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-- been tremendous soldiers. I do not know about you, but I am tired. Five weeks of this -- this is incredible, five weeks of this. You know, sometimes I even doubt what the Lord tells me. I came to Nigeria without an itinerary. Last year I came without an itinerary, and the Lord sent us to several places, including Benin for a week. I came again this year. We came again this year with no itinerary, and the only word that I heard from the Lord was that he was pouring out his Spirit into this fellowship and that he was establishing the church here in Lagos and to spend five weeks here, that his Spirit could drench in.

And as you know, after about -- I guess, it was after about three weeks, I thought that I had heard wrong, and we went elsewhere for a week or two. I lose track of how much time it was, and it turns out that that was not the Lord, so we came back, and this has been a very spiritually stressful campaign. You see, the devil does not like what we did, and there is been all kinds of stressors and all kinds of problems. But I have to tell you that I have heard no other word from the Lord except what he told me at the beginning, and for some reason, I was diverted. I have spoken to you about trying the spirit, and I have told you openly that it is not at all uncommon for me to take a wrong step. It happens a lot. It is very difficult to perceive the Spirit of God and follow it.

The most difficult -- I think the most difficult part of it is not perceiving the word of the Lord, but following through. Now why would that be so difficult? Because when the Lord speaks to us, when he gives a commandment, he speaks very -- at least to me, very clearly. I know that I have heard from God because, in order for him to transmit his communication to me, he joins himself to my mind with a great strength, and I believe that this is standard procedure for him. When he gives an instruction, he joins himself to our mind with a great strength, and he drops his word in our mind, and then he withdraws, and we are required to go on faith and follow through with that commandment, believing that God told us.

Of course, after the Lord withdraws, every devil in Hell comes to you to say, did God really say that? Or God could not have said that, or surely you misunderstood the Lord, or there are all these other signs saying otherwise. And then there are always people’s minds who, unaware -- un- -- they are unaware of it themselves, but it is not the mind of Christ in them. It is the carnal mind in them saying, thinking -- people think, and their thoughts affect us, and they think, five weeks in one place, this could not possibly be God. So someone in the position that I was in, I had all of this coming at me. People do not mean to do you any harm, but when you are spiritually sensitive, their thoughts register in your heart.

The Lord has dropped his word, and he is no th- -- not that the Lord has left me, but his union with my mind for the purposes of that instruction has ended. He is no longer transmitting that instruction to me anymore. But what I am he- -- so I have a memory of it, but what is being transmitted towards the person who has received the command now are the thoughts of everybody’s carnal mind, including your own carnal mind, and it is a challenge to stay before the Lord and follow through with what he has told you to do.

This is a major problem of the person living by faith: Every devil and every carnal mind in Hell will rise up to hell you that God could not have possibly told you that, but as we wind down our series of meetings, I believe that God told me that and that I fell prey -- I failed to take the victory. I am not blaming anybody. I failed to follow through in view of the pressure that was put upon me by other people’s minds. I hope you can hear me. There is no condemnation in this. I am giving you my testimony because we all need to know what we are up against when God gives us an instruction. We are up against the carnal minds of everybody that Satan can stir up to say or to think, now did God really say that? We even see this happening with John the Baptist, the one who said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world,” and shortly thereafter, he is sending his disciples to Jesus to say, are you the one? He was not sure.

So to be honest with you, I do not even know why I am saying this. I did present myself before the Lord today. I do not have any prepared message for you, so we will go with the Spirit. This is what I felt led to say to you. I also had hoped to start off by thanking God for electricity and for fans and for lights. I think perhaps the reason I am going along this line is that there was a very strong thought present last night. I think Sister June said she heard it. I do not remember. You heard it too. It was a very strong thought present.

Why in the world would Sister Sheila come to [?Aguda?] where she knew there might be no electricity, when we could have been comfortably sitting in Festac and -- was that your thought? No. Was that your thought? No -- in an air-conditioned room because Sister Margaret [SP] is blessed enough to have a generator in her home. This is irrational behavior to experience what we experienced last night, and let me tell you, brethren, as uncomfortable as you may or may not have been, you try preaching the kind of message I tried to preach last night in that heat with no fan and with no lights. You try it. I listened to the message. Considering, it was excellent. What a challenge. So -- although, probably, the person or persons who was thinking that thought are not present at this time, I feel led to answer the question anyway. So if after we leave your wonderful nation you happen to run into the people who confess you to that they were thinking that thought, you can [?answer?] it for them.

Brethren, the Lord told me to preach at Aguda, you see. Believe me, if I had my choice, I would have been in the air-conditioned, lighted home of the very gracious [?Dr. S- -- Lawal?], who have taken us in for five weeks. So -- and, you know, there is not a doubt in my mind that Satan, to the fullest extent that he can, will punish us for obedience to God. If I learned one thing from the Lord, I learned this: If you realize that you have misstepped, if you realize that God has gone left and you have gone right, in the United States, we say, if you realize that God has zigged and you have zagged, go back to where you zagged off into the wrong direction. Go back; go back; go back. And there is not a doubt in my mind that last night was punishment for going back. We -- I have preached with no lights and no fans right here in this room before, but it was never as hot as it was last night. There was never one night without even a breeze coming through the window, you see. The devil was mad, but we did what God told us to do anyway, and there has to be blessings in it.

So we see the operation of the carnal mind of man. The things of God never make sense to the carnal mind of man, never ever. The bottom line is obedience. There is safety in obedience. There is blessing in obedience. There is life in obedience. There is everything, every good thing that comes from the Father of lights, in obedience, when it makes no sense to your rational mind at all. We must seek to obey God.

So I would like to make a few more comments on the anointing. I -- it has come to my attention that some of you, perhaps all of you -- it has just come to my attention that some of you really have not received much instruction as to the operation of the Spirit. Sometimes just f- -- the way things go, we get all caught up in one direction, and doctrine has been a big thing here in Lagos. It has been a big thing back in New York for us for quite a few years, but let us not forget the Spirit, brethren, because as important as doctrine is, the creativi- -- the creative power of God is in his Spirit. That which he intends to do, that which he intends to fashion, that which he intends to bring forth in the future, he does it by the creative power of his Spirit.

It took me a long time to comprehend this. When I first came to the Lord, I did not understand it. I did not understand what the -- I did not understand prophecy, as a matter of fact. When I was a new disciple, every time someone prophesied, I did not sleep, but my mind went blank. I went into some other world somewhere, thinking some other thoughts. And as soon as the believer with the gift stopped prophesying, I came around. What did he say? What did he say? Did not hear a word. It took me a long time to understand that when it is the Spirit of the Lord speaking, what he says may not exist at the moment and probably does not exist at the moment, but that the Lord creates with his words. When the Lord speaks it, it comes to pass.

So oth- -- yet other carnal minds would say to me, you come all the way from New York with this high doctrine to preach to this small group. Brethren, the answer to that statement is I would come all the way from New York to preach to one person if God told me to do it. The Lord has been here for this five weeks, anointing for ministry. I believe -- and I said this last night, but a couple of you came in late; you probably did not hear it. I believe that what the Lord has done or the -- he has done many things, and he has blessed many of us individually, but his primary goal is to raise up ministry of the doctrine of Christ here in Lagos. That is what I believe he has done. I believe he has poured his Spirit into a group of young adults here in Lagos.

How long it is going to take for you to rise up and for him to send you -- please do not go unless he sends you. Please, do not go unless he sends you. If you feel a call to go preach or teach or whatever, please, seek the Lord, and make sure that you have many witnesses that he is sending you now. He might say, amen, son, I am sending you. Say, Lord, when? You know, the Lord, he is not a man; he is a Spirit. In past times, I personally have been very hurt because I have believed prophecy which I thought did not come to pass, until I found out that I just did not understand God. And now I know that when the Lord says, thus saith the Lord, within three days or within three weeks or within three months, I have to say thus, [?da-dus, da-dus, da-dus?]. I have to say, Lord, when do I start counting? Now the carnal mind says three days from the prophecy.

I am telling you my heart was broken over a promise that God made to me which did not come to pass in three months, until I found out that I forgot to ask him three months from when. And we have scriptural of examples of this, specifically in the Book of Daniel. We see from the restoring of the wall of Jerusalem unto such-and-such, so much time will elapse. It turned out that the Lord did fulfill his promise to me. It was not a false prophecy; it was the word of the Lord. I just started counting from the verbal giving of the prophecy, and that was the wrong time to start counting, and the word of the Lord came to pass in my life. It was at least a year, a year to a year and a half from the time I received the prophecy.

So I believe that God is doing and will be doing great things in Nigeria. He seems to be o- -- coming f- -- out of Lagos. He seems to be operating out of Lagos. The Lord always has a base. He always works with small numbers. He always trains up a few people and sends them out. And no matter how much I have blessed you -- and it is a great blessing to me to hear you express how much I have blessed you, but I am going back to New York. And from what I can see, I do not really expect to be here more. I think if God continues to send me five weeks a year, it would be a great blessing. Not many evangelists come five weeks every year.

You have got to have your own ministry. It has got to be, so you have got to have your own ministers preaching the doctrine of Christ. You have got to have your own ministry in which Christ is being formed. It has got to be, and I believe that the Lord laid the groundwork this five weeks, and the way he laid the groundwork was the anointing he poured out on these meetings. It got on you; it got inside of you. I would like to believe and I do believe that it not only got inside of you, if you remember the teaching from last night, but that you digested it. Amen? That was before you came in.

See, the Holy Ghost can get on top of you. It could get inside of you. You can prophesy by the Holy Ghost, but the Holy Ghost does not join with -- well, the Holy Ghost, in the form of the Holy Ghost, is not joined with you. Once he joins with you, his name changes; his name changes to the Spirit of adoption. And we found this teaching in the Gospel of John, the 6^th chapter, where we see Jesus s- -- making some profound statements about he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood. We found out that there were two different Greek words translated “eat,” one typifying the activity of the Holy Ghost or the imputed anointing, which can get inside of you without being digested by you, and the second Greek word translated “to eat” is the Greek word which means that which you have digested or that of God which has joined with you.

So I believe -- I would like to believe all of you, but if not all of you, that is OK. God does not have to do everything overnight. I think everyone who was supposed to be at these meetings were here, and I believe that you have digested him and that, if you have not digested him, you will digest him in due season. Everybody does not grow at the same rate of speed. Everybody is not starting out from the same point, so do not compare yourself to your brother and say look at where he is and look at where I am, and we have both been with the Lord for five years. That is not accurate. You must observe where you were when you started, and you should not be looking at your brother anyway. You should be looking at yourself, and all that you should be looking for us that there is some spiritual growth. If you are more mature than you were when you came to the Lord -- if you are growing, you should be very encouraged. There is nothing wrong with asking the Lord to increase your rate of growth, but, beware, such a request means an increase in your -- anybody know?

            [INAUDIBLE]

In your what?

            [INAUDIBLE]

And trials and tribulations and pain and torment and suffering, yes.

            [INAUDIBLE]

Although, that is true too, yes. So count the cost, brethren. Count the cost. But I do believe that God is raising up leadership, a n- -- a different branch of leadership here in Lagos. I believe that, and that is what he has done, and that is what my job has been here for five weeks. It has not been easy. The spiritual warfare has been intense. The stress has been intense. We are all adults here. We all know about Satan. He is no one to fool with. There have been two deaths in two days in Dr. Margret [SP]’s family. It has not been anyone really close to them, but all kinds of spiritual activity has been going on. If you can hear it, Satan will get as close as he can get.

Last year when we were here, there were three accidents in her house. Two cars were damaged. All of -- none of the accidents touched her immediate family, although they touched the household [?help?], and one driver totaled the car, I think, if I am not mistaken. There has been a lot of spiritual activity. There has been illness. Dr. Lawal’s husband had an extremely bad cold. He lost a day at the hospital. There has been trouble, but nothing devastating, we thank God, nothing that left permanent damage, we thank God. But I just want you to know, you who are the heart of the new Nigeria, you need to know that you are not going to preach this message, that you are not going to anoint for ministry, that you are not going to destroy the works of the devil, that you are not going to impregnate people with Christ and kill their carnal minds without Satan getting mad at you. You must know that because, if you are ignorant of his devices, you will fall prey to him. So I do not tell you this to put fear in you; I tell you this so that you could seek the Lord and receive the information that will equip you to withstand the punishing forces of the devil, you see.

And this is how you know that the Lord is on your side, that the works of the devil shall not stop you from completing your assignment. And this is how you shall know that the Lord loves you: Your enemies shall not prevail against you, you see. Now that does not mean that they will not hit you, and that does not mean that they will not shoot you, and that does not mean that you will not have a couple of bad moments here or there. But when you look at the overall picture, you will have to confess that you have not been stopped, nor have you been turned back, nor has your perseverance and your determination wavered, but that you have been going forward. And if on a rare occasion or if on a frequent occasion you have gone to the left or to the right, the Lord has brought you back, and that is all that you need to know. You keep on going. Stay before the Lord, and humble yourselves, brethren, because as I told you last night, the most serious enemy of us all is pride, and in youth, pride has a lot of power over us, more power over the youth than over the initiated. So beware of the wiles of the devil so that he does not trip you up; beware. Praise the Lord.

So, I guess, what I am doing tonight, unless the Lord redirects this flow of the Spirit, is I am just trying to confirm to you that anointing for ministry has taken place, that you can expect to see some changes. I do not know how long it will take. It could take as much as a year to see what God has done here because, when you plant seeds, you do not usually see the sprouts the next day.

And I would like to remind you of what I taught you last night, and I ask that you keep it in your heart, that the issue at hand -- the issue of the hour is the life and death of God’s people. And as important as doctrine is, there should never be an issue of who is right or who is wrong. It is not the doctrine, OK. It is not the doctrine, but it is the Spirit that brings the doctrine, and the Spirit that brings the true doctrine brings life, and the spirit that brings the wrong doctrine, no matter how right it sounds, brings death. So seek God to help you to become more and more equipped to discern the Spirit of Christ and to recognize the operation of alien spirits because they are coming to destroy Christ, and they come in looking and sounding just like him, but the result of their ministry is that the people that you are ministering to receive spiritual death. So be ministers of Christ, brethren, and give life. Be givers of life because that is what you are called to do, and love one another, and forgive one another, and let us all get out of Hell because this is a terrible place. This is a terrible place, and it is more terrible for a lot of other people than it is for us.

So I believe that was the exhortation. I still do not know what the message is. I will wait on the move of the Spirit. I will take it from wherever it comes.

I did -- I would like to make one further comment on last night’s message, which point I failed to make. I did mention that there were two different Greek words translated “dip.” Let me just give you the verse. In the Gospel of John 13:26, “He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it,” one Greek word. “And when he had dipped the sop,” another Greek word.

That was an extremely difficult verse to translate. Basically, the difference for the use of the two words is this: Jesus was saying the one who is betraying me is the one -- now that word, “dip,” the root of the word is the same root of the word, “baptize.” The actual translation of the word, “baptize,” is “to be dipped in the water,” OK. And, of course, we know that -- I hope that we know. If we do not know, it is OK too -- that baptism should be a full immersion. You are supposed to go completely down under the water. So the first Greek word translated baptize, what Jesus is saying is the one who is going to betray me is the one who was fully baptized in my Spirit. Jesus said it is not the man on the street that is going to betray me, neither is it going to be the man with the imputed anointing.

Everybody knows men with an imputed anointing who have not had a change of nature, they betray Christ every day, OK. They betray the Christ in their own heart. How do they betray the Christ in their own heart? They do not recognize him, and they obey their carnal mind. That is how you betray Christ, brethren. And they betray Christ in other people. Why? Because they do not recognize him. The man whose nature is still carnal has an infirmity. He has trouble recognizing Christ, so Jesus said it is not him who is going to betray me. That would be no surprise to you, but I am telling you the man with the imparted anointing will betray me, the man whose sins I am layering over. The disciples had a temporary imparted anointing. It was not a permanent change of nature; it was a change of nature that was being forced on them because they were in the im- -- the presence of the Son of God who was covering over their sins.

He says it is going to be one of those who is incapable of betraying me. Because when your sp- -- when your carnal mind is covered over, you are incapable of betraying the Son of God, so that in itself was a shocking statement for those who might have understood what he said, except we found out last night that the disciples had no idea whatsoever what he was talking about. They had no idea what he was talking about when he said he was going to the cross. They had no idea what he was talking about when he said he was going to be -- the Son of man would be lifted up. They had no idea what he was talking about most of the time. When he was speaking about spiritual things, they had no idea what he was talking about.

And the fact that Jesus changed the Greek word when he used the word, “dip,” again, the second Greek word -- let me s- -- let me put it to you this way: The second Greek word indicated the imputed anointing, a man --

[AUDIO CUTS OUT] relating to baptize, indicates that, number one, the man who would betray him was incapable of betraying him. And, therefore, in order to make this man betray him so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus, by an act of his will, turned this man over to Satan, removed his Spirit -- Jesus removed his Spirit, which was covering the man’s sins and making him incapable of betraying the Son of man. That is the play of the two different Greek words. The man is incapable of betraying me, but I am handing him over to Satan, and his anointing has gone backwards from an imparted anointing to an imputed anointing. Now he is capable of betraying me.

And then as we went on with the Alternate Translation, we found out that as soon as Jesus withdrew his Spirit, that the man Judas Iscariot was in the same position that righteous Adam was in at the time of the fall when the Father withdrew his Spirit and said, all right, stand on your own merits. Let us see you stand on your own merits. And we are told in Romans 7, Chapter 7, prophetically, by Paul, that when the Father took his hand off of righteous Adam and said now stand in your own righteousness -- let us see what you have got there. I am going to prove to the world that you are not perfect, that you are just good.

And we still have preachers preaching that he was perfect. There is no Scripture that says Adam at the beginning of time was perfect. He was good. He was as good had formed him, and everything God does is good, but he was not yet in the image, the righteous image of the Father. So when the Father took his hand off of him, we are told the sin or the potential for sin which was in the man became exceedingly sinful. It was revealed, and it slew the man. We see the same thing happening to Judas. Jesus took his hand off of him, and the sin which was still present because the man -- Judas Iscariot had not had his nature changed permanently. It was just changed temporarily because Jesus was pressing his sins down. That man who still had a potential to sin was bitten by the serpent. Sin became exceedingly sinful, and the light which was in him, which was Christ, went out, when Satan entered in, and it became night for the man, Judas. And he went out, and he did the deeds of his master, Satan. He could, for all intents and purposes, have been in a hypnotic trance.

So we see, brethren, we must have our nature changed. We must have our nature changed. This is the word of the hour: We must have our nature changed. Doctrine is necessary because the doctrine of Christ is the food which feeds the growing Christ in you, OK. The doctrine of Christ, if it is truly coming out of Christ in you, is a sign that Christ is maturing in you. Doctrine is good; doctrine is necessary; doctrine is important. But check out the spirit that it is coming from, and then use it to change your nature. Use it to war against your own carnal mind because, as long as we have this potential for sin to be exceedingly sinful, we are at a disadvantage. It is not until Christ in us rises up and harnesses that sin so completely that our condition is now called full stature or our mind is called the kingdom of the two heavens. We are vulnerable to be taken over against our will.

So this is the word I would like to leave you with. We have this meeting and two more meetings. I do not know what the Lord will give me for the other two meetings, but I know he has instructed me to leave this word as impressed upon your heart as I can. We must all know, including me, that we are still vulnerable for so long as our carnal mind has any independent thought whatsoever. We are still vulnerable, including me. We have to know it. Praise the Lord.

I also -- I did look up one -- somebody asked me about the difference between the natural mind and the carnal mind. Somebody asked me that. You asked me that? I did check that out with my concordance, and the Scripture that I found was in 1 Corinthians. Was it Chapter 12 or Verse 12? Yeah. Well, when I looked it up, it did not say natural man -- it did not say natural man; it said natural man. Was it natural mind? I thought the question was what is the difference between the natural mind and the carnal mind, but it did not say natural mind; it said natural man.

And whenever we are dealing with a Scripture which speaks about man, we -- it would help us to check out whether the Greek word is anthropos, and that is Strong’s 444, or whether it is another word which means a specific man. The Strong’s 444 is speaking about the many-membered corporate man or humanity. The translation really means man-[?craced?] -- man-faced creature, referring to the corporate man. And there are other words which would indicate that man, meaning one of us. In the -- in this phrase, the natural man, it was Strong’s 444, and it was merely speaking about the -- not the spiritual man, the natural man, whose nature is like the beasts. That is what it was talking about. So the difference between the natural man and the carnal mind is simply that the carnal mind is the name of the mind which is in the natural man, OK. So I hope that answered your question.

And I did make a comment last night also about the fact of [?a car-?] -- of other Scriptures speaking about the betrayal of Jesus by Judas where Jesus said it is he. It is the one who dips in the dish with me. We find that Scripture in Matthew, and we find that Scripture in Mark also. Those are the only two places where this word -- this Greek word translated “dish” appears.

Now if I was at home, back in New York, I have a program in my computer which would let me enter that Strong’s number and see if this word was -- if it appeared anywhere else in the -- in Strong’s, and in -- I would not search by the English word, dish; I would search by the number. But I did not have that tool with me, so I did the best I could. I looked up every synonym I could think of, of “dish,” and I could not find any other appearance of that number in Strong’s. I looked up “plate.” I looked up “saucer.” I looked up “vials.” I thought maybe it was the same word, as used in the ch- -- in the Book of Revelation, and I could not find any other appearance of that word, “dish.”

As I mentioned last night, there is no indication whatsoever that Judas ever dipped in any dish, neither is there any indication that Jesus dipped in any dish. Jesus just said, the one who will betray me, he is the one that is going to dip in the dish with me, but nobody ever dipped in the dish. So that does not make any sense, brethren, and I suggest to you that that must be a poor translation, that Jesus was speaking about some spiritual experience. And what is on my heart -- although, as I said, I did not really have the tools to check it out as I would have liked to -- is the word, “dish.” It means “a deep dish,” a dish with depth to it. Now a lot of the times when I choose another translation, I base at least part of my decision on other Scriptures which use the same word. I will do a usage search, but these were the only two Scriptures that this word appeared in, and we only have circumstantial evidence. Nobody ever dipped in the dish, so -- Jesus did not dip in the dish; Judas did not dip in the dish; nobody dipped in any dish anywhere. I could not even find the dish.

So when I did look up those two words, look up the definition, I felt in my heart that Jesus was saying dish, lifestyle, world system, he who shares this existence with me. It is s- -- I perceived it to be along the lines of Jesus saying you could not bear the cup that I am drinking out of. Are you willing to drink out of this same cup? You could not bear it. I perceived it to be something along those lines, that Jesus was saying there was no one who could drink out of the cup he was drinking from, but apparently there was some aspects of his lifestyle that some of the disciples were sharing with him, and I believe that the disciples were partaking of some of his life and his existence and his experience. So he was saying the one who is going to betray me is the one who is sharing this existence with me, someone who is traveling with me, someone who is in my ministry, not someone on the other side of town, but someone who is of my everyday acquaintanceship.

And, of course, the word, “dipped,” in that context is the Greek word which is translated i- -- the root of it is “baptize,” OK. He is the one who is living in this same lifestyle that I am living in. And I believe, if I am not mistaken, it was the Greek word that meant not the imparted anointing but the imputed anointing. It was the one who had the Spirit of God on his surface, not the one who had been made one in his nature with the anointing of God. That is what Jesus was saying. The one who will betray me, he is the one, not the one who has an anointing that is part of his nature, but he is the one who has the anointing on the surface. That is the Holy Ghost anointing. That is the anointing that can get on top of us, get underneath us, get through us, but is not one with us. So that is what Jesus was saying, someone who is -- out of all my disciples, the one who has the imputed anointing, the one who I lifted my hand off of, whose sins I went o- -- I w- -- I am no longer covering. That is what he was saying. Glory to God.

And so, Lord, is there anything else you wanted me to say about last night? That was an excellent revelation; it really blessed me. I am just waiting on the Lord for a second. I am usually much more thorough than I was last night. It is just a miracle I got out what I got out. Thank you, Jesus. Well, you might also be interested to take a look with me in the Book of Acts, the account of Judas after the betrayal, where it says he purchased a field. Where was that?

Verse 17 of Chapter 1 -- Verse 16, “Men and brethren, the Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth for David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them who took Jesus.”

“For he was numbered with us.” He was one of us. It had to be one of them, “and had obtained part of this ministry.” What ministry? The ministry of Christ. He had to be somebody who had attained, in some measure, to having his sins covered.

Verse 18, “Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity” -- oh, I know what I want- -- what God wanted me to tell you -- “and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed.”

Before I comment on that, I knew there was something else the Lord wanted me to tell you that appears in Mark and Matthew where we talked about Jesus saying he who dippeth in the dish with me, he is the one who will betray me, the next verse says, but woe be un- -- [UNINTELLIGIBLE] -- the Son of man must be betrayed, but woe be unto him who betrayeth the Son of man -- but woe be unto the man who does this betrayal. That Greek word translated “man” is Strong’s 444, and it is speaking about the man-faced creature. It is speaking about the whole of humanity, and the significance is that every man with a human nature, a ma- -- every man that has not been converted completely into Christ is guilty of the betrayal of the Son of man, and it is not even a question of being potentially guilty.

The significance is that we betray Christ -- every one of us who is not in full stature, we betray Christ continuously in our own hearts and in other people’s hearts because so long as our carnal mind is out from under the authority of Christ, he is killing Christ -- out from under the hund- -- 100 percent authority in Christ, he is killing him wherever he can. And in every moment, every choice, every moment that we think, it is a question of whether, at that moment, it will be Christ or the carnal mind. And every time the carnal mind wins, that he thinks that thought through you, there is only one way you he could think that thought through you, the carnal mind, and that is to kill Christ for that moment. So, you see, ever since the time of the fall, Chri- -- [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [?been?] [AUDIO CUTS OUT] [?continously?] killed, killed all the day long, but the Father keeps raising him from the dead. We kill him continuously.

            [?Amen?].

We kill him in ourselves; we kill him in each other; we kill him in people we love; we kill him in people we do not like. We kill him continuously because our carnal mind was a murderer from the beginning, you see, so that is the whole point. It was not just Judas Iscariot who betrayed the Son of man; it is all of us. It was not just the Jews who crucified him; it is all of humanity. But Jesus did say, I come to -- I come that the judge -- that the prince of this world shall be judged. So what is the judgment of the prince of this world? Well, the prince of this world is Satan. How is he judged? Everywhere Christ appears, the prince of this world kills him. Everywhere Christ appears, the prince of this world kills him or tries to kill him. And he who liveth by the sword shall die by the sword, therefore, in this manner must the prince of this world be killed, by the sword, through crucifixion, through a spiritual sword, through the crucifixion of Christ.

So we see all of humanity has been convicted of this sin. We are all guilty before the Lord. None is righteous, brethren, no, not one. And the only way we shall ascend back up into heaven is through the offering of the u- -- as a sacrifice unto the Lord Jesus Christ of our own carnal mind. We must offer him up; it is the only way he will die. So long as we are in agreement with him in our minds, he will live. We must renounce him and everything that he is to us and cleave unto Christ and become the enemy of our own mind and of our own emotions and, therefore, of our own desires and our own needs and our own plans for our life, trusting in the one who has called us and who has fashioned us to give us a rewarding life and to meet our needs. We must give up every plan and say, Lord, nevertheless, your will, not mine. The Lord might give you what you have asked for, but the point is an attitude of your heart which says, Lord, if you give it to me, fine; if you do not give it to me, that is fine too. I know you will meet my every need. The many-membered, man-faced creature is the one who betrayed, who has betrayed, who is betraying and who shall betray up until the very last moment, the Son of man. The whole world is found guilty. You have a question?

When you were talking about he that lives -- uses the sword shall [?so as that?], and you used the example that he, the carnal mind, uses the sword. That means, in the same way, he will die. So what I was thinking, it is -- there was -- there is a Scripture that says, if Satan had known, he would not have crucified the Lord of glory. So I was thinking about -- and, in that way, I was seeing it. [?It just came in as?], like, Christ fell as a seed and grew, multiplied. So it is like, if the carnal mind kills the Christ in us, if he only knew, he would have left that Christ individually in us, for if he kills him and he dies, he resurrects, [?multiplied?].

[?Yes?].

            OK.

[?You got it right?], exactly. You have a question? OK. Exactly. Every time the Son of man is killed, the Father keeps raising him from the dead. We can fall -- a righteous man can fell seven times, but he will never be destroyed. As a matter of fact, that is a good point.

Let me put this in at this point. When we have a meeting like this -- and getting back to speaking about the Spirit again -- and what I call an anointing falls over this meeting or forms over this meeting. I had some people speak to me over this five weeks, telling me that they could not understand what I was speaking about. This word, the anointing, they did not comprehend what I meant by it. What I mean by the anointing is the formation of Christ. Christ is a spiritual man. We are speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ, a man, but not a fallen man like we are, nevertheless a man which has substance, not physical substance, but spiritual substance, and you need spiritual eyes to see him. He can take the form that we are in, but he does not have to take the form that we are in, nevertheless, he has substance to him.

And where he is exalted -- what does that mean? Where -- he is usually in his word, usually. Where the true doctrine is coming forth by the Spirit of Christ, Christ is exalted. He is exalted where there is an open expression of who he really is, and he is in his word. So when it is the true word, when it is his Spirit in a man preaching his doctrine, this formation of the man, Christ Jesus, appears over that gathering. Now he is spiritual, and he needs to be spiritually discerned, and what we have in such a situation is a resurrection of Ezekiel’s dead bones. Now if you can hear this, hear it. In such a situation, Ezekiel’s dead bones are erected, and your body and your soul and my body and my soul are the flesh and the sinews that have been laid upon those bones.

The bones of Christ are within his people, and we are the flesh and the sinews which are laid on top of it. However, in this hour, as often as Christ is raised from the dead and exalts himself in an outpouring, many of which we have seen over these last few weeks, he dies. It goes down. It is not permanent. Why? The carnal mind comes up. We go back to our carnal pursuits. We go to work. We get engaged in the natural things of this world, and Christ does not gather food. Christ does not cook. Christ does not work at the bank, so your carnal mind has to come up to do that.

So we see in this hour Christ continuously rising and falling, rising and falling, but the day is about to come where he is going to rise in a company of men, and he will not fall anymore. And, you see, when we have a meeting like this, the person that God has raised up to be in charge of the meeting -- let me say it again: the person who God has raised up. There are people who run meetings who God has not raised up. If there is a God-appointed head of the meeting, this erection of the body of Christ or this formation or this resurrection of the man, Christ Jesus, is originating or is being stabilized in or is founded from the person that God has raised up to head the meeting. What does that mean? It means that if another spirit tries to come into the meeting, he will go from person to person to person to person, and he is trying to knock Christ out of the God-appointed head. He can knock Christ out to for every person in the meeting, but he has to bring him down in the God-appointed head to completely bring down the anointing because the foundation of that resurrected expression of Christ is coming from the God-appointed head, if you can hear it.

Learning about spiritual things is very difficult. There are no books. It is very hard. You listen to me, and then God gives you your own experiences, and at some point, you will understand. Very few ministries teach about spiritual things in Christ. It is very rare. To be honest with you, I am the only one that I know of. That does not mean there is not somebody else perhaps right here in Lagos. I do not know. I do not know them. God has not shown them to me. I teach a lot of spiritual things. I have a lot of tapes on it. It is information that you need to have. You need to have it; you need to know it. But very few -- I may be the only one. It is hard to believe, but God has not shown me anyone else yet. I may be the only one teaching it at this time.

The church is in transition; things are changing. It cannot stay this way. That is why you are being trained up. God is continuously training up youthful ministries. Why? Because the mature ministries wear out. This is a very hard life with Satan hammering at you continuously. God is always raising up new ministry. He is beginning to raise up new ministry before the mature ministry goes out in the same way that our natural example, humanity, gives birth to babies. Man provides his eternity. M- -- humanity -- the eternity or the eternal life or the immortality of humanity is in their ability to reproduce. We go on through our children. Well, for so long as we are still in -- the church is still in a condition where no matter how anointed your ministry has been, you pass on, God must continuously be raising up youthful ministry, and the mature ministry raises up the youth.

And every new level of ministry that is being raised up, you receive everything of the ministry -- of the Christ ministry in that person to date. If you use our natural example, every generation becomes more knowledgeable. You find one man; he wants to be a psychologist. He reads all the potential literature on psychology or on science. He studies everything, and it mixes in his own heart and in his own intelligence and with his own creativity, and he comes up with a new theory. The student always goes beyond the teacher, in fallen man, always, because you take everything from your teacher and add it to your creativity. It has to be.

So if I am not perfected in this body -- I hope I will be, but if I am not, there is not a doubt in my mind that somebody, at least one person if not many, somewhere, will s- -- exceed me, and most likely it will be someone I trained up. That is the way it is. It has to be. The only one we will never exceed is the Lord Jesus Christ, never ever, and he shall always be a cut above us until such time as the creation is glorified. So I hope that I gave you some information about the bones of Christ, that they are capable of being knocked out.

Now you might have heard the expression in Pentecost, grieving the Holy Spirit. In Pentecost, there is some manifestation of the resurrection of Christ when the anointing comes in to prophesy or to heal. This is an immature manifestation of the anointing, and when an enemy spirit comes in, he can knock out the Spirit which is in Pentecost very easily. And if there is no person running the meeting who has an imparted Christ, that anointing goes, but it is not that the Holy Spirit has been grieved. That anointing goes because it has been killed. It has been killed, and the imputed anointing, which is in Pentecost, apparently, is not powerful enough to raise it from the dead right then and there on that spot.

A lot of what I teach you, especially about spiritual things, I do not have 100 percent understanding. I do not have any more details on what I just said except that I know and most people who have experienced Pentecost know that it is possible to see an outpouring of the Holy Spirit shot down and be gone and never come back during that meeting again. And because Pentecostal preachers have no understanding of this, they will tell you that we must have done something really bad and grieved the Holy Spirit. He got mad at us like a petulant child and went away and is punishing us by not coming back until the next meeting. That is what they teach, but that is not the truth. The truth is he has been killed, and it takes time for the Father to raise him from the dead. Usually it takes until the next service.

But if someone in a meeting has the imparted Christ, if somebody has a manifestation of Christ, it is usually the one heading the meeting, where Christ has been d- -- or is being digested and is resident and abiding in the person of the leader of the group, no matter how strong that spirit is which comes in, if it c- -- if the leader is strong enough, it is not likely that that spirit can kill it, although I have had Christ killed in me right at my own meeting. I am not happy to tell you that, but I would be lying to you if I told you that it never happened. It did happen to me at least once. Someone came into my meeting with a very strong mind and just shot me down, did not even know what he was doing, killed me. It took me until the next meeting or took the Father until the next meeting to raise Christ from the dead in me.

But if you are at a meeting where the person heading up the meeting is stronger than the enemy spirit which comes in -- now, remember, he comes in, and he goes to everybody. Some people verbalize it; other people just think it. But when the enemy spirit comes in, he touches everybody in the meeting and presses their button and tries to stir up their carnal mind to kill the Christ that is -- has been raised from the dead in that meeting. But if he cannot bring down the Christ in the leader of the meeting, then the anointing will come back. If he cannot kill the Christ in the -- in t- -- who is leading the meeting, it is the end of the m- -- it is the end of the anointing. It is the end of the expression of Christ, which is creative, which is pouring out blessings, which is bringing healing and deliverance and teaching and every blessed thing unto the people at the meeting.

Now the last meeting that we had here, in that first series of meetings, was the most outstanding manifestation of the man, Christ Jesus, I have ever seen, and I think Sister June and Sister Celia were in agreement that they had never seen anything like it.  And all that I can tell you was that he seemed to be like -- he was like a block standing in front of me. Did anybody here see it? I know I saw it. It was like a -- he was in the form of a square, some solid block, and he was fully exalted. I do not know how to describe it to you otherwise. I have never seen anything like the power that he was in, in those last few meetings, especially that very last meeting. And I think if I were to give you a natural example of what I perceived in my spirit, I would say he was standing in full battle array, like you would see a soldier waving his sword or holding his rifle in the air. He was just fully exalting himself, never seen anything like it. It was awesome.

This is what he desires to do: He desires to express himself; he desires to be fully exalted. And he can only be exalted to the fullness of or for the length of time which he can be sustained by the people in whom he is coming out of, so that means hi- -- the expression of Christ at any moment, at any time or in any group, is dependent upon the maturity of Christ in the people forming the group. It is also affected by who comes in and out of the meeting. If you have several people come into the meeting who do not have Christ, who come in with a manifested carnal mind that is waging war against the Christ in the one heading up the meeting, it is n- -- tearing me down, tearing me down, I may not be strong enough to resist, or it might weaken the anointing that is coming forth from me.

It is a continuous, ongoing warfare, continuous, until that day when Christ breaks through and becomes so strong in whoever it is happening to that no carnal mind anywhere -- that if the whole world of carnal minds comes against him, it will not kill Christ, and that is the condition that Jesus of Nazareth was in, and that is called overcoming the world, and that is when you have dominion over every natural law. That is when you have the power to create eyes that never existed, to put ears back on people.

That is a condition which makes this world an illusion to you. When you are caught up to such a high spiritual place that the God of this world has no power to hurt you, to damage you, to kill you, to control you in any way, this world, to you, becomes a pile of mud like you would see at the seaside, and you can mold it, make limbs where there were no limbs, make eyes where there were no eyes, fix people, mold people, write on their soul, erase adultery and write holiness. If you are looking for an example, that is a real good example of what happened to the man, Jesus of Nazareth. He was in such a high place, spiritually, that he had authority to make changes in this world as if we were a painting on a canvas. Can you hear it?

Some people preach that this world is an illusion. It is an illusion, except I am a part of the illusion. That is the problem. This world is a moving picture. Well, to me it is real because I am in the moving picture. For the person watching the moving picture, they can get up and walk away any time they want. They could say I do not believe that. I do not like it. Shut it off. Turn it on. Roll it back. But I am in the moving picture.

            [INAUDIBLE]

I am the one that goes forward or goes backwards as he presses the button. So, you see, as Christ ascends back up into heaven, while he is still in us, we go up with him, and, eventually, we ascend out of the moving picture, and we get out there with the projectionist, and we become the ones pressing the buttons.

I saw a science fiction movie many years ago before I ever had this understanding. It showed a man typewriting. He was creating a story from his mind. I will make it simple. Jack had a dog, see it typing on the screen. First, it says there was a man, Jack, and a man appears on the screen. Then he is typing away. Jack had a dog; a dog appeared on the screen. Jack walked his dog; Jack walked the dog. You see, there is a spiritual force that thinks towards us, and everything that spiritual force thinks, we are or we become or we do. Now it is hard for us to believe that because we like to believe we have dominion over our own life, but it is the truth. There is a man. If you want to call him a man, a woman, a man, he is the carnal mind. She is a woman who thinks she is a man.

            [INAUDIBLE]

What?

            [INAUDIBLE]

Yeah. And everything she thinks -- except for those of us who are fighting this war against her, everything she thinks towards us, we are, we become, and we do. She thinks death towards us; we die. She thinks life towards us; we live. She thinks torment towards us; we are tormented, except for those who have entered into a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, who has an authority which is higher than the spiritual authority of the carnal mind. The Lord Jesus Christ has a mind which is more powerful than the carnal mind, so the carnal mind says die, and Jesus says live. The carnal mind says sickness, and Jesus says health, and you live, and you become healthy. The carnal mind says poverty, unemployment, destruction in your life, but Jesus says blessings and glory and life unto you and self-respect and employment and honesty and decency and everything that is good in life, and a change must take place in your life, but not without a war. [AUDIO CUTS OUT]

We might say the two minds trying to form the clay of your life. Can you imagine two children fighting with each other at the seashore for who is going to form the sandcastle? [INAUDIBLE] two children fighting over what that man they are molding out of the sand or the mud at the seashore will look like. That is what is going on. It is not that Jesus’ arm is short to overthrow the mind which is carnal or the mind of the flesh. It is that Jesus has chosen to mold us according to a particular plan, and that particular plan is to reproduce his life in us. And in this hour, the Lord Jesus Christ is raising up young. His offspring called Christ Jesus is in us, but not in full stature. That is why the struggle between Christ and the carnal mind. If it were Jesus, the glorified Jesus, against our carnal mind, he would knock him out like that, but he is growing up young. He is raising up offspring. He is teaching us to overcome our carnal mind little by little, and that is why it is such a battle.

But, brethren, if you persevere, if you stay with the Lord Jesus Christ, if you stay in faith, if you continue to rebuke your enemy, the carnal mind, and refuse to obey her, in due season, you must be victorious over every weapon the enemy can form against you. There is no weapon formed against you that can prosper if you persevere in faith with Christ, Christ Jesus within you and your overcoming big brother and Father, the Lord Jesus Christ. Some people come to the Lord with heavier curses on their family lines than others. You must be determined to press through and not give up. You must be determined to live the Scriptures to the fullest degree that you are able, whether you see a change -- an immediate change in your life or not. Press into the kingdom, and do not be discouraged.

Sometimes it looks like the natural circumstances of your life get worse when you first come to the Lord. That happens for some people. It happened to me, and when I cried out to God, his answer to me was look at your spiritual life. It is true your natural life appears to be going downhill, and it was because I was under a heavy judgment. I came to the Lord with heavy sin on my family line and on myself, and the judgments fall when you repent. So some really hard things were happening in my life, and it went on for years, but at the same time, the Lord showed me that my spiritual life was growing and developing and maturing, so it was a simultaneous falling of my natural life and spiritual ascension, simultaneous, and then eventually my natural life started to level out and get better, and it was pretty tough. So hang in there. I do not know how I got on all this. We were talking about Judas. Did anybody have a question along these lines? You did?

In connection with the formation of the Christ, is it the meaning of what the Scripture means when it says wheresoever two or three of you are gathered together in my name, is that the Christ?

Yes. When Jesus talks about his name, he is speaking about his Spirit, and the Spirit of Jesus Christ is -- he is not speaking about the Holy Spirit; he is speaking about the Spirit of Christ. And wherever two or three are gathered in his name, Christ is erected. I believe that. And we have an interesting message on this. It is part of the -- I guess, you will get to it eventually. Have you heard it? It is a part of the 186 series. You probably have it in your possession right now. The Lord gave us a whole message on the bones of Christ, but it just says 186. It says Christ. It does not say the bones of Christ, and that is exactly what he is talking about, except that most people do not understand it.

And I -- well, let me comment on this also. I heard a couple of people say that they carried over from Pentecost with them a bad taste in their mouth about this word, the anointing, and their experience in Pentecost was that they felt they were harassed by Pentecostal preachers threatening them. If you miss a meeting, you will miss the anointing. They put -- they felt that the -- they were -- there was an attempt to put them in bondage, that you had to attend every single meeting or you could lose your financial security or lose your health or -- I do not know whether this was true. It probably was true to a measure.

I have seen some of what they are talking about, but, brethren, let us not go to the opposite extreme, and I would like to share my position with you on this attitude, that when Christ is doing something, when the anointing is poured out, when the bones of Christ are erected, if you are not present, it is true: You have missed it. Now that does not mean you are going to die; it does not mean that you are going to lose your job; it does not mean that you are going to lose whatever you have attained to in Christ until that point.

Let me give you a natural example. If your p- -- if you enjoy parties, if you are a party person and there is a party that is going on for seven days and you could only make it for five days, you have missed the two days of that party. Whatever good thing was there, well, you did not get it. You are not going to die because of it, but to say that you did not miss something is not true either. Can you hear what I am saying? If God is pouring out his Spirit and you were not there, legitimate reason or not legitimate reason, if you were not there, you are not partaking of what he poured out, and you need to know that so that you can choose whether to make that extra effort to get there or to decide that this is one of those nights where you have a legitimate reason to not go. There are legitimate reasons to not go to church.

God does not punish you if you do not go; he rewards you when you go. Can you hear the difference? He does not punish you when you do not go; he rewards you when you go. So if you are looking for a blessing from God, if you are looking for him to change your life around, if you need something from him or if you just need him, I recommend that you are at church every time the door opens, as some of you have been here. But here every time the door is open, but if it is not that important to you or if you have legitimate obligations, family or work, that you really cannot come, well, then you cannot come, but you have to know that you did miss this experience of this night. It is here now. If you were not here, it is gone forever. You can get the message, but it is never the same. There is no condemnation in it, but neither can you steal the blessings from the people who made the effort to come out.

So let me clarify what I am saying to you. Some people, in an effort to resist being put in bondage -- and this bondage may not necessaril- -- it may be being spoken out by the minister, or the bondage may be in the person’s own mind, maybe a religious spirit in their own mind. Some people, in an attempt to avoid going into bondage -- and I do not believe in bondage, brethren. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Some people, in an attempt to avoid bondage, will teach or preach to other believers that it makes no difference whether you come out or not. They go to the complete opposite extreme. They say there is no curse if you do not come, but neither is there a blessing if you do come. It makes no difference, and that is not true. There is a blessing if you come.

Every time you go the extra mile to serve God, there is a blessing. Now what kind of a blessing? It is usually spiritual, spiritual increase. The more you expose yourself to the anointing, the more and the faster you are going to grow. So, brethren, all you people out there who were not willing to go the extra mile -- not those who could not now. Those who could have been here but chose not to be here, do not get all ripped up with envy when you see your brother taking one step ahead of you. If you can hear it, hear it. Count the cost. Pay the price. Receive the increase. Do what you have to do.

Now if you had a legitimate reason to not come, if it was work or family responsibility, you really could not come, well, then -- and you have to cry out to God. If you see the brother who came have an increase that you did not have, you have to tell the Lord that you would like the same increase. Resist envy, brethren. Revi- -- resist covetousness because it is idolatry, and it is death unto you. There is plenty for everybody. God has enough for everybody. If you have factors or circumstances in your life, excuse me, hindering you, cry out to God and tell him that you want to do something. You want to attend church every time the door opens, but you cannot. He will make a way, but do not be surprised if he take something else away, you see.

Now I understand that some people here in Nigeria have employers who require them to work long hours, and the long hours are not optional. Well, if your job depends on it, you have to do it. You cry out to God to make a way, and you do the best that you can do. But in New York, we have something called overtime. It is illegal to require your employees to work long hours without paying them extra money for it, so we have a problem in New York that you may or not he- -- have here in Lagos. I do not know about that, but we have people torn between that extra dollar, which they could enjoy but they do not really need it, and coming to church.

So it is a big -- it is a problem in the United States where people have a choice. Do I work for the extra money, or do I get to church? Well, my answer is you ask the Lord what he requires of you, and you count the cost, and you see how much of a price you want to pay. What is more important to you, the spiritual growth or what you ca- -- assuming you do not need the dollar t- -- for survival. Everybody has to make a choice, so my whole point is, if you cry out to God to make a way for you to grow spiritually, as quickly as possible, that is a good prayer, brethren, but do not be surprised if something else has to be sacrificed.

You know, when I was a young woman, I used to think that everything I ever achieved or accomplished in life could be horded, and I would hold onto everything and keep adding all kinds of blessing to my life. And at some point, I found out that the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, and not even that you necessarily lose one good thing because you get another good thing, but that is just the way life is. God gives you things. You keep them for a season, and they pass from you, and I had to grow up out of that because I was very angry. I thought I would be able to hold onto everything I had forever and ever and ever, and I am not speaking about material things. I am speaking about emotional things, relationships, every good thing in life, and as I grew up, I found out that is not true. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. So you have to partake of whatever is made available to you at the moment because you really do not know how much longer it will be available to you. Is that not a principle that Jesus taught? Did he not teach about the man that stored up all of his riches and his wealth? And he said, thou fool, this night thy soul is required of thee. It is a spiritual truth.

The church that I was raised up in had -- I w- -- ha- -- gave me an outstanding foundation in Christ. I was not raised in the church as a child, so I did not really know what was typical. The Lord brought me right into this church with an outstanding and unusual outpouring of his Spirit. Every time the doors opened, the -- there were four regular services a week, and the man in charge of the church was continuously scheduling seminars where we went seven days straight. I was blessed to the degree that I lived only a five-minute drive from the church. At the time, I had a full-time job. I was raising a small child, and I was not physically well, so I needed to sleep a lot, but I was there every time the doors opened. In five years, I think I missed two meetings. Once, I had to go to a funeral, and once my daughter was in the emergency room in the hospital.

There were occasions that I was so sick that I could not sit in my seat. It was a very l- -- the pastor of the church was very much into Christ, and so there was much liberality there. He knew that, at the time, I was chronically ill, and I would come in. On one occasion, I laid in the back of the church. I had a condition in my back. I was in torment. I could not sit in the chair. I brought a pillow and a blanket, and I laid down in the back of the church. On another occasion, I had been very ill, and I did not think I could sit up in those hard seats, so I brought -- we call them beach chairs. They are chairs where the parts move, and you can recline, go ba- -- I guess, you have them here too. You can recline and go backwards with them. So I just put the beach chair in the back of the church, and I was -- I sat through the whole service in a reclining position with my feet up, and the pastor did not care. I just got there because I believed there was healing in the anointing. There is power where the Spirit of God is manifested.

So some people who do not understand say, well, the power of God is in me all the time. Brethren, you need to know that where Christ is preaching and teaching and doing some spiritual thing, there is a measure of power that is not in you alone, and that is just the truth. So you make your choices. You make the -- you go the extra mile. You make the effort. You get there, or you do not. There is no condemnation if you do not, but do not tell the people that go the extra mile that there is no blessing in it because there is a blessing in it. God will honor your faith. Hold onto the horns of the altar. If you have a need, do not stop knocking. I waited 13 years for my healing. Do not stop knocking. I was chronically ill for 13 years. I almost died three times during those 13 years, three or four times. I was snatched out of the hands of death all those times but not healed, just -- it was like God put a Band-Aid on me. He did not let me die, but I was still sick, 13 years. Do not stop knocking. Whatever your problem is, do not stop knocking.

God in all of his wisdom may require that you wait. If he does require that you wait, whatever your need is, it is because it is what is best for you. It is because the Lord has made a decision that giving you this gift or this petition or this healing that you are looking for instantly will not produce his nature in you. So sometimes he uses hardship in our life or trouble in our life to build character in us, overcoming character. We read about that, I believe, in Romans 5. It builds hope, and one thing leads to another, builds patience, builds mercy towards other people, builds character in you, rips selfishness out of you, teaches you how to sacrifice, and out of all this comes an ability to love with the love of God. Selfish people cannot love with the love of God, brethren. Selfishness is the exact opposite of the love of God, and as much as I do not like to hear this, hardship builds character in you. So Paul says endure hardship like a good soldier because it is building the character and the nature of Christ in you. And be individualists in Christ. Do what you have to do, just like this group here. Do not run with the herd. Hear from God because the herd is going off the cliff, especially if they are a herd of pigs. Stay with Christ.

Well, we have to stop at 8:30 today, so I will -- does anyone have a question? I will stop talking here. OK.

[?Thanks?]. It is really -- it is -- when you were talking about the serpent, the brazen serpent --

Yes.

            -- that Moses raised up, you said Moses -- [?they?] crucified his carnal mind.

Yes.

And, one, I wanted to ask what connection did it have with [?blessing the?] [?children?] of Israel [?whereby he says look and live?].

What was that last thing you said?

I said what connection does it have with it saying look and live to the children of Israel that, if they look to the brazen serpent, they live. So if it was -- and Moses [?crucifies?] his own carnal mind. What connection did it have?

Oh, OK.

And, again, it is -- [?they also time?] -- in the -- after a long time, that same brazen serpent was taken to Israel [UNINTELLIGIBLE] [?Nehushtan?], and the e- -- the serpent became Nehushtan.

[?Yes?].

            And now that serpent [?started causing?] [CROSSTALK]

Yes, idolatry. Yes.

            Yes. So I wanted to ask what happened.

[INAUDIBLE] I hope I did not give you the impression that I did not believe that there was a bra- -- a actual brazen serpent. There was an actual brazen serpent, OK, but what Jesus was referring to was a spiritual experience that Moses had had, but fo- -- just let me finish the thought, OK. I do believe that there was an actual brazen serpent, and I think the significance of it was, was that the Lord was saying to the Hebrew children, through Moses, the one who acknowledges his sin will be saved from the plague, OK. Look up to the brazen serpent, meaning a mirror image. See yourself. Admit your guilt, and I will stay the plague, OK. Look up to the brazen serpent, meaning a mirror image. See yourself. Admit your guilt, and I will stay the plague.

And then, of course, we do find in another place in the Scripture that that brazen serpent eventually was worshipped by the children of Israel. We see the children of Israel continuously falling into idolatry, continuously. I was just reading about Gideon the other day, that after he delivered the Hebrew children from the Midianites, if I am not mistaken, he made an ephod of gold, a breastplate of gold. And [?if?] -- the Hebrew children worshipped that, just idolatry everywhere. They kept falling into it, falling into it. And if they were not idolizing some physical thing, they had idols in their heart. They were worshipping men or traditions.

And is the church not in the same condition today? The church is in the same condition today. Idolatry is the condition that natural man just reverts to continuously. We see the church filled with idolatry. If they are not idolizing the pastor, they are idolizing the building, or they are idolizing the cross on top of the building, or they are idolizing their missionary outreach. The ch- -- people are just filled with idolatry, and we spent almost a whole meeting speaking about the fact that both idolatry and witchcraft originate with spirits and that those spirits can be in the people whether you are worshipping a stand-up idol in front of you or whether you are practicing witchcraft by saying words and putting potions together. There is a spirit that is in man which actually is the power behind the worship of the idol or the chanting of the curse, so it is possible to stop worshipping the idol and stop chanting the curse and still have the spirit.

So we find many peoples -- Europe used to be filled with witchcraft and probably still is. I do not know, but at one time it was very heavy with witchcraft. That is where we get all the literature about the vampires and the werewolves and all that. So most Europeans today, to the best of my knowledge, are not actually practicing witchcraft anymore, but their minds and their behavior is filled with -- in many people, with attitudes and mentalities that try to control other people. It is the spirit that used to cast the curse. Someone has to tell them you have to get rid of the spirit also, and the only way to get rid of the spirit is to have that spirit swallowed up by Christ. Life is only in the son. Salvation is in union with the son. Cleansing of spiritual uncleanness and pestilence, healing of a sick body, no matter what your problem is, is in union with the son. He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

So I am sorry to cut you short tonight, brethren, but we will have -- we have to leave at 8:30 because of our transportation situation, and I will have to say goodnight now, and we will see you here tomorrow, Lord willing, at 5 o’clock, OK. Praise God.

Transcribed by Verbal Fusion 06/05/16

1^st Edit 06/08/16 rh