The Following Message Has Been Transcribed And Edited For

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About, well, actually, 30 years ago, in the ’60s, when the Unites States Supreme Court removed prayer from our schools, this nation took a spiritual turn downward. You see, God will punish individual people for their sins, but, when the government turns against God’s law, the whole nation, even those walking as closely with Christ as they can, suffers. We see the same principle in our natural families: When the father messes up, every member of that family pays the price, everyone under him. Anyone in authority, when they mess up, everyone underneath them feels it and pays the price. So when the Unites States Supreme Court took prayer out of our schools -- it was in the ’60s, was it not? Was it in the ‘60s?

            [CROSSTALK]

Yeah. When the Unites States government took prayers out of our schools, every human being in this country began to be affected by it, no matter how devout or devoted to Christ they were or they are. We are feeling it. God will keep us through every trial and every tribulation, but this nation is shaking, and it shall shake, and it is going to shake until every ungodly thing shakes out of it, and then whatever is left will be stood up on its feet. Let us hope we are left. He is shaking the individual, and he is shaking sin out of us, and he is shaking the nation, and some people are going to pass out of this world when this place shakes, and that is just the truth.

So something happened in the spirit about 30 years ago. We took a turn. We went off of the path of righteousness when our government failed to protect us in accordance with the guidelines set up by the Father God. Curses fell on this nation. It fell on people that had nothing to do with that decision, and it fell on people that did not agree with that decision. We are all reaping what our government has sown in this hour.

There have been a lot of faithful people praying for years. Prayer -- the results of prayer [UNINTELLIGIBLE] -- are not always seen the next day, the next week, the next month. Communism was brought down by the fervent, persistent, consistent faithful prayer of believing men and women of God, and it took years. I believe the Berlin Wall was brought down by the fervent, consistent, persistent, unwavering prayer of faithful men and women of God. And this nation is going to be turned around by the fervent, consistent, persistent, unwavering, unyielding, uncompromising prayers of God’s people in this nation.

So there is been a battle going on in the heavenlies because, you see, our government sold us. That is the scriptural expression, OK. Do not anyone get their nose out of joint. You know, people get so upset over some of the things that I say. Brethren, that is in the Bible. Our government sold us to Satan. How? By going against God’s law. It is a scriptural expression. God sold Israel. It is in the Bible. God sold the human race when we fell, when we sinned the sin of rebellion. When our original ancestor, Adam, rebelled against God, God sold us. Who did he sell us to? He sold us to Satan. And how do we know he sold us to Satan? We have got, on our forehead --

            The mark of [?Cain?].

-- the mark of the beast, the mark of Cain. It is the same thing, just -- it says the mark of Cain in the Old Testament; it says the mark of the beast in the New Testament. We are his. We are -- who? We are Satan’s. You read in the Book of Revelation about Jesus, the lion of the tribe of Judah, being qualified to break the seals of the book. We are the book. A book is something that is written upon. We are written upon. It says B-E-A-S-T, and if that is not good enough for you, the -- Peter says -- I think it was Peter, said, “We are living epistles.” We are the books which are alive, and we have a message. Either that message is the message of Satan, or it is the message of Christ, and some of us are in the process of having that mark that says beast erased from our mind and from our behavior and having it replaced with a new name, which is Christ. Amen. But it is painful having that nature rubbed off of us and then having a new nature branded into us. So it is painful having the old nature removed, and it is painful having the new nature impressed in us. It is painful, and there is no way to get away from it.

But our government sold us, and even though this is Hell and we are a fallen creation, this nation was dedicated unto the Lord at its inception. And the Scripture says, if you dedicate your child at birth and if you train him up in the ways of the Lord, when he gets old, he shall not depart from the ways of the Lord. So I have been maintaining for years now that God would go- -- was going to turn this nation around. I have always maintained that the process will be bloody, spiritually bloody. I hope it is not physically blood, but it is certainly spiritually bloody. And -- but I have always maintained that God will turn this nation around because we were dedicated to him at the inception of this nation, and that m- -- and he took us, and we are his, and he is going to do whatever he has to do to bring this nation back. Those who will be converted will convert, and those who will not, he is going to let them die, and that is the bottom line. And if you do not like it, that is too bad because it is the truth. He is not going to torture them forever, but he will dispose of them. There is not a doubt in my mind.

So there has been a battle raging in the heavenlies from the time we were sold. You see, God honored his government. God honored the government that he erected in this nation. He honored the secular government, and I w- -- I have talked to you about this before. God is a legalist; he honors the law. And if the l- -- the government that he erects goes awry, becomes criminal, he does not just bring it down by the people in the street. What the Lord does is he raises up a higher authority. You see, God honors authority even when they have gone criminal. And we see this example in the person of King Saul, with natural Israel. King Saul became a criminal. Does anyone know what he did that God saw as a criminal act? What did he do?

            When things did not go his way and he could not get the truth from the Lord or could not hear from the Lord, he seeked the Witch of Endor, and -- which was really witchcraft and brought a curse.

That is true, but what did he do before that?

            Oh. He was told to destroy -- I forget what group of land, the people, and destroy everything, the animals, the king and not to take any of the money. And he took the best of the crop and, I guess, the best of the people, and he tried to lie and say it was -- the other people told him to do it.

OK. You just said a mouthful. The -- so let me go over it. That is correct. The last -- or I should say the last -- how shall I phrase this? The thing that Saul did which ended his spiritual authority, as far as God was concerned, was that he disobeyed the word of the Lord as given to him through the prophet --

            Samuel.          

-- Samuel, amen. And God said, wipe out thou- -- those wicked people. Kill every man, every woman, every child and every living piece or beast, every cattle in the land. Do not take the money, and do not take any spoil; just wipe them out because they are filled with spiritual filth. You see, I do not believe -- you see, the Lord just gives the commandment. The truth behind it was that the whole land was polluted with spiritual filth. God just wanted it wiped out completely. Evils spirits, excuse me, can manifest in animals. Evil spirits can manifest every -- all occult workers know evil spirits cling to jewelry. Does anybody here not know that? If you go to a psychic, they will ask you if you have a piece of jewelry, and they will hold the jewelry to them. And they will tell -- if they are clairvoyant, they will tell you all about yourself because spirit clings to metal.

So Saul went into the land, and it was a rich land, and he decided not to obey the word of the Lord through Samuel, which was bad enough, but I believe Saul’s sin was much more serious than disobeying the Lord. Well, he did not kill all the beasts, neither did he kill many of the people. I think he even left the kings alive. Did he not leave the king alive? He did not -- he totally disobeyed God, but the worst thing that Saul did was that, when the prophet Samuel said to him, “Why did you not obey the word of the Lord?” Saul said, “I did it to please Jehovah.” He manifested what spirit?

            [INAUDIBLE]

Worse than that. What is the bottom [?line?]?

            [CROSSTALK]

Pride, malignant pride. He did something that he wanted to do because it pleased him to do it, because he desired to do it, because he wanted the spoil of the war. And he was not man enough to admit that he disobeyed God because he just plain wanted the spoil of war, so he turned around and said, “I did it for the Lord.” God hates it; he hates it. If you are a thief, admit you are a thief. If you are a liar, admit you are a liar. If you are a whoremonger, admit that you are a whoremonger, but do not tell me that I am the thief because you want to feel righteous. He hates it, and, spiritually speaking, if you do that to your brother, you have sacrificed your brother. That is how the Scripture sees it. You have sacrificed your brother’s righteousness. You have sacrificed his integrity. You have wounded him in the spirit so that you can appear righteous, and it is murder. It is a spirit of murder.

Of course, you cannot murder God. So what happens when you try to murder God? Saul lost his anointing. God said that was it. He just stripped him of his anointing. And Saul was so lifted up in pride, he could not even tell that the anointing lifted off of him, so he was in the mountains waiting for the prophet Samuel come -- to come to make the sacrifice because only the priests could make the sacrifice. Kings could not make the sacrifice. Do you know that our democratic government is b- -- is taken right out of the Bible? Checks and balances: The kings had one set of authority; the prophets had another set of authority. And you are not to cross over; it was against the law to cross over. Well, Samuel did not come to make the sacrifice, and Saul got very nervous. And he went, and he made the sacrifice. He crossed over the line. He took upon himself the authority of the priest, and that just finished him completely.

So we see that -- I forgot how I got into that, to tell you the truth. Our government sold this country, and -- oh, I know how I got into that. God w- -- the way the Lord will get us back is to raise up an authority higher than the government of this nation. It is not God’s way to have the common people rise up and rebel against authority. God will never, ever, ever approve of someone who is under an authority rising up against that authority. God hates rebellion. He says rebellion is as the sin of --

            [?Witchcraft?].

-- witchcraft. He hates it; he is against it; he punishes it, and he will not tolerate it.

So the way God gets around his own law, when the government goes bad, when the government goes criminal -- does anybody know what he does? He raises up a higher form of government, so there is two ways that God could do that. He can raise up a criminal government, a criminal government that is stronger, physically stronger than the existing government, and that means war. That is what happened to Judah, and that is what happened to Israel. He sent Neb- -- King Nebuchadnezzar against Judah. King Nebuchadnezzar had a higher physical authority, just ripped into Judah and took the whole nation over, but God is not going to do that to us. I do not believe it, and I -- he g- -- the Lord told me 10 years ago that he was not going to do that.

So what is the only other kind of army that God can raise up?

            [INAUDIBLE]

A spiritual army. He is raising up a spiritual army in an authority which is higher than the secular government in this nation. He is raising up the sons of God in a spirit of righteousness, in the office of the son, which includes the office of prophet, the office of apostle, and those two -- the highest office is prophet and apostle, and they are higher than the secular government. God has had people praying in that office in this nation for years, and things are turning around. And I believe the Lord told me this morning that there has been a turn in the spirit. Now the minute that -- you see, I do not understand this completely, but I know that Satan has been severely damaged in the heavenlies, OK. And the second Christ is reinstated as the head of this nation -- and I am not exactly sure that that is what has happened as of today.

You know, when God talks to me, I do not -- I am just not there; I do not get it 100 percent, OK. And the chances are it is happening now; it may be happening a week from now because, in the realm of God, there is no time or space, but it is probably beginning to happen. When the things -- when spiritual things happen, it takes a period of time for them to be affected.

But when Christ is reestablished as the head over this nation, in a position higher than the totally, totally corrupt government -- our government is totally corrupt at this point, as far as I am concerned, OK -- things start to manifest in the natural. You will see things turning in the natural, and I see it happening, and I believe that God has raised up a couple of righteous people in public positions to be exposing the sin. And I have just been watching the news. I see the common people rising up to oppose what is happening in this nation, and what is happening in this nation is that a very small percentage of people, who have a lot of money and a lot of time and who are very organized, have gotten a hold of the media and gotten a hold of the government, and they are really taking over this nothing, and j- -- pushing it in a direction that the common people are not in agreement with.

But the average man on the street is out there working 10 hours a day, and he comes home, and he is tired, and he is not organized. And these people have done great damage. These anti-Christ people have done great damage in our nation, but I just see God raising up spokesmen. I see people arising and making changes. And whether you know it or not, we have been in a spiritual battle in this nation for several years now, but it is coming to a head. And I believe the Lord told me that there was a turn in the spirit; there was a tremendous breakthrough in the spirit.

Now as soon as Christ is reinstated in the heavenlies, well, there is -- the battle is coming down to the earth. There is going to be all kinds of shakings and trouble, and we have to stand. We have to know how to stand in Christ, and I will tell you how you stand in Christ. Stop trying to save your own life; stop trying to save all your money; stop trying to save your possessions; stop trying to preserve yourself. But get a grip on what the righteousness of Christ is thinking and what the righteousness of Christ is saying, and align yourself with righteousness, no matter what kind of a loss it costs you, and you shall survive. If you run to save your money and you run to save your property, you are going to get washed away with it. I am telling you, I know what I am talking about.

Thirty-three percent of the Christians voted for Clinton because of the economy issue. They completely overlooked the morality issue, and they voted for him because of their own pocketbook. And I want to tell you, I would not want to be one of those Christians in this hour because there is no way their finances will ever prosper, and they were foolish Christians.

So I do not know exactly what is coming on the earth, but I know that God will keep his faithful, and I just told you the cardinal rule. I just told you the golden rule, how to survive this thing. Do not grab hold to anything except the righteousness of Christ, and you will survive, and your children will survive, and your household will survive. Confess your sins. Submit to authority. When God shows you your sins, confess them and repent, and hang on to the horns of the altar because things are going to be shaking like they have never shaken before. And when the smoke clears, the only ones that will be standing are the ones who are tied to the altar of Christ.

So it is a very serious moment. We had a very serious word from the Lord tonight. The Lord said, I am the Lord your God who has brought you out of the land of Egypt. Worsh- -- oh, that is what he said. He said worship God. Sto- -- what does that mean? Give up all your idols, brethren. Give up all your idols: the idols in your heart, your money and your cars and your furniture and all of these beautiful g- -- material things that mean ab- -- your clothes, all of these silly things. They are just vanity because they are going to burn up anyway. Look at what happened in Los Angeles. It is just vanishing. Now that does not mean that you give everything away and go live on the street; it means, when it comes to the choice, you choose Christ. You have to be willing to lose anything that he takes from you. That is what it means. And when the smoke clears, there is going to be a whole new government established in this nation and, eventually, in the earth.

So the judgments of the Lord have begun, and they have begun at the house of the Lord, and they have begun with the elders thereof. Now who are the elders, anybody? Who are the elders? Is it the 90-year-old people? I had someone call me from upstate last week, said, “You know how old I am?” I said, yeah, you are in your 90s. He says, “Well, that means I know more than you.” Oh, really? Who are the elders?

            Spiritual elders.

Spiritual elders. How do you recognize a spiritual elder?

            [?The maturity of Christ in them?].

Yes, the maturity of Christ. Now the eldership comes on two levels. There are fellowships, which are the elders. Those fellowships teaching deep doctrine are senior to fellowships who do not teach deep doctrine, and there is no disgrace in a fellowship that does not teach deep doctrine, but we must know who we are. In this world, in every relationship that we are in, we must know who we are, and we all have a multiplicity of relationships in our life. We may be the elder -- if you are a man, you are the elder to your wife, but you are the l- -- you are the younger to your boss or you are the younger to your father. If you are a woman, your husband is the elder, but you are an elder to your children. Every relationship has its own form. You have to know who you are in every relationship. The problem with the church today is that the -- most of the church does not know who is who.

So we have fellowships which are elders because they are more mature in Christ; the doctrine is more mature. It does not mean they are better than anybody else. If you have -- if you are a 19 year old and you have a 15-year-old brother, does that mean you are better than he is because you are 19 and he is 15? Of course not. But as far as the Lord is concerned or, in a natural family, as far as your father is concerned, the 19-year-old -- more would be expected of the 19 year old than the 15 year old. Is that not true? If you have a 12 year old and he walks out of the room and leaves the light on, you send him back to shut it off. If your 2 year old walks out of the room and leaves the light on, you shut it off for him because he never put it on in the first place, you know, but you know what I mean.

So we have fellowships that are elder to other fellowships, and then, within each fellowship, we have elders, and the bottom line is your maturity in Christ. Those to whom much is given, much shall be required. And for the one who sins knowingly, he shall receive many stripes; and for the one who sins ignorantly, he will receive fewer stripes, but stripes he will receive. Be not be [sic] deceived, God is not mocked. Every sin shall have its just recompense. Nothing shall be hidden. Craftiness of the mind shall be exposed. Plots shall be exposed. Plans shall be exposed. Every sin -- the light of Christ shall be shined upon every sin. Either you judge yourself and repent and get yourself right with God, or he is sending someone to you to expose what is in your heart.

You cannot fool God, neither can you fool the people through whom Christ is manifesting because he knows what you are up to. He knows who you have abused; he knows who you have used; he knows who you have lied to; he knows every thought of your mind. And he is going to expose you. Why? Because he hates you? Because you wants to embarrass you? No, because he has pronounced holiness upon this church. Now if someone ever prophesied over me that God said I would be holy, I would start shaking in my boots because I know I am not holy. So if I get a prophecy that says you shall be holy, I would say, oh, my God, here comes the search light. Watch out. You cannot mock God, brethren. There are no secrets from him or from his servants. God does nothing, except he tells his prophets first. That means, if he is going to rain down judgment or expose sin in somebody, his prophets know about it.

Very serious hour. We all have sin, brethren, all of us. We all have sin. So it is an hour for repentance, but let me encourage you. Let me leave you with something positive, that the last word of the Lord that appeared in my mind was let the beheading begin. So our sins will be exposed. Our carnal mind will be cut off from us, and Christ will be established on the thrones of our heart, and this is a condition -- when that happens, when Christ is established on the throne of our heart, this is the condition known as -- anybody?

            [?Full stature?].

Full stature. Full stature is the first stage of the resurrection from the dead, and it is a very serious hour, and the church is, pretty much, cut into two categories right now, those who are completely refusing to judge themselves and face their sins. And the other category is split into two: people who, for no reason other than God gave the gift, are able to judge their own sins and hear God when he speaks to them and see into their own heart; and people who cannot do that but who have been called to and are submitting to an elder who is helping them to do it.

So if you cannot judge your own sins, if you cannot see your own sins but you are submitting to an elder that God placed you under who is helping to expose your sins, you are now in the category of those who judge themselves will not be judged. If you submit to the elder, if you recognize that it is Christ and you submit, that is the easy way to go. And, believe me, it is not easy, but it is the easier way to go.

If you do not submit, then you are turned over to spiritual experiences which will expose your sin, which will force you into circumstances that will be painful, which will result in your sins being exposed. It is likened to a spiritual whipping of the Lord. And when you cry out to God, finally, and say why are all of these things happening to me, he will say, do you not remember that that son of God, five years ago, told you that you had the sin of rebellion or you had the sin of pride and you denied that they were Christ and you did not want to believe it? So it is taken five years of spiritual whipping for you to come to the place where you have cried out and said, Lord, how come? And now maybe you will believe that you have pride and rebellion. That is what we are up against, brethren.

And there is a group -- a company -- there is a company, which is of a group of men who are about to stand up in full stature very soon, OK. Now there is no condemnation for those who do not stand up as fast as the others, but I do not know about you, but I want to be amongst the first. And I am doing the most that I can do and hoping that the Lord -- you cannot get up there unless Jesus drags you up. You can only do so much, and he has to lift you up. We are not strong enough to stand up. Just as a newborn baby is not strong enough to lift its head up or stand on its legs, we, spiritually, are not strong enough to stand up above sin.

Now the whole concept of standing up implies that, when you are lying down, sin has dominion over you. If you think of sin as a jungle filled with snakes and scorpions and all form of pestilence, as you lie down in the grass, every form of death in that jungle is just crawling over you, and that is the spiritual condition that we are in, in this hour. So this concept of standing up means that we -- when we stand erect, all of the pestilence and the scorpions and the snakes will be under our feet. The term stand up means that we shall have dominion over sin. Right now, sin has dominion over us, and he -- sin still has a lot of dominion over us. I hear the Pharisees screaming. Sin has dominion over us. How do I know it? We still die. Do not be silly. We get sick, and we die, and we have all kinds of trouble in our life. Every trouble in your life is sin having dominion over you.

So we are waiting for a small company of men to be dragged up by Christ, and all that it means is that some people are stronger than others, and that is OK. As soon as the strong ones stand up, they are going back to get the next level of strong ones. Why? Because it is a painful, stressful experience to overcome sin. Why? Because sin does not want to be overcome. He does not like the idea of you overcoming him, and he is sticking you with pitchforks and doing everything he can to keep you down here.

You see, you are in Hell now. God is not sticking you with pitchforks; Satan is sticking you with pitchforks, saying, do not stand up, do not stand up. It is too painful. Every time you try to stand up, I am going to stick you so you will not fight. Do not fight. Stay down here, and I will make it nice and easy for you. I will give you pleasure, but, if you try to stand up, I will give you pain. So the strong ones that stand up are going back for the next level of strong ones, and then they are going back. And then they are standing up, and then they are going back until the weakest people in this society or in the family of man will be in an erect position with sin under their feet.

But the procedure is painful, and the Lord says, I am a holy God. I am the God who has brought you out of the land of Egypt. Do not play games with me because I am the one would made you, and I know what makes you tick, and nothing is hidden from me, you foolish human beings. If you think you can hide your sin from me, you are mistaken. I know where everything is. I know where you have hidden it; I know where you have stashed it. I know what your plans are; I know what your plots are. And you shall not defeat me, but I shall defeat you. I shall defeat sin in you, and I shall make you in my image. Why? Because you are my wife, and I intend for you to dwell with me in peace. That is what the Lord is saying in this hour. The soul that he made does not want him. The church does not want him. They will tell you they want him. They think that they want him, but they do not want him. Why? Because, when you draw close to the Lord, what happens?

            [INAUDIBLE]

Your sins get exposed. The fire burns you. The fire of his righteousness burns you and reveals the true nature, which we are, and that true nature is satanic. So nobody wants the Lord, but he wants us. He wants us even though we do not want him, although some of us have begun to want him. Some of us want him in principle. Our spirit wants him, but our flesh is weak. Our spirit wants God, but when he comes to expose our sins, we run. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

It is very hard to stand there and say, cut away, Lord. Some of us are beginning to be able to do it, but very few. The typical reaction is to run, to deny, to blame someone else, to lie, to hide. And Adam and Eve hid themselves behind the trees of the garden, and the Lord said, where art thou, Adam? And he said, this woman that you gave me, she made me to eat the fruit. Blame it on his wife, you coward. He was in charge. He had the authority. He had the responsibility, blamed it on his wife. A lot of men do that today, hide behind their woman. My wife would not let me do it.

Did you ever notice that the Scripture says, to the women, if you cannot live with your husband, if you really cannot live with him, then leave him and abide alone? But there is no commandment, at all, about the man leaving his wife. Why? You are supposed to be able to handle your wife, men. You have authority over her. Now that does not mean that you beat her into submission; you are supposed to love her into submission.

So we have a lot of messed up relationships today. If you are a man and your wife is rebellious, you are supposed to be in prayer to the Lord as to how to handle her. And either the Lord will bring her into submission, or he will move her out. But if you are a man, you are not supposed to leave. It is the woman who leaves when she prays and prays and that stubborn man just will not -- he is just being an -- you know, he is way out of line. Sometimes, if you have legal grounds, you can leave. The man is not supposed to leave; he is supposed to bring that woman into line with the love of God and prayer. So we have a lot of trouble in this society today.

So that was what the Lord told me this morning, that there is been a turn in the spirit and that Christ is taking his i- -- taking the throne. And, tonight, the word was let the beheading begin, so that means we are going to see a lot of judgment falling, a lot of sin being exposed, a very serious move of the spirit. As was witnessed by this -- it is here right now. The awesomeness of the presence of God is overwhelming me. Can anyone else perceive this?

            [?Yes?].

            [CROSSTALK]

It is very serious. Is it serious?

            [CROSSTALK]

Very serious. Now I do not know whether there are some things in us that the Lord intends to deal with tonight. I really do not know. I had no idea this was coming tonight. It could be for the whole church world, but it has been my experience that it is always the immediate people as well as the church world. So I, for one, certainly humble myself before the Lord, and I am repenting. I know what sin is in my heart right now, and I most certainly am repenting of that, asking God to help me because we cannot stop sinning of our own power.

We cannot stop sinning. We can stop the behavior, but we cannot stop the sin from our mind; we are incapable of it. So that is why we need a savior, and I know that the Lord has taught me, and I practice what he has taught me. Sin that is in my mind that I cannot -- I have done everything I know how and I cannot get it out of my mind, I just turn it over to him. I refuse to be condemned, but I pray every day that it be rooted out. And I know that if I pray consistently and fervently believing that the day will come that it will be rooted out. And I know that because I pray to root it out and because I am confessing it that there is now no more condemnation in Christ Jesus.

Everybody has sin. Brethren, if you think that you do not have any sin, you are in denial, and you are lying to yourself because your whole root nature is sin. The blood that flows through your veins is contaminated, corrupted blood. The doctors know that. Even if you do not have AIDS, there was a time when women were dying like flies from childbirth. And they finally figured out because -- it was because a woman would lie down on the bed with the blood from the previous woman, and that infection was being transmitted through the blood. Our blood is corrupted, so if you think you do not have sin, you are just lying to yourself. And we are not talking about behavioral sin; we are talking about spiritual sin.

So I do not know about you, but I fully intend to do everything that I can do to encourage the Lord to catch me up to full stature because I have not gone through everything I have gone through to be left behind now, not because of anything that I fail to do. If he does not take me, he does not take me, but I am certainly not going to have him say to me you have not because you asked not or that I am not taking you because you have ought against your brother that you never resolved, that you never reconciled, or that you have unforgiveness or that, you know, you are in some form of sin that you have power over.

You know, brethren, if you have unforgiveness in your heart, God has to grant you forgiveness. But you have to do what you can do. If you are not talking to somebody because of unforgiveness, if you are opposing somebody because of unforgiveness, if you are giving them a hard time because of unforgiveness, you can do something about that. I know, when someone is -- when I have unforgiveness towards somebody, I run right towards them, and I do everything I can to reconcile that relationship. If they will not reconcile with me, well, then I am OK. That is their problem. But the Scripture clearly says, leave your gift at the altar, and go make it right with your brother, and then come back and talk to me, says the Lord. So I know that I got that straightened out a long time ago. I go right towards the person, and I pray for reconciliation, immediately.

Nothing -- that is only pride, you see, that is keeping you from the blessings of God. Pride, the enemy of man, the highest enemy of man, the highest spiritual enemy of man, pride, will kill you, will divide you from your brother, will separate you from God, will break up your relationships, will cost you God -- will cost you your job, will cost you -- will bring you into poverty. Pride will bring you into poverty. Pride is the root cause of every form of addiction, alcoholism, drug addiction. Every form of compulsive behavior is founded in pride, and in pride is selfishness and self-love and narcissism, loving oneself to the exclusion of all others. That means that everything you do has a root motive of benefiting yourself, and we get two people like this together, and they think they love each other, and it is -- if you want to call it love, it is a love that is an abomination to God. It is not love.

Love is sacrificial. Love loves whether you receive something back or not. Love loves when the other person cannot love. Love loves when the other person cannot love. If you marry a woman and she becomes ill and she cannot love you, she cannot sh- -- let me put it this way. She cannot demonstrate her love for you. She cannot clean the house; she cannot cook for you; she cannot sleep with you; she cannot do anything that makes you feel good. Do you stop loving her? That is not true love. That is self-love because love loves when the other person cannot love. That is why the marriage vows say in sickness or in health, for better or for worse. You do not know what is going to happen.

I would like to start with the end of Jeremiah 9 because I am a preacher of life, and I believe that God is life and God is live and that every judgment that he pronounces upon us or that he executes upon us is motivated by his love for us, that every judgment is a correction because we will die in our sins if he does not correct us. So, therefore, when we read the Old Testament, I always look for the positive in the Old Testament. Because of the King James Translation, especially Jeremiah, it is -- just sounds so horrendous to the carnal minds of men. Many people are turned off on Christianity because of the prophets.

So I tried to locate the positive verse, and it seems that the proportion is usually 20 negative versus to one positive verse. You would say, well, why does God do it that way? The reason he does it that way is because man, fallen man, is just filled with sin, and the promise of God to his people is that he will judge our sins so that we should live and be delivered out of this realm of Hell. So most of what the prophet says is judgment because we are filthy; we are spiritually filthy in our sins. But to -- some people just cannot bear it. Especially people that come out of a Catholic background are very likely to be severely condemned by many Scriptures, especially by the prophets, so I am going to try to ease -- you see, I am a peacemaker, and I always try to put people at ease and to help them to restrain themselves from going off on a tangent that is going to hurt them or cut them off from the ministry that Christ has for them this evening.

So, therefore, w- -- I would like to start with verse 23. We will do verses 23 to 26 in Chapter 9 of the Book of Jeremiah, which are the positive verses. As I read quickly through the chapter, I perceived these three verses to be the positive verses, and these three verses indicate God’s motives for all the blood and guts that verses 1 through 22 talk about.

Verse 23, “This saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might.” That is physical power. “Let not the rich man glory in his riches.” That means do not have confidence, brethren, in the wisdom of man, in your physical strength or in any wealth that you have either accumulated or inherited.

Verse 24, “But let him that glorieth,” or be confident, “let him glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord which exercise lovingkindness, judgment and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.”

The Lord is saying do not have confidence in anything except your personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and in the fact that you understand and that you know him, and that knowledge of God is not an intellectual knowledge of God, but it is an experiential knowledge of God. This knowledge is speaking about relationship; it is speaking about intimacy; it is speaking about a knowledge and understanding of the Lord that one obtains through experiences with him. And the only kind of experiences fallen man has with God is the experience of being needy and seeing the Lord come through in a pinch and save him despite his lack of ability to overcome in that circumstance. That is the knowledge and understanding that the Lord is speaking about.

It is faith; he is talking about faith, the when you are stuck God will deliver you. When you are penniless, God will give you money, if -- for legitimate needs. When you are hungry, God will provide food. When you are without shelter, God will provide shelter. When sin is overtaking you and dragging you to a condition which will destroy you, the Lord Jesus Christ is able and willing to intervene. That is the kind of understanding and knowledge that he is speaking about.

So the Lord says do not glory in anything that you have attained with your own wisdom, money or physical strength, but glory in the fact that you have the privilege of understanding and knowing me, having intimacy with me and knowing what they expect from me. Do you know this world is filled with people that do not know what they can legitimately expect from God? Many people think they are not worthy, that God will not help them. They think they are not eligible for his help. Many think they are not eligible for his love. Many think he is able to help but he will not because he is a punishing God and they are not perfect. Do you know there are people in this world that think that God will not have anything to do with them until they first become perfect?

Brethren, man does not have the power to make himself perfect. If you believe that, you will never have a relationship with God unless the Lord cleans up your mind and delivers you from that bondage. So to have a knowledge of God and an understanding of God is a privilege that must be granted to you by God. The teaching in the church that says make a decision for Christ, that is a lack of understanding of God. Brethren, God hides himself from whomever he will hide himself. You cannot have a relationship with God. You cannot receive God; he must receive you. This is a manifestation of the pride of man in the church. You cannot receive God. Who do you think you are? How come you did not find God 10 years ago? God was not lost; you were lost; we were lost.

We are the lost sheep. God comes out looking for us, and God has received you despite your arrogance and your pride that makes you think that you have received him, that you have made a decision for him. What could you possibly do for God? We are worms; that is what the Scripture calls us, red worms. Does anybody not know that? Oh, you worm, Jacob. That is what we are. We are likened to larva out of which the sons of God will bloom. That is what we are. That is how God sees us, Mickey Mouse with deodorant. That is what we are.

Brethren, we are the beast. I want to tell you, if you do not have spiritual eyes to see this, ask the Lord to help you to see it. Every ungodly emotion, every sin, envy, competition, hatred, violence, all of these things are in every mammal in the kingd- -- in the animal kingdom. They are the nature of the beast. They are not in the nature of God. Every problem that we have in our emotions is the animal nature in which our spiritual man is dwelling.

I saw it today when I went to visit my niece. I went to say goochie-goo to the baby, and I had a German Shepherd’s head in-between my hands. That dog was outright jealous. He would not leave me alone, kept sticking his face at me, turning his side to me, turned on his back so that I would scratch his belly, butted my hand with his head. He had to be rebuked and told to go away. Jealousy is obvious as the nose on your face. Jealousy is not in Christ; jealousy is in the animal nature. Possessiveness is not in Christ; it is in the animal nature. Anger, rage, murder is not in Christ; it is in the anima nature. I tell you the truth. We are animals that have been elevated above the animals in the jungle. Why? Does anybody know why? Why are we higher than the animals in the jungle?

            [?The spirit?].

We have a spirit. We have something of the life of God in us, so we are a cut above the animals in the jungle, but we have the potential to be spiritual men. I do not usually take questions while I am preaching, OK. That is what we are.

Now we are supposed to be a spiritual man dwelling in an animal body with the spiritual man ruling the animal. The Scripture likens it to a glorious warrior riding on a wild stallion, on a spirited stallion, and that stallion is supposed to be under full control of the warrior. That was how we started out. It is -- that was how our ancestors started out, with the spirit of the man joined to Christ and glorious, internalized in an animal body, completely ruling the animal. But there was a tragedy; something happened. The rider died, and the animal ran off with the -- with God’s creation, and that is what happened. And the Scripture calls us the beast because the beast ran off with God’s wife, with God’s -- she ran off with God’s wife, who is now in the form -- the spirit -- that part of man which is of God is now in the form of the human spirit which died, and that is the part of us which is being raised from the dead. This body is not being raised from the dead; our spirit is being raised from the dead. And when that spirit which raised Christ from the dead, when it dwells in you, will raise your spirit from the dead also, and it will also quicken your mortal body, which is your soul, and it will preserve this flesh until such time that it is dealt with, that God deals with this flesh.

We are spirit, brethren. The reason we have trouble believing that we are spirit is that our spirit is dead. And except for those of us who are moving on into Christ, all that we see in each other is the beast nature, clawing each other to death with our mind. It is a spiritual jungle of the mind. The strongest survive, the survival of the fittest, the craftiest, the smartest, the trickiest, the most devious, outside of those who are floating in the righteousness of Christ. I am talking about the average world out there. The most violent, they are the survivors.

Look, when the negative charge is separated from the positive charge of the creation, the negative is stronger than the positive. I am going to say that again. The unified creation, which is both positive and negative, has life. The reason the creation died was that the negative separated from the positive, and when the negative separated from the positive, it was discovered that, when both charges were isolated, the negative charge was more powerful than the positive charge.

Now even the world knows this. “Star Trek” knows it. “Star Trek” had a whole episode on it. You see, the negative charge is a form of strength. It is a s- -- form of the physical strength. When it is under the authority of the positive charge, it operates as a stabilizing factor. When you separate them out, the positive is weaker than the negative, as you can see by just looking at the world. It is a beast creation that utterly subdued the positive charge and crushed it.

And we are -- the positive charge is only going to rise again when we are joined to the spirit of the Lord because he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit, and that is the resurrection of the dead. When we get our strength from the Lord Jesus Christ, we will arise in his power and take authority over that [?neckative?] -- that negative charge, lay hold of that wild stallion and break it and get back up on its back and ride it, and that is what we are doing right now. We are supposed to be riding our beast, but, in most of us, the beast is riding us. He tells us what to do; he tells us what to think; he tells us where to go. He thinks through us; he reasons through us; he rationalizes through us, and he expresses his sin through us. It is all in the beast nature, so we are a cut higher than the animals. We have language, and we use deodorant.

We are on verse 24. So do not be all lifted up in anything you have accomplished with this human nature. Why? Because this human nature is passing away. You see, the most gifted, the most educated, the most rich, the most accomplished human beings in this world system are going to be brought very low when Christ is exalted. Now that does not mean that you do not pursue your life; it does not mean that you do not get educated; it does not mean that you do not try to earn a living. But the Scripture clearly states, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and its righteous; and all these things shall be added unto you.” You put Christ first in your life, and then you start living out your life, believing that Christ is in it, believing that Christ is controlling, believing that Christ is directing and influencing you. And yield to his spirit, and everything is going to work out for your good.

But if you rely on your own strength, the day is going to come that Christ is going to knock the foundation out from under you, and if Christ is not inside of you, you will have nothing. When the judgments fall -- we talked about it earlier in the exhortation. When the Lord shakes you, when the Lord shakes this nation, everything that can be shaken will be shaken. And what happens when you shake the tree? What happens when you shake a tree?

            The leaves fall off.

And the leaves fall off. The fruit and the leaves fall off. The fruit is the carnal mind. The fruit of this fallen creation is the carnal mind, and the leaves typify the individual, the life of the individual. Now, if Christ is not in you when God shakes that tree, you are going to be -- you could be one of those that fall off. Get Christ inside of you. He has to be growing in the spiritual earth of your soul. What does that mean? When the Lord Jesus Christ shakes that tree, which is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he is going to bring it down. You have to have another tree inside of you. And what is the name of that tree?

            [?Life?].

It is the tree of life. You have to get that tree inside of you. I am having trouble getting past these two verses here. So no matter what you accomplish, it is wonderful for only a season, but it is passing away. But glory in this, that you have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and that you understand and that you have a knowledge of him, and you know -- and this is the proof that you have a knowledge of him. You know, there are people in this world that have an incorrect knowledge of the Lord. This is the proof that you have a knowledge of him, that he is the Lord who exercises lovingkindness. He does not burn people in Hell forever and stick them with pitchforks or punish them without any rhyme or reason. He is a Lord which exercises lovingkindness and judgment.

That word “judgment” means “justice,” “fairness,” “decency.” He judges in controversy. That is why, if you are having a problem with another believer, if you are having a problem with an authority figure, you can trust the Lord Jesus Christ to resolve the issue fairly because he is the son of God who exercises judgment. Therefore, brethren, stop fighting in your own power, and have faith in God to render a righteous judgment in the controversy. You see, if you are engaged in a controversy with a brother or with a sister and you are not -- and it is very few people today, brethren, very few believers who can really be sure that their motives are pure. Very few people can look that deeply into their soul and know that their motives are the righteousness of Christ. Most people’s motives are self-preservation, and self-preservation is the sin of --

            Pride.

-- pride. So if you are fighting your own battle and your motive is pride, that means you are exercising sin, and God must judge your sin. So give your problem over to the one who judges righteous judgment. There is no sin if you judge righteous judgment, and the Lord Jesus Christ, he judges righteously. He says, “Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord. Leave it in his hands. You pray, and then you walk the walk, the most righteous walk that you can walk, and leave it in his hands.

So the one that knows the Lord knows that he is loving, filled with kindness, filled with justice and righteous in the earth. He is the only one without sin, brethren. Righteousness is the exact opposite of sinfulness. He is the only one without sin. And the reason he is this way, he says, is that he delights in these things. He, therefore, delights in the man that seeks lovingkindness, judgment and righteousness.

And, brethren, self-preservation is not included in those words because man has a beast nature and he will slay his brother for self-preservation. He will deprive the poor; he will abuse the weak. Man is capable of every evil work, stepping on the widow and stealing food from the orphan, and all of these things have spiritual applications to build his own ego, to build his own wealth and to preserve his own position in life. That is the condition of the heart and the mind of fallen man, and as God delights in lovingkindness, righteousness and judgment, God despises and, in fact, hates all of the other things that I just named.

You see, the Lord, he is not lukewarm; he either loves or he hates. And he loves everything that is good and righteousness, and he hates everything that is the opposite of his love and his righteousness and his judgment. He hates everything that is carnal because, you see, the Lord Jesus Christ, he is a positive charge that is not weak when it is separated from the negative charge. We are just talking about the soulish creation when we say that, when the positive and the negative are separated, that the positive is weak. That is true of the soulish creation of God, but God is 100 percent positive, and he is all-powerful. He is in a different category. A different set of laws apply to him.

So this is how you could test yourself and find out whether or not you really know the Lord. We have all kinds of people saying, Lord, Lord, and Jesus said to them, “I never knew you.” So we have a lot of people that think they know the Lord, but they do not know the -- but the Lord does not know them, so this is the test. Do you know that the Lord is loving, that he is kind, that he exercises justice, that he has no favorites, that, if there is a controversy amongst his people and you hear somebody side with me and you cannot recognize that it is righteousness appearing in whoever is siding with righteousness but you think it is a bunch of people cleaving together to jump on somebody else, you cannot perceive the Spirit of Christ because the Spirit of Christ is righteous? He does not do things like that. He does not league up with other men so that you can form power plays or political pockets. He is just righteous, and everyone who is righteous thinks as he thinks. So that is how you know whether or not you know the Lord; it is by your opinion of him.

Verse 25, “Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will punish all them which are circumcised and uncircumcised.”

I suggest to you that the Lord is not speaking about physical circumcision. Paul tells us clearly there is a circumcision of the --

            Heart.

-- heart. He is speaking about the circumcision of the heart, so God says he will punish all those who are circumcised and all those who are not circumcised. Now what kind of a thing is that to say? This translation makes our God, who we have just been told is filled with love and kindness and justice and righteousness -- the very next verse makes him sound like a monster. He is going to punish the circumcised and the uncircumcised.

Well, let us just take another minute on the spiritual circumcision. What does spiritual circumcision mean? Spiritual circumcision is speaking about the conversion of one’s heart. We are told -- I believe it is here in the Book of Jeremiah, that the Lord indicts Israel. He says, you have a heart of stone. You have a heart that is not capable of loving, that is not capable of being compassionate or merciful. And the Lord said through the prophet Jeremiah, I shall circumcise your heart. I am going to cut that stone away, and I am going to give you a heart of flesh. And what the Lord is really saying is that I am going to give you a heart of my flesh, the flesh of Christ. So we find that the natural man has a hard heart. A hard heart is a sign of a man that is overtaken by what spirit?

            Pride.

Pride. Hard-heartedness is a result of pride. Self-love, selfishness, self-concern makes you hardened to the needs of your fellow man. So what -- the spiritual circumcision is the cutting away of the stony heart, which is really the carnal mind, and the impartation of the mind of Christ. So we see the Lord saying I am going to punish you whether you have the mind of Christ or whether you do not have the mind of Christ. I am going to punish you. Well, now what kind of a thing is that to say for a God who is loving and kind and righteous and believes in justice?

We have a contradiction here, and I suggest to you the problem is in the translation. The word punish sounds terrible. What the Lord is really saying, I am going to judge the carnal minds of the men who have the mind of Christ, and also I am going to judge the carnal minds of the men who do not. The translation of that Hebrew word “punish” is a misleading word, and it strikes fear in the hearts of many people because, in the English language, punishment, to me anyway, means punishment for punishment’s sake. The word punishment does not have included in its meaning rehabilitation. To me, punishment means -- well, fini- -- physical punishment means a lashing. To what end? You break the man’s skin open.

They had it on the TV the other night. Did you hear about that? This young kid went to live with his mo- -- young teenager went to live with his mother in Singapore, and he thought he was still in New York. He sprayed some spray paint, you know, s- -- graffiti on someone’s car, and they want to cane him. So -- and, you know, when they cane you, they beat you till they break your skin open.

So this word “punishment,” it does not mean that kind of punishment where you are beaten for the beating’s sake. It is talking about the corrective judgments of God which are the mercy of God, and God will beat us as hard as necessary in direct proportion to our stubbornness and the hardness of our hearts and the hardness of our heads and the stiffness of our --

            [?Necks?].

-- necks. Pride, pride, pride, pride. The sooner you repent, the sooner the beating stops, but some of us are really tough, man. We -- he has got us down on the ground, and he is whipping us, and we are still doing our thing. Some of us are really tough, but no matter how hard he has to beat us -- that is true, is that not, [?Lenny?]? You are laughing, right? OK.

No matter how hard he has to beat us, the end of the beating is always rehabilitation and a loving restoration into relationship with the Lord. And a lot of people, they cannot understand the harshness of the judgments of God. To understand the harshness of the judgments of God, you must have a revelation of the depth of the evil of the carnal minds of men, and the judgment upon the carnal minds of men is death. So when God beats our carnal mind, it is to produce righteousness in us so that we shall live because of the righteousness and not die because of the carnality. His motive towards us is love and kindness and righteousness and justice.

Therefore, no matter how hard he beats us, it is rehabilitative, and, therefore, to condemn God, no matter how severe the judgment seems, is only done by the pride of man, who is without understanding of God. And if you do not understand God, if you do not understand the judgment, it means you do not know him. You have to not only understand that he is loving and that he is kind and that he is righteous and that he is just, but you must understand what form this love, this kindness, this righteousness and this justice takes. And the form that it takes is judgment, and we are told in the very next verse that he is going to punish the people or he is God the judge the people that have a soft heart, the mind of Christ, as well as those that do not have the mind of Christ. And if you do not understand this, brethren, you do not know God. That is what the prophet says. You do not know him.

So why would he be judging the carnal -- why would he be punishing or executing judgment upon the men who have the mind of Christ? We can understand why he is doing it on the men that have the carnal mind because they are just Satan’s property. But why would God be judging men that have the mind of Christ too? Is the very presence of the mind of Christ in you not enough to save you from the judgment? Is it not? No, it is not. Why is it not? Be- -- well, because, if you have both, you are double-minded. Righteousness must be completely ruling in your vessel.

Brethren, the purpose of the punishment, the purpose of the judgment, the purpose of the spiritual caning is to whip your carnal mind so badly that he gets down on his knees so that Christ in you can jump on him. He must be completely immobilized; your carnal mind must be completely immobilized. Sometimes we call it brain-dead in this ministry. He must be out of commission, disengaged, not functioning. Why? Because the Scripture says, if you break the law in one point, you are, anybody?

            Guilty [INAUDIBLE]

Guilty of the whole law. That is a hard word. You do one thing wrong, and the judgment of death falls on you. Who could survive such a restriction? Only Christ, brethren. You better get him growing inside of you. That is why you need a savior, because we cannot help but break the law, and he -- who? Christ is incapable of breaking the law. So, therefore, those men who have the mind of Christ as well as those who do not have the mind of Christ will come under the merciful, corrective judgments of the Lord because the end of the judgment or the punishment of God, i- -- for the men who do not have the mind of Christ, is what? What is the end of that judgment?

            Death?

Well, death of the carnal mind, but also the seed of Christ will be imparted to them. The judgments of God will produce righteousness. As the judgment falls by the hand of the son of God, the seed of Christ is also imparted. The judgments are designed to produce the life of Christ in those who are being corrected. And those who already have the mind of Christ who are not judging themselves -- how can I say that? The Scripture says, if you judge yourself, you will not be punished by God. The Scripture says those who have the hope of his appearing in them -- anybody? Purifieth themself [sic]. If you do it yourself, he is not going to punish you or judge you, but some people have the mind of Christ, and they are not strong enough to do it themselves. Having the mind of Christ does not always equip you to look at your own sins, and if you do not see your own sins, there is no way you are going to judge yourself.

So if you cannot see your sins, you are incapable of judging yourself whether you have the mind of Christ or not, so that means God will do it for you. He is looking for everybody that is not judging their own sins, whether you have the mind of Christ or whether you do not have the mind of Christ. And if you are not judging your own sins, if you are not killing that carnal mind, if you are not putting her down under your feet, he is going to do it for you. Why? Because he is a God who is filled with love and kindness and justice and righteousness, and he punishes sin, that you should live and not die. And if you do not that, you do not know him, and he is already here to punish you so that you will know him, except punish is a very bad word, not a good translation at all.

Verse 26 -- well, let me read you verse 25 again. Excuse me. “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will punish all which are circumcised along with the uncircumcised.” Tell the church that. Well, they do not believe it. Judgment begins at the house of the Lord, beginning with the elders thereof.

Verse 26, “I will punish Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that are in the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.”

So what the Lord is saying here is that he is punishing Judah, his chosen nation, along with Egypt and Edom. And who does Egypt typify?

            The world.

Well, it typifies the world. But who -- I sh- -- guess I said it wrong. Who is Egypt the descendants of?

            [INAUDIBLE]

Who?

            [INAUDIBLE]

No. Ham. Egypt -- well, typ- -- Egypt typifies the flesh man, but Egypt is the natural descendant of Ham, OK. That is all of the black races, the black and the Ara- -- the black races. Ha- -- Egypt.

            [INAUDIBLE]

Ham --

            [INAUDIBLE]

Ham -- it is Africa.

            Egypt [?is in Africa?]?

Egypt is in Africa, yeah. That is all the black races who are not physically circumcised because they do not have the law of God. And Edom typifies the flesh also. Edom is -- I am --

            [INAUDIBLE]

It is Ishmael. It is Arabs. I believe it is the Arabs, Esau. Yeah, it is the sa- -- another name for Esau. It is the middle-eastern areas. And he is also going to punish Judah, we are told at the end of the verse, because Judah is uncircumcised in their heart. Now Judah is physically circumcised as part of the law of Moses, but the Lord says I am going to punish Judah along with all of the other peoples of the world that do not have -- the did not partake of the covenant with Jehovah. I am including Judah. I am going to punish them also because even though they are physically circumcised, their heart is not circumcised.

And we know that Paul said all of Israel is not Israel because the circumcision is not -- the circumcision that God is looking for is not the circumcision of the flesh but the circumcision of the heart. So anyone who bases his righteous in the fact that he is physically circumcised is not understanding the word of God and does not know the Lord because the -- your righteousness is not in an act -- a surgical act upon your flesh; you are righteousness must be in Christ.

So the Lord will punish Egypt. That is the black races or the descendants of Ham. Judah, which are the descendants of Shem, actually, Judah, and Edom -- I am not sure who Edom is the descendants of. Probably Shem also, but I could be wrong about that. Judah, I know, are the descendants -- is the descendant of Shem, and Egypt is the descendant of Ham. And also he is going to punish the children of Ammon and Moab, and I am not right sh- -- I am not really sure why the Lord breaks this down this way, but I know that Ammon and Moab were the children of incest between a father and his daughter.

“And all those that are in the utmost corners,” that -- oh, I know what that means. It is probably talking about the descendants of a cross between the sons of God and the daughters of men. We read about that in the Book of Genesis. “And all that are in the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness.” The wilderness typifies the soul realm. “For all these nations are uncircumcised.” He is going to judge all of the uncircumcised nations.

Brethren, this message is a message of the salvation of the whole world. Now we have a whole doctrine in the church today; it is called ultimate reconciliation, which preaches that God is saving the whole world. And that is true, except the way they are preaching that it is going to happen, as far as I am c- -- in my opinion, is not true, so we have a division in the church today. We have a portion of the church world that says, no, this is not true. Only a certain segment of society will be saved, and the others will burn in Hell forever. And then we have a segment of the church that says everyone ever born who breathed air on the face of this planet will be saved, and there is a big rift between the camp, and we preach something -- we are not in agree- -- and that there is no Hell, OK.

And we preach neither one; we preach a third doctrine here. We believe that the entire spiritual creation is going to be saved, but not necessarily every human being that has ever breathed the breath of air on the face of this earth. Why? Because these human beings that appear on the face of the earth are only temporary garments that the spiritual man is wearing. And the reason he has had so many temporary garments is because the creation died, and his garments wear out. And in the last day, when Christ is raised from the dead, the human beings that he is appearing in will be preserved because he will be alive, and, therefore, his garments will stop dying.

And let me say this, that the Scripture says, in the Book of Jeremiah, when the vessel is not perfect, that the potter mars the vessel and reforms it. So we see the clay that the original creation was formed from being reformed and reformed and reformed until Christ arises and -- rises from the dead and preserves his garment. And this clay has just been reformed and reformed and reformed, and the form that it is in, in the hour that Christ rises from the dead, will be its permanent form. So that is a deep spiritual revelation. You have to pray about that.

But I am just showing you that, in Jeremiah, Chapter 9, the Lord is clearly saying that he is going to judge the whole world, the circumcised, the uncircumcised, and Israel was also uncircumcised. And I declare to you that the purposes of the Lord in the judgment is to impart the seed of Christ to his people and to save this whole creation and raise it from the dead.

So that is the end of Jeremiah t- -- Jeremiah, Chapter 9, and I do not know that I will go through the whole thing, but we will start. We will just take a look at the beginning of Chapter 9, and we will see what the Lord has to say about it.

“Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!”

So we see Jeremiah is crying. You might know, at the time that the Book of Jeremiah was written, [UNINTELLIGIBLE] -- Judah had just gone into captivity under the hand of the king of Babylon.

Verse 2, “Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.”

So we see that the Lord is saying that, in their hearts, Judah is treacherous. Now, of course, this message is for the church today. How do I know? Because we just read the last few verses of the chapter. [AUDIO CUTS OUT] So, basically, we see the Lord, through the prophet, crying for the wickedness in the hearts of God’s people.

Verse 3, “And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies.” They lie with their tongues. Now, obviously, I have not studied this message, brethren, because the Lord just gave it to me tonight. “And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the ears to hear.” He is saying that his people are liars. Brethren, the church is filled with liars, “for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not one, says the Lord.” “They know not one” -- oh, “They know not me.” I am sorry, “And they know not me.” They lie, and they go from evil to evil, and their heart is wicked.

“Take ye heed every one of his neighbor, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will walk with slander.”

OK. Now do you hear this? This is the word of the Lord. “Take ye heed every one of his neighbor, and trust ye not in any” -- do not trust your brother, “for every brother will supplant you, and every neighbor will walk in slander.” That means they are going to lie about you. They are going to slander you and tell destructive lies about you.

Now I hear people at church saying, what do you mean you do not trust your brother? What do you mean you see evil in your brother? I read my Bible, and I know that every single one of you, including me, to someone else, is capable of slandering their brother and of doing evil to them. And if you do not know that, you are walking in a darkness that could make you vulnerable.

Verse 5, “And they will deceive every one his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.”

Well, I n- -- I have not looked up any of these words, but, obviously, the Lord is saying through the prophet Jeremiah that, despite physical circumcision, despite the law of God, Israel is filled with sin. And I suggest to you this is the word of the Lord to the church today. Therefore, because they are filled with this sin --

Well, let me read you verse 6. “Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through de-” -- th- -- and, of course, he is speaking about their spirit. Their spirit, the Spirit of Christ in them, is dwelling in the midst of the carnal mind, which is deceit. “Through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the Lord.”

The Lord is saying, if you do not know him, if you have had the word of God and you do not know him, it is because you refuse to know him. Brethren, if you have this word of God, you can read it just like I am reading it now, and the Lord is saying, if you do not know him, if you do not know that he is a God that loves, that is kind, that is just and righteous and that he punishes evil and that he judges the evil and the good, he judges those who have Christ in them as well as those who do not have Christ in them, it is because you refuse to hear what this word is saying.

Verse 7, “Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will melt them.” Now is that not interesting? He will melt them. We know that Peter speaks about the elements melting. What does it mean? Does it mean that he is going to torture them in Hell? What does this melt them mean? It means that he is going to melt their carnal mind, that he is going to pull apart Satan and the carnal mind, which will free up Eve so that she can escape and run into Christ. That is what he is saying. He says, “I will melt them, and I will try them,” but, of course, this sequence is backwards. He is going to try them. He is going to bring fiery trials upon them, and then he is going to melt them. He is going to dissolve their carnal mind. He is going to separate soul from spirit and the joints from the marrow. “For how shall I do for the daughter of my people?”

Verse 8, “Their tongue is an arrow shot out.” He is saying, what else can I do? Look at how wicked they are. Their tongue is an arrow shot out. They are speaking deceit. “One speaketh peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart, he is trying to kill him.” And they said to -- Jesus said, “You seek to kill me,” and they said to Jesus, “You have a devil,” but Jesus knew that they were speaking nice words with their mouth, but in their heart, they were seeking to kill him, and he knew it.

Verse 9, “Shall I not visit them for these things?” The Lord says, shall I not punish them for these things? Shall I not correct them? “Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?”

Verse 10, “For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens” -- I am not sure what that means, but -- I am not sure what that means, that burnt up.

Verse 11, “And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons.” Now Jerusalem is the soul, “and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.”

Verse 12, “Who is the wise man, that may understand this? And who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passeth through?”

So he is talking -- he is saying that there are some wise men who is able to understand these words and the plan of the Lord. Who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord has spoken, that he may even speak about these things? Because the land is going -- the soul is going to be burnt up like a wilderness. Who could find good in all this? Brethren, only the mind of Christ can find good in all this. Christ is the only man who can understand the purposes and the motivations of God, and everyone who is carnal shall not understand and shall tell the man in whom Christ is manifesting that he has a devil.

Verse 13, “And the Lord saith, Behold -- Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein; but they walked after their own imagination.” They obeyed their carnal mind, brethren. They walked after their carnal mind, “the imagination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught.”

“Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.”

Now you may recall that the wormwood is a form of judgment which is not appealable. It is a set judgment that, from the moment God pronounces it, must play itself out. And the best we could do it ask God to help us to survive it. The -- and that -- the type of that judgment is, in fact, what happened to Judah. God pronounced 70 years in Babylon upon them, and they did not come out one day before the seven- -- and -- the last day of the 70th year of Babylon, and that is wormwood judgment. It is not appealable.

In this hour, wormwood judgment is not upon the church. We have the gentle correction of the Holy Spirit in this hour. We can repent and receive grace immediately. We may take a couple of hard knocks. We might have to have a couple of difficult experiences, but we grow from the experiences, and we go on. But wormwood judgment is a hard judgment. When the gentle correction of the Holy Spirit has failed, God will execute wormwood judgment upon his people.

And in -- as far as Judah was concerned, wormwood judgment is very severe. You might find slight elements of it in your life, but, basically, I do not see wormwood judgment being executed in this day because the wormwood judgment that was executed upon Judah actually wiped out the existing generation. Seventy years in Babylon wiped out the evil generation, and it was the children who came out. So if you are thinking -- if there is called to your memory right now a judgment that God has placed upon you where it is been a little -- where it has been strong or restrictive or difficult, I would doubt very much if it is a true wormwood judgment because the sign of the true wormwood judgment is that God has not -- has locked you out of the congregation and will not -- will only let your descendant back in, OK. Everybody hear that? OK.

            [INAUDIBLE]

Yeah. The true wormwood judgment would be upon a believer that the Lord has given chance after chance after chance after chance, and, at some point, the Lord makes a judgment that he is not going to go any further with this believer, and he locks them out of the congregation. And the restoration does not come until the next generation. It is in their offspring. The restoration is in their offspring. That is the true wormwood judgment.

So we might see traces of wormwood judgment in our life, where we lose something, for example. We had a good thing and we did not appreciate it, and God took it from us, OK. That might be an element of wormwood judgment, if he -- if God took it from us and he said I am not giving it back to you for such-and-such a period of time, but that is just one aspect of our life. To truly be under wormwood judgment, I believe we would have to really be locked out of the congregation in a severe separation to the point that God would only bring in the next generation of our offspring. And I am not -- I believe that it is going to happen to some people in the church whose hearts are not right towards God.

Verse 16, “I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom no -- whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.”

Well, that is the -- that sounds a lot like the curse of Deuteronomy 28, heavy judgment falling on the people that get cast out of the congregation. There will be a group of people, I believe, in this last day, that the Lord will make a judgment that they are just not responding to the correction. And we are told in another Scripture that the billows are burning and the fire is hot, but the wicked are not plucked out. So despite all of the trials and the hard times, the person is not getting delivered. There will be a company of people who will be cast out of the household of God because they are just not responding to the judgments. I believe that is what the Scripture teaches.

Verse 17, “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come.” Remember, the women are spiritual women, women whose mind is carnal, “and send for cunning women.” Send for the women that are wise in the wisdom of men, “that they may come: and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears,” heavy judgment, brethren. “For a voice of wailing is heard of out Zion.” Judgments are falling, Lord, of -- the judgments of the Lord are falling. “How we are spoiled! We are greatly confounded,” and the reason for it, “we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out.”

Hmm, wow. And who are our dwellings, the dwelling of the spiritual man? The dwelling of the spiritual man is the carnal mind. The spiritual man is in -- the inner man, he is in the carnal mind, so our dwelling have cast us out. I have not looked up these words in the Hebrew, but it sounds to me like our carnal mind have overtaken us, have cast out the spiritual man, and, therefore, all these judgments are falling upon us because the spiritual man is not ruling; the carnal man is ruling.

Verse 20, “Yet hear the word of the Lord, O ye women.” That is all the spiritual women, “and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbor lamentation.”

Now that does not mean you have to go around depressed all the time; this is talking about a godly sorrowing unto repentance. That is what it is talking about, a godly sorrowing unto repentance. Recognize your sin, and cry out to God for mercy.

And the reason you should be wailing and repenting, verse 21, is, “For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces.”

And I know from other Scriptures that the palace is the mind, and the windows is -- a window is always an entranceway from one realm to another. So death is come up to the entranceway of our mind, where life is, where the Spirit of Christ is. Death is come up; the carnal mind has arisen and entered into the opening of the palace, where the mind of Christ is. How d- -- ho- -- where is the opening? What is the window? How does death get into where life is? Through the human spirit, which has committed adultery with Satan; that is the only opening; it is the only opening. Hallelujah.

“For death is come up into our windows.” The window goes -- the -- it is the connection from the spirit world or from the soul world to the spirit world. Death is of the soul, and he has come up to the entranceway into the spirit and entered into the mind of Christ for the purpose of cutting off the children. That is the children of God, “from without, and the young men from the streets.”

“Speak, Thus saith the Lord, Even the carcasses of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather them.”

Well, as I said, I have not looked up these words, but it sounds to me like he is talking about physical death there because the word carcass, every time I have ever seen it, is talking about this dead human body. So the prophet is speaking about the death of some human bodies. He is speaking about the carnal mind rising up in the minds of Israel, w- -- that had a formation of the mind of Christ. And the same thing is happening in the church today. The carnal mind is rising up in the minds of believers in whom Christ has been formed and overtaking them, and there is going to be a plague. It is already started. I have no idea how extensive it is, but there is going to be a plague of death, of spiritual death, across the church, and some people will actually, physically, die.

So h- -- throw yourself on the mercy of God, and ask him to help you to see your sins and to confess them and to repent and to give you the victory over pride, brethren. Pride is your biggest enemy. I know he manifested in me today. I know what a strong, formidable enemy pride is; I know. He does not manifest in me too often, but, when he does, I know that it is him, and God gave me the victory. I confessed it as sin immediately and repented and waged war against him, and I got deliverance. He is a formidable enemy. I want to tell you, Christ Jesus in us is not strong enough to get us through. Our big brother, Jesus Christ, must get us through, or we will not make it. I tell you the truth. In the name of Jesus, amen.

Any questions about this message?

 

Transcribed by Verbal Fusion 01/26/16

02/09/16rh – 1^st Edit