker, a husband, a parent, a relative, anybody who brought your mind into bondage at a time when they truly had dominion over you. And because they wounded you when you were a child and because your own personality never developed to its full potential because of that childhood wound, even though your physical body did develop, and today you are still in emotional or mental bondage to a caretaker that no longer has any authority over you at all, you do not have to stay that way forever.

There is deliverance through the renewing of your mind in Christ Jesus. You do not have to die; you do not have to commit suicide, brethren. That misguided caretaker does not have to die. You do not have to murder your parents, brethren, or your husband, which we see happening in this country, because they are holding your mind captive. What you need is to have your mind renewed in Christ Jesus, and you need to arise out of your spiritual jail. And not only will the Lord Jesus Christ free you from this misguided caretaker, but he will raise you up as their savior because any adult human being who holds someone that they had authority over at one time in bondage because of the -- it is because of their own ignorance, their own pain, their own darkness, their own sin. In most instances, they do not even know that they are doing it. In most instances, they are -- the caretaker, the misguided caretaker, is in as much pain as the me- -- as the adult who is the victim, so Christ Jesus shall deliver you through the renewal of the spirit of your mind. And he will not take you alone; he will send you back to get your tormentor free.

            [INAUDIBLE]

And you better go when he sends you because you are just too opposite sides of the same coin: one positive and one negative, one victim and one oppressor, but you have got one soul. To be in that condition, your souls must be joined. You have heard of ungodly soul ties. You are one soul. How can God deliver the one aspect of the soul and not the other aspect of the soul? So as soon as you are free, he is sending you back for the others; that means you must forgive them. And you must be formed in the image of Christ because, in Christ, every person, no matter what the sin, is rehabilitative. Salvation or deliverance in Christ is never for a lone ranger. When he saves you out of any form of torment that is destined to dominate you for your entire lifetime, you should know that you have been bought with a price, that you are not your own and that, when he saves you, you have been drafted into his service and that you will do whatever he tells you to do, no matter what the personal cost to you.

There is a price in Christ, and that price or that wage is life. You must pay the price of being alive because he who is alive dies to his soul life so that others can live too. The wages of sin is death, but there is also a wage for life, that you must continue to share what you have received at whatever expense the Lord Jesus Christ requires of you. But for everything you lose, you shall receive one hundredfold in this life with persecution. Hallelujah. God, is there life in this message, the weaving together of every Scripture. Can you see it? The weaving together of every Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, it is just one garment; it is just one message. Everything is just one message, but because we are dead he is giving us little bits of it at a time. And as the message begins to become whole unto you, you should know that you are maturing because, as a mature spiritual man, you can now begin to grasp, if not the whole thing, at least larger patches of the picture. Thank you, Jesus.

            Can I ask a question? [INAUDIBLE]

Well, you already interrupted me, but, generally speaking, I do not like to stop, but you did pick a good spot at the end of this segment. I just would ask -- I do not like to make it a habit because then everybody does it, and I lose the flow, OK.

            You lost me. That is the only reason I am asking you a question.

OK.

            You mean our only -- how did you say that. You s- -- it was the last thing you said, that the only thing that we are getting out of this is that we are going to be persecuted for the rest of our lives? That does not --

No.

            -- sound very good.

No. I said that you rec- -- for every me- -- everything that you lose because you lay down your soul life, it will be restored in this lifetime a hundredfold: lands, children, relationships. Everything that you lose, you just lose it for a season, and it will be restored unto you, but the persecution will still be there. Well, what -- it all depends on your definition of persecution. It sounds like you are having a problem with your definition of persecution. What it means is that Satan will still be present, trying to steal it from you, and you will still have to fight him off. And you will still be in a war where Satan will be trying to tear you down out of Christ, both from within yourself and from the minds of other people because, when you are in the service of Christ, he is sending you to carnal people who desperately need to be delivered but who do not recognize who you are and who try to kill you as you try to help them. So that is the kind of persecution; it is a spiritual persecution. OK. Did that help?

            Mm-hmm.

OK.

            [INAUDIBLE]

Well, it is good that you asked the question because our carnal minds -- it is bad enough what we have to go through we have to go through, but we do not need our carnal minds making it any worse than it is, and the persecution does not mean you are going to be physically tortured on a rack or hanging on a cross. But there is trouble wherever Christ is appearing until the creation is converted, and, of course, the persecutions just last until the entire creation is converted into Christ. And as you stand up in full stature, you will not die anymore, so you will have persecution in this lifetime until the entire creation is converted into Christ; then we shall all lie down in peace, as you will see is the promise at end of Zephaniah 2. We will all lie down in peace, the whole creation; that is the promise. There is an end to the persecution, but it does not stop until everybody is brought in.

            That is really what I am waiting for.

Praise God. Well, it does get better. It gets better, but there will not be any complete peace until th- -- all of humanity is brought in, but I th- -- I do not think the trials get any easier, but we get stronger. I know I have found over the years that the trials are severe, but I am dealing with them better. I have understanding, and I have a closer walk with the Lord, and I am dealing with the persecution in a much more mature manner than I used to. Therefore, the pain of the persecution -- or let me put it to you this way: The persecution has a very diminished ability to hurt me because, as my armor goes up, it does not matter if the same amount of arrows are being shot at me. It does not matter if 25 times the amount of arrows are being shot at me. Once my armor is up, it just really does not matter, and I find that a large part of my armor is my learned ability as to how to deal with the arrows.

This development in me, and I give all the glory to God, of an ability to forgive quickly or to know what to do -- or let me put this next: to recognize unforgiveness in me, to recognize that I have been wounded and the lessons that I have learned that will teach me what to do when I wake up one morning and realize that there is f- -- unforgiveness in my heart. I know what to do, and it -- the -- it goes quickly, and then when I do it, you know, and the increased ability to know what to do and to do it, that the persecutions do not have the extent of negativity on me that they had five years ago. So it really does not matter how much persecution you have when Christ is internalized in you and you are dealing with all that. See, everything is relative in proportion to the maturity of Christ in your own heart.

            Oh, I see.

See? Yeah. Because one of the promises of the Scripture is that we shall be a defensed city; nothing outside shall hurt us. We are going to be hidden behind the mind of Christ and the soul which is alive. We are going to be heavily defensed inside the city, so the fact that the Scripture says the persecution will continue, who cares? Yeah? OK. Anybody else, while we took this break? OK.

Let me just say this at this point, and I always have said, if there is a question that is really -- if it is causing you distress or in any way you feel that it is hindering your ability to go on with your being ministered to by the message, yes, I will break the preaching, but I ask you to do what Tracy did. At least wait to a spot where you -- where I am, like, finishing up, you know, and if you feel that break in the Spirit, try to do that because, if you just interfere and I am in the middle of the flow of the Spirit, it is very distressful to me. So try not to interrupt me, but if you really feel you have to, to go on, it is OK, but please try and take this as an example. It was done very well. OK. Glory to God.

We are in verse 13. “And he will stretch out” -- speaking about Jehovah, “And he will stretch out his hand against the north,” which we just determined is Satan, and what that means is that he is going to take away Satan’s right to judge us by causing us to ascend into the kingdom of God, which has a higher authority than Satan. It is not so much that he is destroying Satan; it is he is taking away his right to judge us by converting us or renewing us into a higher position over which Satan has no authority.

“And he will destroy Assyria.” “Assyria” is Strong's 804. And now first I would like to comment that, in the Hebrew, there is an untranslated word just before the word “destroy.” “Destroy” is Strong's #6, and it means “to disperse.” I was just speaking about that, that this world system is going to disperse, because it may look solid to you, but it is really just a shadow, and it is going to disperse as a shadow flees away when the sun of this world system is covered over. And the sun of this world system is being covered over by whom? By --

            [INAUDIBLE]

No, Christ. The sun of this world system, OK, is Satan, is being covered over by Christ, and it is going to vanish. I lost my train of thought there for some reason. The King -- the Hebrew word is “destroy;” the King James too says “makes to perish.” But other translations for this word, Strong's #6, is “to disperse” or “to vanish,” and I find that the word “vanish” or “disperse” is more appropriate for this world system, since the Scripture teaches us that it is really a shadow. And as we ascend into a higher spiritual place, this world, which is solid and strong enough to jail us if we were to be placed behind a wall made of any of this strong material, that as we ascend in Christ through the renewing of our mind in the Spirit, we will find that walls made out of wood or the objects of this world will not be able to restrain us. We will be able to pass through them, OK. So the appropriate word is “to disperse” or “vanish” with regard to the taking down of this world system.

And that is very interesting because I have had questions in my mind, and you may hear it on some prior messages. I think I have talked about it. I have said to the Lord, when it comes time to change this world into Eden, how will it be done? I understand how our mind is being renewed; I understand how our soul is being made alive; I understand what is happening to these flesh bodies. I believe that this material that our body is made of will be transmuted; it will be broken down into its basic atoms and reformed and made a part of the glorified creation. But I have not been able to understand how the Lord will reform the physical world that we live in, and I have said to the Lord -- because I look out of my window and I see solid trees and solid earth and concrete, and how are you going to do this?

And I believe the Lord just spoke to me, and, as always, when I have a question like that and I get the answer, I realize how immature my question has been, and there is no condemnation in that. You need to know that you are immature at a certain point for you to recognize that you are or have matured, amen? And the Lord just spoke to me, and he -- through this teaching right here, and he said, Sheila, this world is a shadow. You just preached it. The only reason it is real to you is because you are subject to it, and as your mind is renewed and you ascend in Christ -- because in the spirit of your mind you are being made into Christ and this world becomes a shadow to you that is going to flee away at the time that Satan is covered over by Christ. Well, at -- when you are in that spiritual condition, the cement will not be cement unto you, and the solid trees will not be solid trees unto you. When you get up that high, this world will be a shadow unto you, and it is literally going to just vanish as a shadow vanishes.

Because I had visions in my mind of big chunks of concrete, and what is the Lord going to do with it and all that? And that was a -- I realize now, for where I am now, where God has just brought me to, that that was a childish question which can go under the list of ch- -- many childish questions that I have asked. I even have it on a message, that early man, before the flood, had to be in a female form because if man had his wife within him and there was just one physical body, the body would have to be female. How else could reproduction have taken place? And I have that on a message, and God let me preach it, killing my pride. Right after I preached the message, he said to me, Sheila, man’s body does not have to be female in that condition where male and female are one because the method of reproduction is different. When a human being is spiritually mature enough so that their body contains both male and female, the reproduction is in the form of cell division, and the offspring is not weak and beggarly.

Brethren, we are fallen. When a man and a woman reproduce, the baby which is born is totally indefensible; if he is not take care of, he will die. He needs to be fed; he cannot get his own food. He needs to be warmed; he needs to be cared for. He was -- he is totally helpless. The only thing that is operating are his organs are keeping him alive, and he has the ability to take in the food when it is put in his mouth. And if you need any more sign that we are fallen, take this one: Look at the condition that you are born in.

But in the man who is spiritually mature, as men existed before the flood and as Noah, Shem and Japheth were, they were spiritually mature, beings whose wives were within them. The offspring that they brought forth were offspring that functioned from the moment they came forth, and the method of reproduction was not that which we see in these fallen bodies, but it was some form of cell division. I am not really sure what it was, where the new offspring was a fully mature adult. And we do have some examples of it in the animal kingdom. Most, if not all, animals that are newly born can walk. Look at a deer that is born or a horse that is born or a baby lion that is born; they are up on their feet in a very short period of time. They still need their mother, but they are up on their feet. They are certainly not as helpless as a human infant, and, of course, the animals of this world are fallen also. The condition of our infants are merely one more message from the Lord to us as to how fallen we are.

And, brethren, let us get spiritual here today. As the creation is raised up into Christ, whether you are in a female body or a male body, you are going to be called into the family of God; you are going to be called into the responsibilities of a spiritual family. Natural women who have babies spend -- can spend a lifetime or their whole youth raising up their helpless infants. Brethren, as you are called into the higher order of Christ, humanity will, little by little or however God will do it, release human women from this endeavor.

Now in this hour, it is a pleasant thing, and it is a God-given thing, and it is a blessing to have a baby and raise that baby up when you are down here in this realm. But as God begins to elevate the creation and there are -- there will be more and more work for the family of God, however he does it. I do not have all the details. However he does it, the women of humanity will need to be released from the time that is required to raise up helpless infants because the creation is being translated from the death of carnality into the life of the spirit. We must come up out of the activities of this fallen existence.

Now please do not anybody cancel your plans to have a baby because you have heard this message. Do not anyone give up, you know, your desire to get married because you have heard this message. That is not what I am saying. You live your life down here to the fullest extent that God permits you to live it. If you are a young woman, you hope for a husband. If you are a young wife, you hope for a baby unless God comes to you and tells you or specifically indicates to you in some way that he is -- this is your time for elevation and that he is bringing you into his spiritual family activities at the expense of denying you the family activities of this world.

If God comes to you and gives you a personal word that this is what he is doing for you in this existence, then I say unto you do not push against the pricks. If for whatever reason it distresses you, you might say to him once, Father, I would prefer not. Is there any way you can leave me down here? But if he tells you no, do not push against the pricks, but unless you get that specific word from the Lord, you dream and you hope of your marriage and of your family life and of all the good things that are available to you in this world system.

But if you are mature enough spiritually to be hearing this message, you need to know that we are in the midst of a changing of the guard, that the creation is being translated from death unto life and that spiritual family activity and the responsibilities of the members of the spiritual family are radically different than the responsibilities of the members of the soul family. If you are mature enough to hear this message, you need to know this, and you just pray for the Lord’s will in your life and roll with it. And what he gives you, be grateful for and thank him for and bless him for, and if he should take something from you that had been a hope that he has said to you, personally, I am not going to give it to you, ask him to help you to overcome. But do not let your imagination run away; do not assume, because you are hearing this message or because you are in this ministry, that God is denying you anything. Drawing conclusions is an activity of the carnal mind. It will hurt you; it will wound you. There is no reason for it. Do not yield to it.

Trust him who is your creator and obey the Scripture. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and many good things -- and all good things shall be added unto you. And trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to do what is best for you, remembering anything that he might deprive you of, of this world, he will give you a manyfold equivalent of in his Spirit, and trust him. Amen. OK.

So we are on the phrase, “and destroy Assyria.” And he will take away Satan’s right to judge you, and he will destroy Syri- -- Assyria. In the Hebrew, there appears another word before the word “destroy,” and that word is translated “self.” It makes the word “destroy” reflexive. A d- -- a reflexive verb means that whatever action the verb indicates will be carried out upon yourself. If the word is “to wash,” the reflexive form of the wor- -- of the verb “to wash” is “to wash oneself.” If the verb is “to eat” or “to feed,” the reflexive form of that verb is “to feed oneself.” So we see a Hebrew word making the Hebrew word translated “destroy” reflexive, “to destroy oneself.”

And just -- I will just tell you upfront that I believe this phrase is speaking about the image of this world system. That is why I have just been speaking about the image, and what the word is saying is that the image of this world will destroy itself or will be self-dispersed. We are not going to be coming here and carrying away big chunks of cement, but the disappearance of this image, which is this world which is physical and hard to us, OK, will merely vanish as the automatic outgrowth of our spiritual conversion. That is what it is saying. When your mind is renewed in the Spirit, the natural result of that will be that this world will vanish. Jesus. There -- it is not -- the disappearance or the dismantling of this physical world will not require any labor to bring it down. There will not be any bulldozers wrecking it so that Eden can appear. It will merely vanish as we ascend in the Spirit.

And God -- the Lord is giving me a parable for you, a natural example to you. If you have experienced any kind of confinement -- and I will give you my own natural example. You all know that I have been in -- I had an enc- -- an example where I was hospitalized for three months and five days, and that is a long time. And I think anyone familiar with institutionalization would be willing to confess an internment in an hospital of three months and five days is a- -- you have already crossed over the line where you could say you were institutionalized. And I had become very dependent on people taking care of me, making -- for the simplest, basic human needs: making my bed, preparing my food. I d- -- and every other life function, I was taken care of. And I did -- and I am a super independent person. All of my life, from a very small child, I have been a super independent person. And this -- I actually experienced fear at the thought of coming out of the hospital, at the thought of having to just fry myself an egg in the morning or just be alone in this -- I experienced fear, t- -- something totally out of character for me.

So my -- this institution had become my whole life. This one floor, hospital floor, with the nurses’ station and the room that I lived in had become my whole life. My exercise was walking around this circular floor, and the nurses that came on it became my whole life to the same extent that those of us who live in this geographical area, we may have no idea whatsoever what life is like in China. There is a border to our existence; we only can see so far and experience so far. That hospital floor was my whole life, and I experienced anxiety at the thought of coming back to this life, but the day came that I had to leave. I prayed, God help me, and I left that hospital, and I walked back into this apartment, and for all intents and purposes, brethren, that life of confinement vanished. It was no longer my life. It vanished like a shadow. It no longer existed for me.

And I had a similar emotional experience when I went to Nigeria. Nigeria, Africa is very, very different than life in this country. You will find that if you travel to Europe, life in Europe is not so different from life in the United States. As -- if you go to France or England or any of the European powers, they are industrial nations. They have concrete streets and big buildings. It is very similar. The language may be different, but the people look the same. The cultures are very similar, and the physical surroundings are very similar, but not so in Africa. Of course, the people look different. The culture is radically different from European culture, and although there were some big buildings in Lagos, by and large, depending on where you go, it is -- you know, and, of course, the streets are cemented, but it is a radically different culture than Western culture. And I thought -- I felt like I had died to Western culture. I wish I had better words to describe this experience to you, but Western culture, for me, for five weeks, ceased to exist. It vanished; it disappeared like a shadow. And if the L- -- f- -- if the Lord had so arranged it that I would have never come back to the Unites States, for all intents and purposes for me, the Unites States and Western culture would have vanished like a shadow.

So, you see, everything is your experience. The two examples that I just gave you were a result of my physical body being removed from a particular location. But as we are renewed in the spirit of our mind, it is our mind which is being displaced. And as our mind ascends into another place, this world will disappear unto us as surely as these two examples that I just gave you, as Nigeria and the hospital floor became totally irrelevant to me.

And I had also asked the Lord what -- how will this world disappear? Will we have to wait for every human being on the face of the earth to be renewed in the spirit of their mind before the solid substance of this world is broken up? And that was another childish question which the Lord just answered a couple of weeks ago. No, brethren. This solid world will remain so long as there is one human being on the face of the earth who is still abiding in the death of their carnal mind. But, individually, one by one, as we are renewed in the spirit of our mind and ascend into Christ, we will be able to be standing right next to another human being for whom this solid world will be as real as it is to us today, but we shall be free of it. What does that mean? We shall have dominion over it. We shall be able to pass through the walls. There will be no solid substance that can restrict us. There will be no law of this world system. The law of gravity will have no power over us. If we should get hit by a car, it will not be able to kill us. This world will not be real unto us. If you can hear it, hear it.

And to be honest with you, I do not really have -- I believe I do not have a complete concept of what I just told you, of a human being whose mind is displaced fully into the kingdom of God, such as Jesus of Nazareth, OK, standing next to a human being like you or me whose mind is still down here in death. I do not really know, in every way, how Jesus perceived this world, but we do know that he communicated with the people who were down here, that he spoke their language, that he ate with them, that he had mercy on them, that he could hear them and understand them. But we also know that he had power to supernaturally provide food for them. We know that he had authority over their flesh bodies, that he could heal it and create organs that they were born without. We know that, when men tried to kill him, he disappeared from the midst of them. We know that, of course, after the second stage of the resurrection, he had the power to, by the flick of his finger, restore the guard’s ear that was cut off. We know that he had power over this world.

And what would be power over this world? He had the power to reverse the death of this world because this world is death, so he had the power to reverse lack of food. He had the power to reverse infirmity. He had the power to reverse the death of demons. He had the power to reverse an accident of a limb being cut off. If it -- in that case, it was not inc- -- an accident, but it could be an accident. He had the power to disappear from the midst of violent men without the necessity of harming them. He had the power to walk on water. He had the power to heal a deranged, mental demoniac with a word that came out of his mouth. He had the power to rearrange the fallen moral order of an adulterous woman’s heart so that she had the power to lead a righteous life, all with a thought of his mind and/or a word out of his mouth. He had the power to raise Lath- -- Lazarus from the dead.

And those of you who have been here for a while might recall we discovered in the Scripture that Lazarus was raised from the dead not only physically, but spiritually. He came up out of that tomb in full stature. He had power over every negative aspect of this world, yet he walked in it. He talked to the inmates of it, but he was not overcome by it. Excuse me. He was not overcome by the evil of this world, brethren, but he overcame the evil of this world by the good works of the Christ in his -- in him, but do not forget he did nothing except that which his Father instructed him to do, so it will be something like that. Hallelujah.

Some brethren came to him and said you must rest; you will kill yourself. And he said, “I have meat that you” -- or you must eat they told him. He said, “I have meat that you know not of.” I honestly do not know whether or not he required food. I honestly do not know whether or not he required rest. I know that he slept because he was sleeping in the bottom of the ship. I know that he ate because we are told that he ate, but whether or not he needed it is another story. He may have engaged in those activities so as to partake of the existence of the inmates of Hell whom he was trying to minister to. Oh, I am -- I th- -- I just got excited. Praise God. Hallelujah.

And also we know, when he walked on the water, h- -- that he exercised or demonstrated an ability to change his physical form because, if you recall the teaching, the reason the sailors on the ship became afraid was, when they looked out and they saw him walking on the water, he looked like a ghost. What does that mean? They could see through him, so his physical form was no longer in the form of a natural, fallen human being. His very appearance changed, so he had the power to convert his own physical flesh. I do not know whether he had the power to do it permanently or not because he did not do it permanently, but he at least had the power to temporarily convert his fallen flesh into a form which defied the laws of gravity.

So that means, in this world system, because his mind was displaced, he had authority over this body to do whatever he needed to do with it that would enable him to defy or break the natural, physical laws of this world. He had full authority over the natural, physical laws of this world. Nevertheless, he abode in a body which appeared like the bodies of the b- -- of the inmates of this world system, and he related to them on their level. Wow. But this world was not real to him. It was not a jail to him. It was impossible for him to be trapped under a landslide; it was impossible for him to fall in the water and drown; it was pos- -- impossible for a flood to cause him to stress or wreck his living quarters or, in any way, interrupt the meeting of his human needs, if he had any, I do not even know. No earthquake, no tornado, no flood, no famine, no political unrest had dominion over him; yet when he walked down the street, he looked like everybody else. And he talked to many people, and he looked, and he sounded like an inmate of this world system, and they did not know that his mind was displaced into a higher spiritual realm until he healed them or fed them or delivered them or walked on the water.

It was his activity that identified him as a different kind of man. He looked the same, sounded the same. He even talked on their level. How do I know? He had dinner with the tax collector. So it was the things that he spoke, the doctrine and the teaching and the wisdom that came out of his mouth, and the works of his hands that identified him as a supernatural man. It was not his appearance; it was not the condition of his birth; and I do not believe it was the sound of his voice, on the occasions that he met people on their own level. So when you look for Christ, brethren, be careful that you do not stumble at the appearance of a man and that you do not stumble at his human side, but look for the signs of spiritual life. Wow, [?God?], the anointing. It is an incredible message. Jesus.

Well, I am going to -- if -- everybody seems to be OK. I think I am going to finish out verse 13, and then we will break, OK. This is awesome, awesome message this morning.

So we are now working on the Hebrew word translated “Assyria” in the phrase, “and destroy Assyria,” in Zephaniah 2:13. I do not really -- I cannot really tell you why, but Gesenius, the writer of the Hebrew lexicon that we use, lists Strong's numbers 838 and 839 immediately before 804. Now the spelling, the Hebrew spelling, falls right in sequence. Why Strong's gave those words identified by numbers 838 and 839, numbers so many digits ahead of #804 when the spelling does not fall in line there, I really do not know. But what I am telling you, for the purposes of this message, is that, in Gesenius lexicon, he has moved Strong's numbers 838 and 839 to appear just before Strong's #804, and my observation of the Hebrew spelling seems to justify what Gesenius did. Why Strong's had a different format, I really do not know.

The spelling -- when I compared the Hebrew letters of Strong's 838 and thir- -- 838 and 839 have the same, exact spelling, OK, and this word means -- the English translation of Strong's 838 and 839 is “step” or “footstep,” or in Job twent- -- as in Job 23:11, the implication is “footprint,” although the King James says “footsteps.” If you read the context, it is speaking about the footprints of God. Now these two words, 838 and 839, are spelled exactly as 804, which is translated “Assyria,” except for one vowel. In English, the equivalent would be is it a long a or a short a. A long a -- I am not too good at this myself. I th- -- believe a long a would be maintain. A long a is an a that sounds like a, maintain or may I, and a short a would be machine. It is the same letter, just a different little intonation on the vowel. That is the only difference between the Hebrew word translated “Assyria” and the preceding word which means “footstep” or “footprint of God.”

And I cannot tell you that the Hebrew translators changed the vowel, or I do not know what happened, but I believe that, in my spirit and in the context of the whole verse 13 and in the context of the whole chapter of Zephaniah 2, the Lord is telling me that the hidden spiritual meaning of the Hebrew word translated “Assyria” is the -- is “footstep.” And, of course, as we have discussed here, the prophets are translated on several levels, and they truly are translated on a carnal level, and in that event, “Assyria” is the correct translation. But for our spiritual translation of the hidden manner, we are going to take the word “footstep.” The footstep or the footprint is going to self-destruct. Now a footstep is an inverse image of a foot. Let me put this on the board for you. D- -- could you press pause while I erase this board, please, Celia? [AUDIO CUTS OUT]

OK. We take a footprint -- I know you artists love this. You love the way I draw, OK. So we have some -- excuse me, some clay that this [?under the?] -- all right, laugh at me, OK.

            [CROSSTALK]

OK. I will put some toes on there. Does that help any?

            Yes.

OK. So we have a foot stepping on some soft clay, and the result of that foot stepping on that soft clay is that we see an inverse print. The foot goes down into the clay, and when we remove the foot, we have an area of clay which looks in the shape of the foot, but it is concave; it goes down, OK. Convex -- this is convex, and this is concave. Cave -- think of cave. It goes in; it is empty; it is negative. So when the foot is removed, we have an impression in the clay that is almost like a hole, if you want to -- if you need that to understand. It is in the form of the foot. It is something that goes down, and an empty space is created.

And, brethren, if you can hear this example, this is the world that we live in. We are living -- well, we have already taught here that we are living in a black hole in a pit that is filled with water, and this is just another way of expressing our condition. We are the reverse image of the footprint of God. God is the reality. The substance, the form, though it be invisible, is in the Spirit. We are merely that empty space that has been punched out because God has stepped in the clay, and this whole world -- I -- well, I should not be saying we. I am talking about the image of this world system right now. We are down here in the pit in an -- in a hole that has been formed, and it is in the exact mirror image of the shape of God. This world that we live in, it is the exact mirror image of the shape of God. It is negative. That which is of God’s Spirit is positive. We are the reflection. We are an image. We are a shadow which is in the shape of that which is real.

And, once again, the other example that we have is the mirror image. When we fallen human beings look in the mirror, we see an image that looks like us, but that is because we are on a low spiritual realm. If you hold up a book in front of a mirror, it becomes obvious that the mirror image is not exactly the same. You can see the print is backwards. And this is a great mystery, brethren, but when spirit looks in a mirror, he sees us. When invisible spirit stands in front of a mirror, well, if that spirit is Satan, a fallen man appears. We are the mirror image of spirit. When the glorified Christ stands in front of a mirror, I guess, the glorified Jesus appears, OK.

So the whole point I am getting at is that this world system that we live in, it is concave. It is an -- it is just a footprint of God. It is the reverse image, and it has no real substance to it at all. It is just a picture that is being revealed through soft clay, and the only reality is the spirit which has formed the footprint. So we see in this phrase, “Assyria” -- “and destroy Assyria,” we see that we are translating “Assyria,” “the footprint,” “an inverse image” or “the soul world,” OK. We are talking about this world, so we see that the image shall be dispersed or the image shall self-destruct. So we are translating the phrase, “and destroy Assyria,” “and this world system, which is Satan’s image, shall self-destruct,” or, “shall disperse herself,” or, “shall vanish when the one whose image she is vanishes.” When the son of this world system, which is Satan, is covered over by the sackcloth of Christ and Satan vanishes, the image of Satan too shall vanish.

I guess, I did not really show you that correctly on the board. I talked about the foot being removed the image remaining. The Lord just corrected me. The implication is that Satan’s footprint is resting in the clay of this creation. The foot has not been removed. We are in the condition we are in because Satan is standing in the clay, and this world looks like it looks because we are the image of Satan’s foot, OK. When Satan is covered over by Christ, his foot will be lifted up out of the clay, and the world as we know it shall disappear, and the foot of Christ shall be resting on the clay, and this world -- and this image will be the image of Christ. Did I make that correction? Is that OK? Everybody -- you know what I am talking about? OK. Rita, did I make that clear?

            Mm-hmm.

OK.

Alternate Translation, the first half of Zephaniah 2:13, “And Jehovah will turn away Satan’s authority, and this world system shall vanish.”

Continuing with the second half of Zephaniah 2:13.

Do you want me to stop here? How does everybody vote? You want me to finish the verse? Is everybody OK?

            [INAUDIBLE]

OK.

Continuing with the second half of Zephaniah 2:13, “And Jehovah will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness.” [AUDIO CUTS OUT]

            [?Let us see?]. This is just some different things that you said this morning that made me think of some questions, and I do not know if it directly relates to this message.

OK.

            So is it OK if I [?ask them?]?

Mm-hmm.

            OK. You were talking about Lazarus being raised from the dead, and I have a question about the -- you have said before that the mind -- because Christ’s mind was alive, Jesus’ mind was alive, that is the reason the Father raised him from the dead. What -- first of all, I would like to know what is the difference between that, you saying that and the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead that you say is the Spirit of Christ?

Yes.

            What is the difference between Jesus’ mind being alive and the Spirit of Christ? Because the Scripture says that Spirit raised him from the dead, and you are saying his mind was alive, and that is why he was raised from the dead. So my question is what is the difference between the Spirit of Christ and the mind that is -- that raised Jesus from the dead?

As I understand your question, the answer I would have right now is that the Spirit of Christ goes through a series of stages before it is fully mature. And we have the immature manifestation of the imparted anointing, which is the engrafted word, and the Spirit of Christ is present but not yet strong enough to raise one from the dead. Does that answer your question?

            So the Spirit of Christ was matured enough to raise him from the dead?

Yes.

            And that also means that it made his mind alive.

Yes.

            OK.

Yes. And the raising from the dead, I believe, would -- is of the -- and that Spirit that raised Christ from the dead shall quicken your mortal body, right. The Spirit of Christ was mature enough to th- -- OK, I have it. The raising of the dead is a simultaneous experience with the paralyzation of the carnal mind. We are not fully raised from the dead until the carnal mind ceases to function.

            [INAUDIBLE]

Can you hear that? In the same way that I preach --

            So [?it is?] full stature.

-- that -- full stature, right. In the same way that I preach that the immature Christ -- that the carnal mind did not kill the creation until that carnal mind killed the immature mind of Christ. So the raising from the dead is the beheading of the soul; it is the cutting off of the carnal mind and the mind of Christ sitting down on the throne of the soul and being attached to it. That is the raising from the dead. So we can have a k- -- the kingdom of God in us. We can have the mind of Christ and the Spirit of Christ in the mind of Christ, but so long as the carnal mind is still the sitting queen, sitting in possession of our soul, we are still dead.

            OK. So at what point in Jesus’ life was this carnal mind or sitting queen beheaded off of him?

I believe it was at the point of victory in the event that we know of as the temptation, when he prevailed over his carnal mind, and the Scripture says, “And Satan departed from him for a season.” I would be interested in looking that word “departed” up with this new thought in mind. It seems to me, in the spirit right now, that the Lord is saying that, at that point of victory, Satan was -- the carnal mind was beheaded off the man Jesus of Nazareth, and Christ sat down as the sitting king.

            So is this the point where we can say that he was raised out from the dead while still in the body?

No, I do not believe so. To be fully born again, we have to be raised up out of this whole world system, including the body.

            But his mi- -- we can say that hi- -- at that point, his mind was alive.

His mind was alive, but I thought you were referring to the Scripture that said Jesus is the first begotten from the dead, if that is your -- although --

            I was thinking raised out from the dead while still in the body. I thought that meant that he -- his body was now preserved and that it could not die unless he laid down his life.

Well, that is true. The resurrection of the dead is in three stages, so that was the first stage, and it was true. H- -- that is true. His body was preserved, and it could not die. But the full resurrection of the dead is deliverance from this body that was now preserved.

            But he was raised up from the dead while still in this body?

Yes.

            So his mind was alive.

His mind was alive. Let me just say it again, please. His resurrection from the dead was in three stages, so he was raised from the dead while still in the body, OK, and then his soul was quickened. But the ultimate resurrection of the dead was the transmutation of this body, which is a prison house, and his full deliverance and his maturation into a point where he could live without this body. That is the complete resurrection of the dead, but the Scripture does say that, if that Spirit which raised Christ from the dead dwells in you -- to be honest with you, I am a little tired. I do not know whether I would know the answer wa- -- if I was not this tired or not, but what I can tell you at this point, whether that Scripture, that that Spirit which raised from the dead dwells in you will quicken your mortal body, I am not sure whether it is speaking about Jesus in full stature or Jesus in glorification. Right now, at this moment, I do not have the answer for you except to say that the resurrection is in three stages, and at the completion of the first stage, which is full stature, that Jesus was -- had a mind which was alive.

            OK.

OK.

            Well, that is why I wanted to know if it was -- if that Spirit of Christ and that mind of Christ is the same thing.

Yes. The question is whether or not it is sitting in possession of your soul. That is the cutoff point that we can answer the question at what point is your mind alive, OK, and that expression, at what point is your mind alive, the -- our true mind is the mind which is sitting in possession of our soul. In this hour, our true mind is the carnal mind, and we have another mind standing in the eaves getting ready to take over the kingdom, but the mind that is keeping us in existence in this world is not Christ. It is the carnal mind that gives us existence. We are living by the blood that flows through this fallen body at this point, and therefore our mind is not alive.

            So at the point of the overcoming of temptation, where he told Satan, for the last time, to depart from him, he now had a mind that was alive.

Yes. And at -- his soul -- let us make it clearer, OK. At the point that Satan departed from Jesus, the mind of Christ sat down in full possession of his soul, and now we could say that his soul had a mind which was alive. So long as the carnal mind is the mind that is sitting in possession of the soul, we must say that our mind is dead, but it is that union. It is that point at which a mind is joined to and possessing our soul; that is the point at which we could say our mind is either alive or dead, depending on the condition of the mind which is sitting in possession of our soul.

            OK. If the -- huh. If the angels are human spirits that are born in Christ, then who were those angels that came and comforted Jesus right after he told Satan to depart?

That is a good question. I have not studied it in the Greek, so I really would rather not say anything, but I will see if the Lord will -- if I have time to look it up, I will see what the Scripture says. And, of course, I have some ideas in my mind, but I really do not -- let  me give you what idea is in my mind; I do not know whether it is accurate or not. I better not, but as the Lord gives me time, I definitely would like to know the answer to that myself.

            So then it was the mind of Christ then that also raised Lazarus from the dead.

Oh, excuse me. This is what is coming to me in the spirit, is that the angel -- I do not know whether it is truly plural in the Greek or not, but the angel which was Christ ministered to the man Jesus who was going through this severe trial. That is what just came into my mind, but I will check it out further, but it is a good question. I should look it up, and we should have it on a message somewhere.

            What about the Scripture that says, if it was his Christ, one angel at the time of -- where he said -- where it says he could have called thousands of angels, who are they?

I do not know. I will have to check that out for you too.

            Because that indicates plural to me.

Uh-huh. Well --

            [CROSSTALK]

-- at the time --

            -- unless if they, [?you know?] --

Yeah.

            -- mistranslated that also.

Yeah. At the time, there were angels in Israel, OK. The angel is Christ, not necessarily an imparted Christ, but the formation of Christ, and there were angels in I- -- natural Israel. The mind of Christ was present in Israel.

            Oh, so you are talking about, again, the mind of Christ in human vessels?

Yes.

            That is what you are talking about.

Well, I think so. I would have to look at it in the Greek, but that is what I am saying right now, yes.

            So it was the mind of Christ that raised Jesus -- that raised Lazarus’ body from the dead also?

It was -- it -- I believe it was Christ Jesus, yes, that it was not the Lord Jesus Christ, but it was Christ Jesus. It was the man Jesus who was Christ that raised Lazarus from the dead, and the reason that the -- what I base that on is that -- is my belief that, if Jesus had saved himself off of the cross as he was challenged to do by some profane men, then he could have raised himself [UNINTELLIGIBLE] -- could have raised his body from the dead in the same condition that it was in when it was killed. He could have raised himself up to be Christ Jesus in a fallen body, but it took a higher authority than him, the authority of the Father, to raise Jesus who was Christ into a glorified condition.

            That is what I was thinking, you know. His mind had to be alive before the circumcision [CROSSTALK]

Mm-hmm.

            -- because he raised Lazarus from the dead [CROSSTALK]

Mm-hmm, yes.

            If it was the mind of Christ that actually raises the body from the dead --

Yeah.

            -- then his mind would have to be alive. I was going to ask you too, do you think maybe the form that they s- -- that walked on the water, that they did not know it was Jesus, that if they saw something that looked like a ghost, was it a possibility that, at that point, that was another time when the Spirit of Christ pressed through his natural body and forced the body within?   

Was there another time? Is that what you are asking me?

            Well, that is what we understand the transfiguration to be, right?

Right.

            That his Spirit came on the outside and wrapped around him and forced the human body within the realm of the spirit --

Right.

            -- for a temporary time. So I think you have even said this, that he somehow took authority over the human body, forced it within when he walked on the water. So I am thinking, well, maybe there is an a- -- there is a second time that he did it.

Well --

            [CROSSTALK]

-- the two times -- the mount of transfiguration and when he walked on the water, those are the two witnesses that I know of.

            OK. So you are saying that he did that a second time. On -- when he walked on the water, he did the same thing.

Mm-hmm.

            Does it indicate in the Scriptures at all that he was, like, shining white or anything? [INAUDIBLE] it just says a ghost.

It says you look like a ghost, yeah.

            Yeah. The transfiguration sho- -- it sa- -- speaks about that he was like a  shining, bright light [CROSSTALK]

Yeah.

            So what was the reason that he showed them that? What was the purpose of -- in --

Of the transfiguration?

            Yeah.

I believe he was instructing them in multiple incarnations, and they fell asleep.

            Not during the transfiguration, did they?

Oh, sure.

            Yes.

Yeah.

            Oh, did they?

Yeah. They could not bear it, yeah. OK. And did I answer that question? Before you go on to the next one, I believe the Lord is telling me, with regard to your question on the angels, with Jesus saying to Pilate, if I wanted to, I could call many angels, again, Jesus was saying that the mind of Christ was formed in the faithful in Israel. And what he was saying was that he had the power to raise up Christ in a many-membered human company, if he wanted to, and have them physically attack Pilate. Now let me remind you that this is --

            [CROSSTALK]

Physically attack the secular authority in Rome. Now let me remind you that this is what the Jews wanted. The reason that Israel rejected Jesus as Messiah, the primary reason was that the powers that existed in Israel were looking for a spiritual leader who would raise up a human army that was influenced or anointed by the power of God, which had been demonstrated, excuse me, in the Hebrew armies that attack Jericho. And these powers that existed in Israel wanted this supernatural or this human army that was influenced by supernatural forces to defeat Rome in a natural, military action. That is what they were looking for, a duplication of the kind of military authority that was demonstrated when Israel invaded Canaan. So when Jesus said to Pilate, if I wanted to -- [AUDIO CUTS OUT]

Well, you see, everything that Jesus said, Jesu- -- everything that he said, he had a thought behind. No matter how harmless it sounded, he never just talked out of the air, and when Jesus spoke, he always spoke to a multiplicity of people. He was not just speaking about to Pilate; he was also speaking to the Jews that were k- -- that were yelling to Pilate, you know, kill him, crucify him. That is what they were yelling, and Jesus was saying, you know, if I wanted to, I could raise up the kind of army that the Jews want. I could raise up the mind of Christ in a secular, carnal army, and I could have them invade Rome, and I could have them defeat you, if I wanted to, but my Father in heaven is doing a new thing in this hour. So he was speaking both to Pilate and to Israel, and in context with your question, he was saying angels that he could raise up would be human men, influenced and protected by an internalized but mature -- internalized and mature Ch- --

[AUDIO CUTS OUT] and he [AUDIO CUTS OUT] in the account of the temptation where it says, “And the angel ministers to him,” there are two possibilities there, and, first -- the first possibility is that the word “angel” is singular, but the Greek d- -- the King James translators translated it plural because it does not really make much sense to the carnal mind to say, “And the angel comforted him,” OK. Another possibility is that the faithful in Israel were raised up to pray for him, and it -- when it is Christ in you, it is an angel. They were raised up to pray for him. Remember, there were Jews all around when Jesus was baptized. God could raise up anybody that he wanted to, to pray for Jesus.

And let me remind you that I know we have talked about it in these meetings; I just heard the message about incidents where people have witnessed a supernatural appearance of a believer and that that supernatural appearance has resulted in their salvation o- -- not -- their reconciliation unto God. And after this experience, they would go to the person and say how did you supernaturally appear on the seat in the car next to me? And the minister who appeared said to the -- this happened in the Middle East; I just heard it on a recent message. And the minister that had appeared supernaturally on the seat of this Muslim’s car said to him, “I do not know what you are talking about. I was in my study the whole time. I -- there was no way I supernaturally appeared on the seat of your car.”

And in that message, we talked about the reality that Christ, who is dwelling in any man, has the power to vibrate forth out of that man and do any work for the Father that he chooses to do. So we see that this minister in the Middle East had an imputed Christ who, at his own will, not at the minister’s will, but at the Christ’s will rose up and vibrated forth out of the minister, appeared on the -- supernaturally appeared on the seat of the car of this Muslim who was pulling all kinds of political strings to shut down this minister and that that supernatural appearance of what looked like -- it did not even look like a ghost. It looked like the actual minister, resulted in the repentance of that antagonistic Muslim minister. And the man in whom that angel was dwelling was not even aware that it happened, so when the -- going back to Jesus and the phrase that says, “And the angels ministered to him,” OK, one possibility, the word is singular, and it meant that the Christ within ministered to the man Jesus.

Another possibility is that the Christ in Jesus had the power to stir up any support or strength he needed from the Christ which was existing in the Jews who were watching this baptismal experience, who were present when it happened to Jesus, OK, and received strength from them in that instance, and I think this is what the Lord said. I would be interested to see whether the word is singular or plural though, but I believe firmly, until God shows me otherwise, that the angels are the manifestation of Christ in human beings who are existing in this world system and that the Lord has full control over every manifestation of Christ in any human being in this world where he exists, that the Lord can go to any human being and tap upon the spiritual resources of that manifestation of Christ, call it out of the flesh, use it, h- -- use him in any way that he wants to.

And even more so than that, there is not a doubt in my mind that the Lord Jesus Christ has the authority to go to a total heathen unbeliever, someone who is totally hostile to Christ, and, by his own authority, join with that man’s -- well, excuse me, I left a step out. Wound that man’s carnal mind and join with his human spirit and raise up Christ in the greatest, most vocal, most dangerous enemy of Christians in the world. I ha- -- and let me give you a Scripture on it. Anybody know the Scripture?

            [INAUDIBLE]

What?

            Paul [INAUDIBLE]

Well --

            [INAUDIBLE]

Yeah. Well, Paul -- Phillip was not an enemy of God. Paul was an enemy of God in the --

            I am sorry. What is the question again?

OK. I made a statement that I believe the Lord Jesus Christ has the authority, the spiritual authority, to go to the most reprobate, fallen human being on the face of the earth, someone who is both verbally and actively against Christ, killing Christians, and that the Lord Jesus Christ has the authority to go to that man, wound his carnal mind, join with his human spirit and raise up Christ in him, completely against his will. Now Celia gave the example of Paul, where it was a permanent change, OK. What -- and that is absolutely true. What I had in mind, which would be even more shocking, at least to my way of thinking, which would be more shocking, would be for God to do that temporarily to a man, just to show the w- -- and then let the man go back to being his reprobate heathen, OK. And the person that I had in mind was Balaam.

            [INAUDIBLE]

Balaam, who was willing to curse Israel for the sake of filthy lucre, and every time he opened his mouth and tried to curse Israel, blessings came out of his mouth.

            [INAUDIBLE]

So God had the power to do that, and, also, another example that we found in our studies, in the study we did -- more specifically in the study that we did on Elijah, we found out that Elijah was the prophet who was sent to backslidden Israel who were worshipping idols. And if you worship an idol, words that would indicate the worship of idols must be coming out of your mouth. We found Israel in a backslidden condition. They were very pleased to be worshipping Baal, as far as I am concerned from my studies. And we found that, at the beginning of that series of studies, when Elijah came and sa- -- and challenged Israel, nobody said a word. Je- -- Elijah said, which -- show which god you will serve, and nobody in Israel said a word.

But as we went down the verses in that chapter of 1 Kings, I think it was chapter 18, we find, further along the line, Israel begins to respond to the ministry of Elijah, and they are saying, yes, the Lord God of Israel, Jehovah, he is God; he is righteous. Well, what happened to them? I suggest to you that the reason they were silent was because they did not want to respond to Elijah, and we found in another place, in fact, they tried to kill him with their mind because he was exposing their sins. But just a few verses down, they are saying, yea, Jehovah, he is God. What happened to them? In that series, I suggested to you that the Christ in Elijah was so powerful that he wounded their carnal minds and that he formed a temporary manifestation of Christ in all of those wicked men who were very pleased to be serving Baal and that the reason that Christ did that was that Elijah needed help in killing all the prophets of Baal.

And after all these men who were worshippers of Baal killed their own prophets because a mature, warrior manifestation of Christ wounded their carnal mind and conscripted them into his own army, that that warrior manifestation of Christ released them, and they went back to everything that they were. How do I know that? Why would I say such a thing? Why would I even suggest to you that these men of Israel went back to everything that they were? Because when you go forward into the Second Book of Kings, you find out that Israel is still so reprobate that God had to send Jehu and Hazael and Elijah to pronounce judgment upon and destroy all the Baal worshippers in Israel. That is how I could say that; I read the next book. OK. Anything else on this particular issue? No. You have a question, Mr. Santiago?

            [?I do?]. The -- you know how I was telling you on the phone about where I was reading about where Jesus had gotten stoned?

Mm-hmm.

            Do you recall that? Well, this is what I wanted to clear up for my own mind, if you could help me with this. They talk about it is written in your own law that God said you are gods, but it does not tell me what people that they are talking about [?on these passengers?] of gods because I did not know that it was written in the law of God that you could be a god, something like what you just mentioned about Jehovah, right? So in the 34th through the 36th verse, it talks about this, but it does not really go into -- it would leave a person like myself like what are they talking about because if you read on in John 10, it does not really -- it talks about believing in the Father and --

What Jesus is speaking about is the word of God, and one of the Psalms says, speaking to Israel, “Ye are gods, but you shall die like men.” Ye to whom the word of God is given, ye are gods. [AUDIO CUTS OUT]

The wheels are going? OK. The Lord is saying, first of all, this, that a spiritual man is of a different order than a soul man in the same order that humanity is a higher order than the animal kingdom. To the animal kingdom, dogs, cats, lions, tigers, elephants, we are gods. Man, hu- -- fallen man is a god. We have utterly defeated them. The jungles are all wiped out. We have beat the whole animal kingdom. In the same manner, he who is a spiritual man is a god unto he who is a soul man, tha- -- which means the soul man has no weapon that can defeat the spiritual man, but that the soul man will surely come into submission to the spiritual man as he appears upon the earth.

And now the Lord starts to define what makes you a spiritual man, and the Lord says to Israel, that which makes you a spiritual man and a god unto the rest of humanity is the word of God. He says -- he is saying there is power in the word of God, that when the word of God was given to Israel, you received power. If you d- -- if you lent yourself to the word that you were given, if you obey the commandments, if you immersed in your mind in it, the po- -- there is a potential in that word to convert your mind into a condition that would make you a spiritual man. And, therefore, we are told in the New Testament -- or is it the Old Testament? -- “No weapon formed against you shall prosper.” Is that the Old Testament or the New -- that is in the New Testament, OK. “No weapon formed against you shall prosper,” you whose mind has become mixed together with the spiritual power that is in the word of God.

So the Lord said to the Jews, ye are gods, to whom the word of God has been given. I have given you a weapon, that if you use it properly, will make you or cause you to ascend into a condition of godhood in relationship to your fellow man, but you are going to die like men. Why? Because you did not use it. Because I gave you the word, and instead of receiving the spirit of the word and mixing it together with your own spirit and ascending, instead of doing that, you fell into a religious law that put your fellow man in bondage, and you were never raised from the dead. You stayed dead. You misused the word of God, and therefore I still consider you gods because I gave you the word, but because you did not do what you were to do, you will die like men. It never became a reality for you. Did I answer your question?

So let me add this on. In the same manner, in this hour, the church has been offered the same contract by the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, let me correct that. Some Pharisee will get me on that. We have not been offered the same word-by-word contract that Jesus gave to Israel, but we have been offered the same deal, new contract. If you know anything about business, a businessman comes. He makes a deal with a contractor. The lawyer writes up the contract, and the deal falls through. So the businessman goes to another contractor, and he writes up or has his lawyer write up a new contract which accurately refe- -- reflects the specific deal that the businessman made with the new contractor. It is the same principle. The businessman wants the same work accomplished, and so -- and it is the same basic exchange, money in exchange for services, but, nevertheless, each contractor gets his own specific contract based on the conditions of the parties.

So we see Jehovah coming to the church today, offering the same deal to the church that he offered to Israel, although we have our own contract, and the terms are a little different, but the end result of the contract is the same. And what is the contract? The Lord Jesus Christ is a businessman who fully intends to raise this dead soul out from death; he intends to raise us from the dead, and he needs workmen to do it. He is looking for a contractor to do the work. He needs human beings; he needs human bodies. Why? Because he decided this is how he wants to do it; that is why. He needs people; he needs minds; he needs personalities; he needs whole person.

And God goes to groups of people. He says it was not completed; the work was not completed in Israel. I am now coming to the church. You have got your own contract, but I am looking for men through whom or in whom I will place my mind. First, I am going to give you the word of God. That is what he said to Israel. I am going to place my mind in you. He did that to Israel. And I am going to manifest through you to raise this creation from the dead. The rules are a little different, but I am giving you the same deal, the same assignment, that I gave to Israel.

And we see in the church today, certain areas of the church responding like Israel responded. They are laying hold of this word, and instead of using it to enter into their heart are raise them up into a new order spiritual man, which will make them gods unto humanity, they have laid hold of this word, and they have used it as a weapon against their fellow man. They have used the letter of it as a -- in the form of a religious spirit, to kill men instead of make them alive.

And we see Jesus saying to a group of people in the Scripture -- he says to him -- he is warning them the day is going to come that this door to the spirit is going to open. There is a door opening, and when you walk through it, you are going to become a god to this soul realm. And the day is coming that that door is going to open, and there is going to be a whole category of people -- excuse me, after that door opens. It is going to be open for a season, and it is going to close. And Jesus says, after it closes, there is going to be a whole category of people that are going to be banging on my door, saying what happened here. I cast out demons in your name; I healed in your name; I fasted; I tithed; I did all kinds of things. How come I am on the outside of this now closed door and that prostitute and that drug addict and whoever -- what other -- ever other reprobate people you have got in there are on the inside. And Jesus is going to say -- what is he going to say?

            [?I never knew you?].

I never knew you. You read the book, and you read the words, and you repeated them out of your mouth to kill people, but my Spirit never ever touched your spirit. But those people who you hated, my Spirit touched their spirit, so they are on the inside, and you are on the outside.

And another example of that we see in the parable of Jes- -- of a n- -- excuse me, Lazarus and the rich man, and we see Jesus telling the Jews watch out, Israel; watch out, Israel. Watch out, Israel, because in the days to come, the nation of Israel is going to lose its mantle. It is going to lose his mantle as the intercessor or as the priest between Jehovah and humanity, and this mantle is going to the man who, in this hour, is a spiritual beggar. And he enraged the Jews when he gave them that parable because they knew what he meant. You may be reading the Bible and not know what Jesus is talking about when he said that, but the Jews who have been studying the Scriptures for years, they knew what he was talking about. He was telling them that Israel was about to lose its priesthood, and Jesus’ prophecy has certainly come to pass.

The nation of Israel has lost its priesthood. The present-day intercessor between God and fallen humanity is the church. It is the church. Now that does not mean that there are some Jews who do not have a relationship with Jehovah; there are. There are Jews who are studying the word of God day in and day out, and they have a personal with the Lord Jesus Christ. But the nation -- well, they may not know he is the Lord Jesus Christ. They think he is Jehovah, but in this hour, Jehovah and the Lord Jesus Christ are one, OK, so they do not even know who they have got there. But the nation of Israel lost his mantle. He is no longer the high priest, the mediator between God and fallen humanity. Who is the mediator today, the man?

            Christ Jesus.

Christ Jesus is the mediator today between God and fallen humanity, so we see, brethren, this is a great mystery, but all of Israel is not Israel. Everyone that calls himself a Christian is not truly a Christian because the circumcision, brethren, is not of the flesh, but of the spirit, in the heart. So to be truly a Christian, you must have a circumcised heart; Christ must be in your heart. It is not what comes out of your mouth; it is what is in your heart. So all Israel is not Israel; everyone that calls themself [sic] a Christian is not a Christian. That is why many are sick and dying, because they cannot discern --

            [?The?] Spirit.

-- the body of Christ [UNINTELLIGIBLE] the body of Christ. You cannot discern the true body of Christ; you cannot recognize the men in whom Christ is truly manifesting. You go into the big church that it cost $6 million to build with the big cross and the bell and the steeple. You are going to the man with the purple or the black robe. You are going to the preacher that drives the Cadillac, but you are not discerning the man in whom Christ is really manifesting through because that man or that manifestation of Christ must be -- how, discerned?

            [?Spiritually?].

Spiritually discerned, and it does not matter what he is wearing; it does not matter what his human sex is; it does not matter if he eats a bagel in there because he is an hour late that day. It does not matter. Either Christ is in that person, or Christ is not in that person. And if you want to get the benefits of Christ being in a man, you better get your eyes off of this other junk, and I am telling you that is what it is.

Unless something that a -- that man is doing is specifically damaging you personally, you better shut your mouth. And if that person is specifically damaging you, you better shut yourself to that person and go to the person and ask him what to do about it because I do not know about you, but I have too much fear of God to take on somebody that I know Christ is appearing through. You have to be ignorant to do that, and it is only the mercy of God that does not kill you for tormenting his servant. Jesus. How did I get to that? What was I talking about? Body of Christ.

In this hour, brethren, we shall no longer know any man after the --

            [?Body?].

-- flesh, but Christ is spiritually discerned; the body of Christ is spiritually discerned; the provision of Christ is spiritually discerned; the doctrine of Christ is spiritually discerned. And most of the world and most of the church cannot see him, and that is why everybody is sick and dying, not just physically, but spiritually sick and dying. Jesus said to the Pharisees, you think you are something special. You walk around in long robes; you fast publicly; you make a big show of the money that you give. Not that you should not do any of these things, but he says your motive for doing it is that you should make yourself an important one. And he said, inside of you, despite you doing all of these things, inside of you is --

            [INAUDIBLE]

-- dead men’s bones. Christ in you, in the form of your human spirit, is not being quickened. He is as dead as a doornail. Hallelujah. [AUDIO CUTS OUT]

            I just had the -- what the normal church world has, the excitement of Easter morning, supposedly, that excitement that they have. And I used to excited too because --

Is this Easter? Is today Easter? I get --

            [CROSSTALK]

I -- those -- OK.

            It is not, but I --

I missed it two weeks ago.

            -- I woke up with the -- and as I was coming here this morning, with the same excitement, spiritually.

Yeah. Praise the Lord.

            And I think the reason is because of the kind of message that came forth this morning, and something is really glorious, what the Lord is doing here. I do not know. I -- it is just [CROSSTALK]

It is a very special morning, no?

            Really beautiful --

Yeah.

            -- what the Lord is doing.

Yeah.

            And it is just as -- it is just similar to that excitement of resurrection of Christ.

Amen.

            I do not know what that means, but maybe it is --

He is being resurrected.

            -- resurrection day here --

Well --

            -- spiritually.

-- praise God. I hope so.

            You say that, in the circumcision, that the blood is -- of Christ is going outside to the outside of the carnal mind and covering it over like -- and will make a scab to heal the wound.

Yeah.

            And in the natural, when the blood comes out to the outside and makes a scab, it is because, as soon as it hits the air, it dies and dries up, clots and dries up, right? Well, in -- with the body of Christ, it is alive, so I am just trying to thi- -- I mean, to think naturally, that this scabbing is going to take form and stuff, is not -- something is not right with that. It is do- -- because you said everything is the opposite in the spirit realm, so somehow it is going to be alive and be moving. So I am just wondering what it is going to do. When it --

Yeah.

            -- gets to the outside of the carnal mind, it is going to stay alive, and it is going to be moving, [?and it is?] like light, right? Like, w- -- like [CROSSTALK] [?light gel?], you know.

Well, the -- what comes to my mind in response to that is the teaching of what happens to spirit when it pierces through into the soul realm. Does anybody remember? Has anybody read my book? What happens to spirit when it pierces through into this world? It is like an --

            It hardens [CROSSTALK]

It hardens. It becomes hard. And the Spirit of Christ and the blood of Christ, as it pierces through into this world system, is hardening into a crystal sea, which is defensive, OK, so it will be living crystal, OK. Now is this not interesting that, as we see the new age prosper around here, crystals are very big.

            [CROSSTALK]

Yeah.

            Yeah, and very important.

Yeah. Well, they can have all the crystals they want; I want the crystal sea, you know. They can have their crystals. I am not afraid of their crystals. Their crystals do not bother me. Their crystals are a lie, and they are powerless in the shadow of Christ, and I want the crystal sea. I want Christ to pierce through my carnal mind and form his world, form his mind, form his life, form his spiritual armor. And we have a Scripture that speaks about the armor of light, so that is another Scripture that might fit in with this, Rita, that when the blood of Jesus comes, pierces through and penetrates beyond the external border of our carnal mind, it becomes the armor of light.

            [CROSSTALK] harden then.

It will harden, mm-hmm.

            You know, another thing is -- about crystals in the natural is they have a lot of captured energy in them [INAUDIBLE] real crystals.

Amen. I believe that these toy crystals -- that is what I feel led to call them. I believe that these toy crystals are a statement, that they are a type of their real thing, that Christ, in the realm of appearance, or at least one of his manifestations in the realm of appearance, in the visible world, is crystal. And I think the workers of witchcraft can use crystals all that they want. They are just advertising the real thing, and I believe there is stored energy in crystals. And, remember, crystals also direct light, you know. When light is passed through -- is a crystal not -- is a prism not crystal?

            Mm-hmm.

And w- -- so when you pass pure white light through a prism, OK, what happens to it?

            [INAUDIBLE]

It breaks it down into the rainbow, the full spectrum of color. So when our spirit, which is now joined to the Spirit of Christ, pierces through the armor of light, OK, and enters into this visible world, we -- which we are pure white light in the realm of appearance, shall be a manifestation of the many-colored, soulish manifestation of Christ. It is expressed in the Scripture as the glory of God. Christ, in this visible world, is called glory, the Spirit of Christ appearing in this visible, spiritual world, possibly still physical world. It is the glory of God: Christ, which is invisible, in a form which can be seen.

            It talks about, in Revelation, that the 12 foun- -- I think it is in Revelation, the 12 foundations of the [?wall?] -- or the -- of the city, the 12 foundations being transparent. And they are -- I think they are the -- all the colors. Are they all the colors of the rainbow? So that is an -- that is the new soul of Christ, right?

Mm-hmm.

            And it is transparent just like crystals.

But it is hard.

            Yeah.

The crystals -- it is hard; it is formed, but transparent. And everything that needs to get through can get through, but that which cannot get through -- that which is not beneficial will not get through. And in that same chapter of the Book of Revelation, we see that no sin shall be permitted to enter into the city.

            Yeah. So then, once the sin is completely cleansed out of us, we will be transparent, right?

And we are becoming transparent, much to our distress. As all of our sins are being exposed, we are becoming transparent. No matter how darkened we are with sin, we are visible to one in whom the mind of Christ is appearing. Nothing shall be hidden, and as our sin is cleansed, as the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, we become transparent. There is no longer any reason to hide anything. When there is no sin in you, there is no reason to hide your thoughts or to hide your plans or to hide your motives. It is just because of sin in you or sin in other people, and there shall be no secrets. When the -- when it is Christ in all of us, everybody will know what everybody is thinking; everybody will know everybody’s plans. There will not be anything hidden or held back.

            Praise the Lord. [INAUDIBLE]

            [CROSSTALK]

No more misunderstanding each other either. Excuse me.

            You were describing about the porcupine before. Is this similar to the same, that as the crystals in his people, they would become like arrows and be going into the carnal minds above us and bringing them in?

Yeah. Right now -- that is true in principle. Right now, I cannot tell you exactly why. In one Scripture, the armor of light would be described as crystal, and in another Scripture it would be described as a porcupine. But I do know from previous studies that God will use different symbols to describe his armor, excuse me, depending on the point that he is trying to make or the aspect of this war or of humanity that he is emphasizing. But it is basically the same thing, yes. And, of course, we see that principle, of that which a porcupine would represent, in the world today. I do not see it too much around here, but in Nigeria, every house has a big wall, a cement wall built around it, and they have pieces of cut glass put in the cement before it dries, you know. And --

            [INAUDIBLE]

Yeah, to keep people out, or a barbed wire fence, you know, keep people out. That is what the porcupine symbolizes because a porcupine, like every other mammal, underneath his needles is a soft, mammalian, you know, warm-blooded body that can be damaged. If you cut his flesh, he can bleed to death, but he is got all these needles on his exterior which will not let you get close enough to harm him.

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