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Part 2 of 2 Parts
The Following Message Has Been Transcribed For
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I think we left off on verse 10, if I am not mistaken, so we will pick up with 1 Peter 2:11.
“Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims.” Does everybody -- oh, wait, sh- -- everybody does not have the -- do you have your place?
[INAUDIBLE]
1 Peter 2:11.
[INAUDIBLE]
Yeah.
[INAUDIBLE] set up [?like that?].
Yeah. Not anymore tonight, thanks, [?you know?]. I should have done it.
“Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against your soul,” or, “against the soul.”
Paul is warning his [AUDIO CUTS OUT] that we are s- -- [AUDIO CUTS OUT] what would that mean [INAUDIBLE] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] [?formed?] in you.
You are in this world, but you are no longer of it, that your true nature is considered Christ by faith. Now it is not really Christ yet. If your true nature were Christ, it would be impossible for you to die. But just as Paul says in another place, disobey your present husband. Who is your present husband?
[INAUDIBLE] Satan [INAUDIBLE]
Satan. Disobey him. Rebel against him, and cleave unto your new husband, just as Paul tell us to do that, because, by faith, you are already divorced from your old husband. And what is the only legal grounds for divorce? I am not talking about fornication, what Paul talks about. There is a law of husband, and the only way you are released from that law is through death, OK. Could you put that on pause, please? [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [AUDIO CUTS OUT]
So we are strangers to this world, Paul is saying, as if our nature had already been converted unto Christ. Because our nature has begun to be converted, Paul says, act as if you are converted. And how do you act as if you are already converted? Paul tells us to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. Abstain from lust, which is produth- -- producing death in your soul.
And I remind you that the basic nature of fallen man is lust. We lust for everything. We lust for what our neighbor has; we lust for his car; we lust for his wife; we lust for a husband; we lust for his job. We just want; we just want; we just want. We desire, and we are never filled up. That is the major or one of the major j- -- characteristics of the death of this world. No matter what we get, it is never enough because Hell hath -- anybody?
[INAUDIBLE]
Enlarged.
Enlarged herself. Hell hath enlarged herself. We are never filled up. The more we take in, the more we need. If you are ever fully satisfied, the next day, you are not satisfied anymore, continuous abstin- -- absence of satisfaction in every area of life. So, therefore, remove yourself from this life, and start entering into a lifestyle which is going to develop in you what you need to receive satisfaction from above.
Now, brethren, in order for your human needs to be satisfied by the Spirit of God, a change has to take place in your nature because, as long as you are a fallen, flesh man, not only will the Spirit of God not satisfy you, you will be offended by him; you will be tormented by him, and you will flee from him. So your nature has to be changed. If you want to abstain from fleshly lusts and have peace in doing it, your nature must be changed, and it must be changed in a way that you will start to desire the things of the spirit, and that which stirs up a desire in you for the things of the spirit is Christ. He will draw you. There are Scriptures [?with?] -- which say, Lord, draw me, Lord, and I shall follow you.
So we find in the Scripture that the Greek word translated “desire” or that the word “desire” is the godly equivalent of the word “lust.” Both lust and desire is signifying a craving. Lust is a craving for something that will destroy your soul. If you obtain it, it will destroy your soul. If you fail to obtain it, it will destroy your soul from grief. But desire is the craving of something that will build life fin your soul, and the only thing that will build life in your soul is Christ, so desire is a godly lust, you might say, for God and for the things of God. It is a lust, if you choose to use that word, which produces life instead of death. And Peter tells us here, in 1 Peter 2, that lusts for the things of this world war against our soul and eventually kill us or bring us down to a low spiritual level that separates us from God and keeps us there.
All human beings have needs, brethren. We all have needs. We have the need for love; we have the need for affection; we have the need for respect; we have a need to have joy arise in our heart; we have a need for companionship. We have all kinds of needs. Brethren, the Lord Jesus Christ is full well able to meet every one of these needs, but he has to set up a new mechanism in your soul that will receive these needs in a manner that will register as satisfaction to you. That is what Peter is speaking about. I think I said Paul earlier. That is what Peter is speaking about.
Abstain from the lusts of the flesh. Abstain from the lusts which are coming out of your carnal mind and the soul which is under the dominion of your carnal mind. But it is all right to pursue the lusts which are motivated by Christ. It is all right to lust and to pant after the things of God. It is OK to say you have not been filled up yet; you cannot seem to get filled up; you need more and more and more of the things of God. This is acceptable to the Lord, brethren, and it is not to be feared or denied or avoided. It is to be desired because the lusts of the spirit or the desires of the spirit do not war against your soul; they give life to your soul.
We are also pilgrims in this world. Pilgrims are men who are seeking a spiritual experience. We are pilgrims in this world. We are in this world. We are born into it. We have a carnal mind. Nevertheless, we are seeking God in this lost and forsaken place, and God is not in the flesh, brethren, but God is in the spirit. And those who seek him must seek him and worship him in spirit and in truth. He is in the spirit, brethren.
We have many people today seeking for God with their soul, right in the Pentecostal Church. We have spoken about this recently, that much of the music in the Pentecostal Church satisfies the soul, and that is OK for a season if God is using it to bring you closer to him, if God is using soulish Christian music to place you in a position where the words of life, which are the seed of God, will be falling upon you until you are penetrated. But it is only for a season. It is only transitional, brethren, because God is spirit, and, for you to go on with God, your spirit must be developed. You must form a spirit tie with the Lord. The Lord will not have a soul tie with you. Why? Because your soul is dead, and he is not the god of the dead, but he is the God of the living, so you must meet the Lord in your spirit. And in order for that to happen, your spirit must be quickened because your spirit is dead.
So to any Pharisees who may happen to be listening to this message, I am not against Pentecost, but you must go on from Pentecost. When I first came to the Lord, my soul was so wounded that I received a lot of healing from the soulish music in the church that I started out in. It was soulish music in which the Holy Ghost was present. But there comes a time, brethren, when you must move on. [INAUDIBLE]
Verse 12, “Having your conversion -- having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.”
“Conversation” means “lifestyle,” and Peter is saying let your lifestyle be honest among the Gentiles. [?Be honest?], brethren. Do not lie; do not cheat; do not steal. Live this Scripture. I see nowhere in the Scripture where we are told to go out with ch- -- people over the head with Bibles and [INAUDIBLE] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [?convinced?] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE] the others to wom- -- [AUDIO CUTS OUT] husbands that do not know the Lord. By your lifestyle, may people be converted. May they see the peace that is in your life because of the way you live. Let them desire what they see in you because of the way you live, not because of the words that you say or the things that you do, but be a living testimony of your God.
And there is a Scripture. I think it is in the Book of Acts where it says, “The apostles went out testifying as to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,” and I suggest to you that they were not testifying with their mouth. The testimony that the apostles brought forth as to the resurrection of the dead Christ was that they were doing signs and wonders and miracles. Their testimony was behavior. Anybody could say the words.
We have thousands of people right here, millions of people in the world that do not believe the testimony of our mouth, most of them because our behavior does not line up with our mouth. And the average person, if not every person, is going to believe your behavior before they believe your words because they are not stupid. And this how you shall know or recognize the disciples of Christ. How?
[INAUDIBLE]
Well, that is true, but, specifically, “You shall know my disciples,” Jesus said, “because they shall love one another,” and it is true, the fruits. That is true, but an unsaved person would not know what that meant, OK.
[INAUDIBLE]
Because they shall love one another. And there is no room for unforgiveness in love; there is no room for rejection in love; there is no room for aggression in love; there is no room for hatred in love; there is no room for competition in love; there is no room for it. So let your lifestyle be honest. Let Christ be your lifestyle when you are amongst the Gentiles. Even though the Gentiles speak against you as evildoers, by your good works, which they shall be able to see, let God be glorified in the day of visitation.
You know, I have had people say that to me, at least two people say that to me, that they could not receive this doctrine, that they thought that it was way out and bizarre and nutsy and whatever else they called it. But they could not deny that they saw the love of God in me. They could not deny that they perceived Christ in me, and it caused them confusion because they were so indoctrinated as to the doctrine in the church.
So manifest the love of God, brethren, to your fellow Christians and to the Gentiles, even though they speak evil of you. Do good works unto them, that they will be able to see that God should be glorified in the day of visitation. What is the day of visitation? I suggest to you it is the day that your sins shall be judged. Every sin shall have its just recompense. If your conversation is evil in the presence of evil men, if you recompense evil for evil, in the day that Jesus Christ comes to judge your sins, judgment will fall on you.
What Peter is saying when he says let God be glorified in the day of visitation, it means, when the test comes, when you are persecuted for righteousness’ sake and you do recompense evil for evil but you recompense evil with Christ blessing the person, forgiving their sins, doing good unto those who hate you and who have despised you, that is the good work that the apostle is speaking about which will glorify God in the day of your visitation, in the day that he lets Gentiles persecute you, that Christ should be exalted in you. Jesus.
And God shall be glorified in the witness to the Gentile, and he shall also be glorified in that, when you overcome the evil with good, Christ shall increase in you. And Christ fully intends to appear in the earth, and he intends to appear in his people. And the only way he is going to appear in you is by killing your carnal mind, and he is killing your carnal mind an inch at a time. And every time he kills a portion of your carnal mind, the measure of your human spirit that was trapped in that portion of your carnal mind is transferring into Christ. So in every victory, Christ is increased in strength, and your carnal mind decreases in strength, and this is how God is glorified.
God -- well, of course, he is glorified when you come to a service like this. Of course, he is glorified when you sing, of course. But the glorification that he is speaking about is that, in the moment of trouble, when you are faced and confronted full on with righteousness, with the evil of the carnal mind and the evil motives of fallen men, that not your -- that not -- it is not your carnal mind that rises to defend you, but that Christ rises to defend you because Christ can only rise to defend you after he has wounded your carnal mind. So let Christ be glorified in you every day, every hour, every minute, every second. In every encounter, let Christ be your defense by resisting and wounding your own carnal responses, which are trying to rise up and defend you.
Verse 13, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.”
Obey the law, brethren. Obey the carnal laws of man. Paul said, “To those who are in Christ, everything is lawful, but everything is not expedient.” What does that mean? It means that, even if you are so high up in Christ that you could [?leb-?] -- legally break a law of man, you should not do it unless it is to specifically accomplish the purposes of Christ in that specific moment that the Lord has directed you. If you do not have a specific commandment from the law to -- from the Lord to bypass the law of man for a -- to -- for a -- for the specific purpose of serving God, you should obey every law of man except -- does anybody know what the exception is? Unrighteous laws.
What is an unrighteous law? An unrighteous law is a law which has been written by men which directly contradicts the spiritual law of God. Does anybody -- can anybody think of an example?
Abortion.
Abortion, mercy killing.
[INAUDIBLE]
What?
[?The perversions?].
Making sodomy legal.
[INAUDIBLE] all the incest and sodomy.
Well, I do not think incest is legal in our country at this time, but they are -- sodom- -- they are making sodomy legal in many cases, yeah.
Witchcraft.
Witchcraft. They have legalized witchcraft as a religion, as an acceptable religion.
Even gambling.
Gambling, amen. So res- --
[CROSSTALK] lying for your boss.
Yes, lying for your boss. That is true. I heard --
[CROSSTALK]
You are not using it.
Or any other form of dishonesty on the job for the authority’s sake.
Amen.
I heard on “The 700 Club” recently that there is an agreement that has been signed by the members of the United Nations that had a clause in it which says you cannot discriminate against homosexuals, and the United Nations has decided to try and enforce that law against one of the cities in -- I forget which nation, Canada or Australia. They have actually called them to task because they have a law on their books against homosexuality, so this is going to be a big test case to see if this state will respond to the paper tiger authority of the United Nations. And why do I call it a paper tiger authority? Because the United Nations has no power to enforce it, to enforce their laws. I spoke about this, this morning. If you tried to exercise an authority that you do not have the power to back up, you are really setting yourself up to look like a complete and absolute fool. Well, because, if this n- -- state refuses to obey the United Nations’ law, the United Nations is going to look like an outright fool.
But we see a big battle looming up because a large part of the world and of the United Nations is Muslim, and Muslims have laws against homosexuality. So the Christians are worn down, or at least the Christian governments, and the Christian governments have completely sold out on this issue of morality. But as far as I know, the Muslims have not. So we will see -- we are most likely to see in the future a dire- -- if the United Nations continues to push this, a weakening of the United Nations because these Muslim nations are going to tell the United Nations to take their law and eat it.
So it is not very wise, brethren, to try to exercise authority when you do not have the means to enforce it. You set yourself up for a fall. You set yourself up to look like a fool, and the end result of what you are doing is that you are weaker than when you started. Jesus.
So, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake,” except, of course, laws that contradict the law of God, “whether it be to the king, as supreme,” speaking about the present -- whether or not it is federal law, brethren. Pay your taxes, brethren. Pay your taxes. “Or whether it is unto the governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers.” We are talking about the policemen and federal agents. Obey their laws, brethren, and also do it “for the praise of them that do well,” that those who do well should glorify God and should reveal our or- -- we- -- our orderliness and our responsibility.
It is a good habit, brethren, to obey the laws because, should you travel outside of the country, you are going to automatically do outside of the country what you do here. If you are a lawbreaker here and you will not even think about it, but you automatically break the law, you just might do it automatically in a nation that does not like it when you break their laws, and you could wind up in real trouble as we see in the news today. What might have a very small penalty here can have a very severe penalty in another country. And if you are not in the habit of obeying the law, if you are living your life and moving in a spirit of rebellion and arrogance, then there has to come a moment when your conscious mind kicks out and your unconscious mind rises up and you do what you have been doing every day without thinking. And the day will come that you will be in trouble, so it is good practice, brethren, to obey the law, whatever it is.
Verse 15, “For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men,” foolish men, brethren, who are trying to provoke you, who are trying to manipulate you to reveal your human side so that they can condemn you for not being perfect, even though you have never claimed to be perfect, foolish men who are trying to snare you in your own words and deny the authority which is in Christ, which is upon you, foolish men, brethren, who cannot recognize dignitaries, they cannot understand that Christ is in you or who he is or what he is doing. The Lord says that you will put them to silence by doing well to them.
[INAUDIBLE] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE]
[AUDIO CUTS OUT] a hurtful process that should be stopped. It is a general rule. People that are gossiping about you, people that are trying to shut down your ministry, people who are trying to compete with you, do good unto them. People who are trying to steal from you, do good unto them. That does not mean you do not correct them. That does not mean that you do not tell them that stealing is wrong, but tell them that stealing is wrong, and do good unto them. Do not punish them. Do not be condemning towards them, but rebuke them in love and go on; go on with your relationship with them under Christ.
Verse 16, “Act as free men, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.”
Behave as men who have been liberated in Christ. Liberated from what? Liberated from sin, liberated from whatever bondage had you captive when you were in the world. In other words, now that you have no problem resisting [?it?] -- well, that is not a good example. Now that you have no problem resisting smoking, let us say. God had delivered you from smoking, and you know that there is someone who is struggling, trying not to smoke. And you know that you could take one cigarette, and it would not bother you. This is a poor example, but it is all that is coming to me. Do not smoke in your brother’s presence who is struggling and trying to give up this problem. If you have been delivered from any form of compulsive behavior, do not engage in it because now you can take just one and put it down. Do not demonstrate your ability in front of your brother who cannot take just one.
I hope you all know there are people out there who do the all the time. They know you have a weakness. They know that they can handle it but you cannot, but, because they want company, they will talk you into going with them. And you will take one or two and go home, and you will leave them in bad trouble. Is that true? Did you ever know somebody who is trying to stop drinking, who cannot handle his liquor, and his best friend, quote, unquote, is begging him every day to go out drinking with him, not at all caring that he is destroying this man, but caring only that he would like to drink, that he can handle his liquor and that he wants company? And he does not care if you are destroying your life. God save you from such friends, brethren. That is the devil himself right in your life.
So the fact that you are free, the fact that you are not gripped by a compulsion anymore, do not use that to cause your brother to stumble, neither use it as a cloak of maliciousness. In other words, do not hide behind the words of the Lord to hurt somebody. Do you know that there are people in the church that do it all the time? They hate you. They are jealous of you. They are in competition with you, and they come over and put a knife in your back and tell you that it is for your good.
Do you know what comes under this category? Revealing somebody’s sin out of your carnal mind, revealing somebody’s sin out of a wrong motive; it is called judging before the time. And if it is not Christ in you revealing that person’s sin, it is your carnal mind, and that means you are getting some kind of a satisfaction out of revealing that person’s sin. Either you are enjoying hurting them with -- or you are enjoying making them uncomfortable. Maybe you are just plain jealous that they are doing it and you are not because you may have stopped doing it, but it has not been rooted out of you yet. And the root of you revealing their sin is envy, saying how come we are both Christians and you are doing it and lightning is not falling on you? And I have stopped doing it, and I see no benefit in my life for having stopped while you are happily dancing down the street it fornication. Do you know people think like that? And then you go to the person, and you rebuke them and expose their sin, and your motive for doing it is maliciousness, and it is envy that they appear to be getting away with it and you are not. No one gets away with anything; it just looks that way.
This is talking about exposing sin for the wrong motive and saying that you are the righteous one and that you have done nothing wrong when the person protests. Because when you expose somebody’s sin for the wrong motive, brethren, the average person will feel the knife going into their heart but will not understand what has happened and will not be able to explain to you that it was a wrong spirit that exposed their sin. And when you tell them that you are the righteous one or the elder of the church and, therefore, you are pointing this out to them, they will be wounded from your maliciousness, happens a lot in the church. They even made movies about it, and there was one movie with Rita Hayworth about this. Glory to God.
But act “as servants of God.” Only expose sin when the Spirit of Christ rises up in you and tells you to do it, and you can only expose sin in another person, brethren, when you are truly not only willing but able to do that without condemning them, to do that with the forgiveness of sins, and when you are fully prepared to do whatever God instructs you to do to restore that person to righteousness. Usually, God only anoints you to expose someone’s sin when you are the person who was sent to help rehabilitate them. There is no such thing as evangelists who expose sin and hit and run. If God exposes your sin, he knows that you need help, that you need counseling, that you need prayer, that you need love, that you need ministry and that you need help to recover yourself unto righteousness.
So if you would like to self-test yourself before you corner one of your brothers and expose sin in him. ask yourself if you are willing to suffer long with him until he is rehabilitated. If the answer is no, you better really check out your motive. And, remember, if your motive is not God, if you are using your liberty in Christ -- what does that mean? If you are not bound by that sin and you are using that as an t- -- pointing out as an expression of your envy or maliciousness towards that person under the cover of the fact that you are not bound by it, judgment will fall on you for your sin. Do not do that, but be as servants of God. Only do it as a servant of God. Be a minister to the weaker brother, brethren.
Verse 17, “Honor all men,” although men is in italics in my Bible. The Scripture says, “Honor all.”
Honor everybody, not just your elders, not just those who have authority over you. Honor everybody. Honor people who you have authority over. That does not mean you let them walk all over you. That does not mean you let them take authority over you, but be kind; be generous; be communicative. And if you do have, on the moment, the authority and a rebuke is necessary, do it with whatever is necessary. If it needs to be a strong rebuke, immediately restore the brother. Restore the relationship. Honor people. You can rebuke someone while honoring them.
Do you know that you do not have to dishonor somebody to rebuke them? I find that a lot of people in this area -- I do not know about the rest of the country. They do not know how to bring a correction, and, for whatever reason, the way they were raised up, they think that, in order to bring a correction, condemnation must go with it. I know a lot of people that have been through this. It was just the way the way they were taught, that if they found a sin in somebody, they would [INAUDIBLE] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] but the Scripture says hit quickly. If it is your child, it is a physical hit. If you are a son, it is a verbal hit. Hit quickly. Expose the sin. Make your point. Bring the correction, and restore the bro- -- [AUDIO CUTS OUT] They re- -- from the moment they repent, you go on. They are restored. You go on as if nothing happened. Glory to God.
“Love the brotherhood.” Honor men, but love other Christians. I am sorry. I did not look up to see whether that is agape love or phileó love. We are not required to love heathens, OK, but we are to honor all.
Everybody is a human being, and, as a human being, they are entitled to a basic respect, and you will see that in most public officials. If a policeman pulls you off the road, the way our police are trained today, they say good afternoon. They call you ma'am; they call you sir. They say please. There is no condemnation in their attitude. They ask you for your driver’s license and your insurance card. They tell you -- they make a factual statement as to why they stopped you, and, if necessary, they write you a ticket. And even if they exercise an authority over you, even if they rebuke you, I have never met a policeman -- I am -- and I -- you know, I am stopped from time to time for various reasons -- that has condemned me. It is a matter of fact. It is nothing personal. They will come to you and tell you what you have done wrong, but they do not dishonor you personally. You do not [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [INAUDIBLE].
But there are a lot of people around today that cannot separate the two. If you do something wrong, they dishonor the whole person, and they do it because that is what they were taught, and they were taught wrong. And I see it everywhere. I see it a lot. And these people that do this are unhappy people because they are people who are disliked, and they do not even know what they are doing wrong. One of the saddest things I have seen on the face of the earth are people who engage in forms of behavior which turn other people away from them because they were taught wrong, and they do not even know what they are doing that is getting all these other people so mad at them. And the average person will not tell you; they will just go away out of your life.
And the reason the average person will not tell you is that the average person that is told would just get mad in response to being told. So there is a company of miserable people in this earth who have a lot of trouble keeping friends, and they have no idea that they have spiritual BO. Did you ever see that advertisement? No one wants to tell you that you have BO. No one wants to tell you what you are doing that is turning all your friends and all your acquaintances away from you, and they do not tell you because they do not want to be victimized by your wrath.
“Honor all men. Love the brethren. Fear God,” and that fear of God means respect.
Respect God. Have an honest fear of him. Be afraid to break his commandments, knowing that he is a righteous God, and he shall surely recompense. Have a godly fear of him. Have an intelligent fear of him, and “honor the king.” That means everyone that is in authority from the president on down to the policemen on the beat, in the secular world, and from the apostle on down to the average person in the congregation, in the church. Honor everybody. Well, I guess, that is not the average person. From the pas- -- from the apostle on down to the lowest office in the church, which I think might be deacon. I am not really sure. Honor everybody that has an authority. What does that mean? So long as they are requesting something of you which is within that authority, you should do what they -- what they are asking you to do. If they have authority to do it and they ask you, you should do it. That is what honor is; do it.
Verse 18, “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear.” Now masters are employers. This is speaking about -- well, it could be servants. It is -- could be speaking about bondservants. We do not have bondservants in the Unites States anymore, bondservants where people sell themselves to you for a period of time because they owe you money, so they come and live in your house and work for you for an agreed amount of time until they pay off their debt unto you. I do not think we really see that in this country. I do not even think it is legal to do it in this country, yeah. This verse is speaking about that relationship of bondservant to master, and it is also speaking about employers and employees, and then, of course, it is speaking about servants who are hired, maids, butlers, whatever. But I think, in our society, it would, basically, be speaking about employers and employees.
Servants, employees, be subject to your employers with all fear, OK. Tha- -- now that is a reverence, but that is a respect, with all respect, not only to the good employers and the one who are gentle towards you, “but also to the forward,” also to those employers who are harsh unto you. Respect them because they are in authority over you, and there are certain things you can do and certain things you cannot do. Most of the time, you should shut your mouth unless you are given an opportunity to speak. If things get very bad and the Lord permits, you can quit the job. God will never honor you mouthing off at your employer. God will never bless it; God will never honor it; God will never be in it because to come against authority on any level is rebellion, and rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. God absolutely hates it, and he will never honor it or bless it.
Verse 19, “For this is thankworthy” -- this is acceptable to God, “if a man for a conscience toward God endure grief or suffering wrongfully.”
Can you hear this? This is acceptable to God that, if for your conscience sake, you endure grief suffering. What does this mean? It means that God has said do not backtalk or rebel against authority, even when that authority is abusing you. Now I do not believe you are supposed to stand there and be beaten, but if the authority is being harsh towards you, even if they are being unjust towards you, if you hold your tongue for conscience towards God, if your motive for saying nothing is that God has said honor your boss, this is acceptable unto God. That he will bless. Your opening up your mouth in rebellion against a harsh employer, he will not bless, and this is the same principle of wives unto husbands that we talked about here so much. He will not bless your rebellion; he will not bless your rebellion; he will not bless your rebellion. But if you suffer at the hands of a harsh employer or unjust or a harsh or unjust husband and you be still, the Lord Jesus Christ will be your defense.
And where most people suffer is that -- in the fact that, even when you hold your tongue, it is not common at all that the Lord Jesus Christ will arise at that moment and be your defense. So the carnal mind says the Lord has not made this Scripture real in my life, therefore I will defend myself. But the Lord is longsuffering. His correction can come at any time in the future, and you all heard my testimony this morning about my brother-in-law’s rejection of the ministry that God gave me and my just resisting not evil and forgetting it. And 15 or 16 months later, the Lord told this man and put him in his place in a godly way, without violence, without aggression, just put him in his place. I had forgotten all about it.
So if your employer is harsh unto you, if your husband is harsh unto you, if your pastor is harsh unto you and you believe with all your heart that they were unjustified, you be still. You forgive them and give it to God, and go on knowing that his promise is to defend the weak --
[INAUDIBLE]
-- the fatherless --
The widow.
Yes, and the widow. But he will do it in his time, in his way and according to his purposes. And because the Lord is not a man but he is a spirit, the chances are more likely than not that you will have to wait for a season to see the salvation of God in this area. And I want to tell you, if your heart is filled with wrath and revenge and retaliation and unforgiveness and you have to wait 15 or 16 months to see the Lord justify you, you are going to be in torment for 15 or 16 months, and this is not the will of the Lord, brethren. You must give it up. You must honor that employer or that authority and give it up. Bless them; pray for them; do good unto them, as we are told in the prior verses, and leave it in the hands of God. That is what he requires of us. Honor authority. Honor every authority that touches your life, and you will see the blessings of God fall upon your life.
Verse 20, “For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently?”
If you really did it, how are you glorifying God if you shut your mouth and you be still, when you are really guilty? Well, you know, as I am sure everybody knows here, we have people in this society who, when they are guilty, first rise up in pride and give you an argument because the best defense in an offense. And that is even more offensive to God, that, when you know you are guilty, you rise up and give your employer an argument because -- and then tell the employer that it is his fault. That is a severe manifestation of pride, which is very common these days. I see a lot of it. God, help us.
Verse 21 -- well, I think we are still on verse 20, “For what glory is it, when you be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when you do well, and suffer for your well-doing, you take that suffering patiently, this is well-pleasing unto God.”
And we were told in a prior verse, I believe verse 12, that, in this, God is glorified because no carnal mind is going to respond like that, unless you are in a society where you really have a genuine fear. But when Christ responds to you just buffeting, the mind is [AUDIO CUTS OUT]
“For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.”
This is what you were called to, to suffer when you have not done anything wrong. Well, that sounds like a sadistic God. No, brethren. This is how Christ is built in you, and Christ has left us an example, that you do not retaliate out of your carnal mind. If you want Christ to be built up in you, if you want Christ to be your defense and you want the fullness of the promises of this Bible, you must die to your carnal mind, and you must die to every benefit that your carnal mind gives you in this world. And the biggest benefit that it gives you is that he is the defense of the fallen man.
You cannot serve God and mammon. If you truly want Christ to be your defense, you must refuse the defense of your carnal mind. Do not let him defend you because there is a price attached to the carnal mind who is defending you, and his price is that he wants you, and he wants you for the purposes of his own lusts and for his sins. And there is a wage that he pays you, and that wage is death.
“For even hereunto were you called,” to suffer when you have done no evil, “because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow in his steps.”
You see, a Scripture like this is so hard for the people who do not understand. They say, for what? It does not explain the reason why we should suffer. It sounds like a religious bondage that you are getting into. It is not a religious bondage. This is how you shall be delivered out from Hell, by resisting your present husband, the carnal mind, and obeying Christ, who will kill your carnal mind and raise up Christ in you. And when that Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, it shall raise Christ from the dead in you. This is how you are getting delivered from Hell.
So Christ left us an example, verse 22, the one “who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.” Deceit, neither wad deceit found in his mouth. He was a perfect man. He spoke no false word. He was a perfect man. Every word that came out of his mouth was out of Christ. He did not sin. There was no sin in his mind, and, therefore, there was no sin found in his mouth.
Verse 23, “Who, when he was reviled, reviled not back again.” He did not respond with his carnal mind, and “when he suffered, he did not threaten in response to that suffering.”
And let me tell you something, brethren. This is a severe trial. When you are in pain and you are suffering, to not lash out, to not blame somebody, to not try and hurt somebody else, to not retaliate, but to deal with that pain takes practice. It takes throwing yourself on your face before God and asking him to forgive you your sins and give you the victory. It takes an aggressive mind that, at the very least, is saying the words of -- praying for that person who is causing your suffering. You fake it until you make it. Do the right thing. Do not say, because my emotions are hating, that I will just give into you. Say the right words. Cry out to God. Tell him that there is hate in your heart but that you are not in agreement with it, that you bless the person, that you pray for good to happen to them, that God should forgive their sins, and he will remove that hate from your heart.
So be as Jesus who was Christ, brethren. When you are reviled, do not revile back. When you suffer, do not threaten the person that is causing you suffering, but commit yourself to him who judges righteously. And what does that mean? Commit yourself to the Father, who will look at this situation and see your heart and see your efforts to manifest Christ, and he will intervene and intercede and wound your carnal mind and give Christ in you an increase and give you dominion over the sin in your own mind that is trying to express itself through you, which, brethren, when you are truly resisting, may be likened unto spiritual rape. Brethren, if you are aware of your own motives, if you can see sin in your heart, if you are truly resisting, the spiritual reality is that sin is trying to rape you.
Brethren, in times past, when we were sinners, we were harlots, willingly engaged in an adulterous union with Satan and the carnal mind. But in the hour that our true savior comes unto us and we begin to resist the spiritual, sexual advances of Satan and the carnal mind and we truly do not want this ungodly union anymore, which produces continual sin in our life -- and he presses on us, and we resist; and he presses on us, and we resist; and he presses on us, and we resist, and then he has his way with us. We have been raped, and this is the difference between backsliding and being overcome. When he presses on you, and you say, well, oh, what the heck, and you give in; that is backsliding. But if you resist, you resi- -- [AUDIO CUTS OUT] and you [INAUDIBLE] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] overtakes you. He knocks you out and takes you against your will. This is [INAUDIBLE] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] to rape, and there is a big difference. God acknowledges the difference. There is no condemnation in being overcome. Jesus.
[INAUDIBLE]
But there is a condemnation in backsliding. Now it may not be condemnation as man thinks of condemnation, but there is a condemnation in it. You will be judged for it. There will be a recompense for your sin. What does that mean? You may wind up with a demon. But if you are overcome, God is there quickly to restore you and deliver you and raise you up. Your restoration is much more quickly when you have been overcome than when you backslide. There is a radical difference. It may look the same on the surface, but it is not the same at all.
Verse 24, still speaking about Jesus the Christ, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body,” and the Greek says “into his own body” -- “on the tree.” Who his own self bare,” or carried away or lifted up and away, “our sins in his own body on the tree.”
Now that also -- that phrase is also grossly misunderstood. We find a lot of Christians preaching that because Jesus was crucified, we are now without sin, and this is a gross misunderstanding, brethren. What happened when Jesus was crucified was that he was converted into another form. He was converted into pure spirit, a form by which he can rain on all of humanity, and he is raining on humanity now, all flesh. And if a drop of him gets inside of you and joins to your human spirit and his life begins to form in you, that life which is forming in you will carry away your sins. Jesus died on the cross so that your sins could be forgiven, but the work that he did on the cross must be internalized by you for you to benefit from it.
Let me say it again. The way it is internalized in you is that his Spirit must get inside of you. And how does his Spirit get inside of you? By the foolishness of preaching because Jesus said, my words are spirit, and my words are life, and they are falling on the hearts of everyone that can hear me and penetrating, excuse me, into your heart. And, Lord willing, that word, which is spirit and life, will join with your human spirit, and the nature of the one who overcame sin will begin to be formed in your heart. And not only the nature of but the very person of the one who overcame sin on the cross is being reproduced in your heart, and when he is formed in your heart, he will kill your personal sin.
The fact that I have a savior in my heart who is killing my sin is not going to help the guy down the street. You need your own personal savior who is going to kill the sin in your heart. I can help you get started, but it must be Christ in you, the hope of glory, who is going to kill the sin in your heart. So it is not true what is preached, brethren, that 2,000 years ago a man hung on a cross, and now you are without sin because he carried your sins away. How unfortunate that this error is preached by men who claim authority in the church, and they have big churches and all kinds of money and big congregations. And sometimes they wear purple or black gowns, and they call themselves reverend, and they have all kinds of respect, and they are teaching you a lie which is killing you. It cannot continue. This ministry must come down.
Come out of there, all you religious spirits. I tear you down in her mind, all the false doctrine from Pentecost and from the Baptist Church, fear of Hell. I rebuke you. Oh, I rebuke that [?look at your eye?], rebuke your manifestation, hatred, jezebel, religious spirit. Get out of there. Get out of her mind. I saw you, Jez. I pronounce death upon you. I saw you in there.
We are in verse 24, “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree,” and, of course, the tree that the Scripture is speaking about is not the wooden cross that the physical man Jesus was crucified to, but the tree is the natural man. Did you know that the natural man is a tree? The name of the tree is the knowledge --
Of good and evil.
-- of good and evil, so Christ was joined to the tree. This is another way of saying the crucifixion of Christ. And of the twain, of the two minds, of the Christ mind and of the carnal mind; or of the two trees, of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and of the tree of life -- Jesus clearly referred to himself as a green tree. Of the twain, of the two, he made one new man, the creation of God, which is in the image of the Father. This creation is not in the image of the Father.
“That we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.”
So Jesus who was Christ, who carried away our sins when his own carnal mind was crucified to the Christ, in the man Jesus of Nazareth, for the purpose that we could be made dead unto sin, as a result of the procedure that I already stated. He has to rain on you. He has to quicken your spirit. He has to form his son in you so that Christ Jesus in you can render the sin, which is in your carnal mind, dead, that you might live out of your new mind, the mind of Christ, which is made in the righteous image of the Father.
This verse, brethren, is very abbreviated. How many of you remember me teaching you that the deeper the doctrine, the more abbreviated it is in the words that express it in the Scripture? The deeper the doctrine, the more likely it is that you will have to have it in your heart before you can get the true understanding from the few words which express it in the Scripture. This is a powerful verse, brethren. It is very abbreviated. There is no way you could understand this without a teacher, and it is so incorrectly quoted, it is something to cry over. People die over this verse -- of the misquotation of the understanding of this verse. Brethren, we need to be dead to our sins so that we could live unto righteousness. You cannot live unto righteousness if righteousness is not dwelling in your own heart, Christ in you, the hope of glory. You cannot be dead to your sins until righteousness or the hope of glory or Christ in you is killing your sin, which is in your carnal mind. And you cannot be in this condition of double-mindedness unless the glorified Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ has rained on you and attached himself to your human spirit and begun to form his Son in you.
The last phrase of the verse, indicating Jesus, “by whose stripes ye were healed.” Now I have not looked up the tense of this, but I know, frequently, the tenses of the verbs are different in the Greek than they are in the King James. So I do not know whether the Greek says, “by whose stripes you were healed,” but I do know that it is not true that you are healed until you are healed. And if you are still dying, you are not healed. And if you are still getting sick, you are not healed. And if you are still keep -- killing people with your mind, you are not healed. And if you are still hating and if you are still jealous and if you are still competitive and you are still in rebellion, you are not healed. It is like saying they discovered penicillin and you are dying from pneumonia and they have got the penicillin on the other side of town, and someone comes to say to you, what is your problem, sister? Do not you know they discovered penicillin? Arise and walk.
Well, the penicillin has to get into your body, brother, and our spiritual penicillin is Christ, and he has got to get inside of you, and he has got to kill the sin inside of you, whose name is the carnal mind. Christ in me is not doing you any good except to get you started. You have got to get that penicillin inside of you. So to say by his stripes we were healed or by his stripes we are healed, what it means is we are potentially healed. That means the penicillin is available. Someone discovered it. A laboratory made it up, and it is sitting in the pharmacy. You have to go get it. You have to buy it. You have to swallow it. It has to get inside of you, and it has to do its work, or you could die. You could have that penicillin in a jar in your hand, and, if you do not swallow it, you will die from pneumonia. Let us stop being silly. And because, on some level, the carnal mind knows this, she made up the fantasy that all the healing takes place after you die and ascend unto heaven and walk on streets of gold and inherit your mansion, not true, not true, not true. God’s creation is in the flesh; death is in the flesh; life is in the flesh; judgment is in the flesh.
The Greek word translated “stripes,” the margin in my King James Bible says “wounds.” The Greek, however, says -- the interlinear says “bloody wounds.” By his bloody wounds, we are healed. Now, brethren, if you think that you are healed because his human body bled fallen, soulish blood, you are mistaken. You are healed by his bloody spiritual wound. So how are you saved or healed by his bloody spiritual wound? I want to suggest to you that this word and this phrase and speaking about the second stage of the resurrection, the circumcision without hands. It is speaking about the blood of Jesus penetrating and oozing through the carnal mind, which is layered over it.
And the blood of his wound -- now, first of all, let us talk about the wound. What is the wound? The carnal mind is the wound. There is a wound in this creation, brethren, and that wound is an open sore. This whole world is an open sore, and we are -- Christ is us. We are him, so we are his wound. The carnal mind is the wound that has appeared in the creation, and, because the blood of Christ is arising and covering over the wound or covering over the mind of Christ and sealing it off, the blood of Jesus is scabbing over the mind of Christ and sealing it off. Because of his blood covering the wound of the carnal mind, we are healed. But his blood has to penetrate your carnal mind and cover it over and scab it over for you to experience his healing.
So we see here, brethren, in 1 Peter 2:24, a -- OK, one second, a second Scripture witnessing to the fact that there is a scabbing over of the carnal mind, which I call the second stage of the resurrection. And I would like to add, at this point, that the Lord just this week showed me a third witness to it. It is in Isaiah 58:12. I believe it is the phrase called the repairer of the breech. I think a lot of expressions have heard that expression: He is the repairer of the breech. If you look up those words in the Hebrew, what they are saying is that he is the repairer. He is the wall which is built up which covers over the breech, and the Hebrew word translated “breech” means “the spreading out.”
This whole world has appeared because a big wound has opened up in the creation, and a whole poisonous world has appeared. But Jesus, he is the wall, or he is the scab that is covering over that wound that is closing it off, that is sealing it off. He is the repairer of the wound, and he is repairing it by covering it with his blood, which is clotting over it. You had a question?
Yeah. What is his blood?
His blood is his spiritual life. We are talking about his spiritual blood. It is the life of his mind. Remember, the spirit is the life of the Father.
What is it made of?
It is made of spirit.
His Spirit?
Well, the Spirit of the Father is pure spirit, OK. The mind, which is the blood, the mind of Christ, is that which is born of the union between the Spirit of the Father and the spirit of man. It is both spirit and soul. It is a new creature; it is something that never existed before, OK. So for those of you that have heard me preach on this second stage of the resurrection and that the blood of Christ is scabbing over the wound, at th- -- when I first started preaching this, I did not have a second witness to it, and I preached this almost three years ago. Two and a half years ago, I preached this for the first time, the second stage of the resurrection. At which time, I asked the Lord for a second witness to it. Now two and a half years later, I have two more witnesses to the fact that the blood of Jesus is scabbing over a spiritual wound, which has opened a whole world. You know how a wound opens up and you look at the pus in it, how it opens up in your skin? Well, this whole world is existing inside of a wound in God’s creation.
And, well, let me see what this last verse is here. “For ye were as sheep going astray,” sheep meaning you are not very smart. We have talked about this before. Sheep are very dumb animals. They need a shepherd to watch over them, or they really just get lost.” “But now [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [?you are returned?] [INAUDIBLE] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] the one [AUDIO CUTS OUT] shepherd [INAUDIBLE] [?Bishop?] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [?guardian?] of your souls.
And I suggest to you that the difference between the shepherd and the guardian is this: The shepherd watches over the whole sheep, but the guardian is he which guards your human spirit against Satan and the carnal mind. The shepherd -- and, of course, they are both the same, the shepherd and the guardian. They are both the same, but two different words are used for two different functions. The shepherd watches over the whole man, and the guardian specifically watches over the spirit of man, which is capable of being seduced by Satan and the carnal mind. Now one of them must be soul, and the other must be spirit. To tell you the truth, I did not think this out. The shepherd -- Jesus said, “I am the shepherd.” Christ is the shepherd of your soul, and the Spirit of Christ must be the guardian of your human spirit, specifically.
Now I would like to take a minute to share a little bit of the revelation that God gave me last night because it directly relates to the scabbing over of the wound of the carnal mind. And the Lord had me watch, believe it or not, an episode of the new “Star Trek,” and I never watch that program. But this program was about quantum mechanics, which I know very little about. God has just shown me a few things. And what happened to one of the characters in “Star Trek” -- God, please help me to bring this forth -- was that -- I am trying to get the episode to watch it again. I do not know exactly how it was expressed, but there was a tear in his universe. I am going to say it that way. If anyone gets the episode, I may not be saying it exactly right.
There was a tear in this man’s universe, and the principle here is that every man has a specific pattern that his life course is supposed to take. But it is possible to be thrown off of that life course, if you are affected by energies or if something goes wrong. It would take a spiritual energy to throw you off that course, and this man was thrown off of that course by an energy that came his way, unsuspectingly, and he fell through a tear or a wound in his universe. And there were j- -- I am just -- I am not going to give you the whole story now because, for whatever reason, I am having a lot of trouble giving this out. So as God gives it to me over the -- in the future, I will give you dribs and drabs, but, right now, I want to make two points with you.
Two things that happened to him I want to speak to you about. First of all, when he passed through the wound, he multiplied, and there were many of him. Now the creation at the beginning of time was wounded. It was wounded by Satan, and he has -- Adam, righteous Adam, has fallen and multiplied into many members. This man multiplied into many members, but, of course, in “Star Trek,” they all looked like him. And the second thing that happened was that the starship that they were on multiplied, and they showed you the clip in space, and there were many starships, and each starship had its own crew. And they found out -- and his life was -- or his life was in chaos, and everybody was dying.
The result of this t- -- of this wound and of the piercing through the wound was that every- -- not everybody, but many people on the starship, they were dying. There was chaos. There was negativity in the starship, and they found out that the way to repair this situation was that he had to go back through that wound. He had to go back through that wound, and they put him in a spaceship. He had to get back on the course of what his life was, of his ideal life’s path because if he stepped -- when he stepped away from his ideal life’s path, people were dying all around him, and he was duplicated into many members, which is exactly what happened to Adam, if you can hear it. So they put him in a spaceship, and he was headed for that wound.
He was going to go back through it again, and they showed you -- one of the commanders of the duplicate spaceship came up on the telecommunication screen, and he looked like a madman, and he was -- and he looked crazed and insane in his eyes, and he was saying, “We will not go back; we will not go back.” In other words, when the victim, when the man that this happened to, pierced back through the wound and got back on his true life’s course, all these duplicate starships and all of these duplications of himself would cease to exist. Brethren, that is all the members of humanity saying I do not want this doctrine because I have no intention of giving up separate existence. Can you hear what I am saying? And they showed on the telecommunication screen this crazed looking man screaming, “We will not go back; we will not go back,” and they tried to bomb the ship, and they exploded. It was destruction.
And when he got back through the wound, he had to seal it off. He really had to get back through the wound, and he had to seal it off. And all I could think about was, wow, that is what Christ is doing. Adam fell, and he fell into a world which is an open wound where people are dying, where he is multiplying into many members. And the only difference between the solution to the problem on the “Star Trek” episode and as I understand the solution through the Scripture is this: In the “Star Trek” episode, the man who fell into the wound was going back out the same way he came in; he was backtracking. The p- -- the human problem, brethren, is that we do not have the strength to backtrack. We do not have a ship.
You see, in “Star Trek,” he was in a ship, in an atomically powered ship, and he -- you have a question? OK. And he was going back through the wound. We do not have the power to go back through the wound, so we are stuck here. But our God and savior and creator, because of his love for us, has entered into the wound, and he has entered into this wounded system or, as it says in the Book of Romans, into this wounded heart, according to or in accordance with the physical laws of this world system. He entered in by being born as a human baby. But because he was present in this baby that was born, the power to go back through the wound entered into this fallen world.
So it is God’s plan not to go back the way we came, but that his Son Jesus should be crucified and raised from the dead and ascended and be pouring out of his Spirit upon all flesh and getting into the hearts of all men so that we cannot go back the way we came, but that Christ in us will do exactly what the carnal mind did. Christ in us, not from the outside going in, but from the inside going out, will pierce through the s- -- the wound, the original wound, and then seal it over. If you can hear it, hear it.
The scientists today have information that directly applies to what happened to the creation as it appears in the Scripture, if you have the spiritual ears to hear what the Scripture is saying. Where we differ is in the solution. They do not understand the solution, but they have got the problem, and I just find that so exciting, to see that on the TV. Many -- he multiplied into many members. They were -- some of them going insane. Death was everywhere. They did not want to return. They did not want to go back, exactly what is happening here, exactly, well, not exactly, but really close to it, and it just boggled my mind. But man does not have the solution, and I also found, many years ago when I came into some contact with the Hindu holy book -- I do not remember what it is called. It is a boo- --
Transcribed by Verbal Fusion 02/08/16
02/09/16 1st Edit rh
