Part 9 of 11 Parts

 

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

 

 

Glory to God.

  

Alternate Translation, amplified and interspersed, verses 14-17: "Let Israel shout victoriously over his enemy. Let Jehovah's many-membered soul rejoice and let Satan rejoice also because in that day it shall be said to the fallen dead soul, do not be afraid, and to the mind of Christ, do not stop waging war against your carnal mind because Jehovah, the mighty God in the midst of you, shall save his beloved soul by engraving his nature upon her, and their human spirit will not be subjected to the carnal mind anymore. Neither shall they experience the wicked deeds of fallen men and their emotions, nor sickness or disease in their bodies anymore because Jehovah has completed their human spirits and converted their carnal minds into Christ Jesus. And Christ Jesus shall arise in her many-membered human spirit with a joyful shout, and they shall leap over their carnal minds by the Spirit of Christ because Jehovah has caused Satan to depart from them."

 

Continuing with Zephaniah 3:18: "And I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of Thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden."

 

As I have told you before, the King James translation is a blessing. It has power. The Lord can speak to you through it. But I do not know about you, but I have absolutely no idea what that verse 18 just said, and I do not doubt that the Spirit behind it can bless you and help you administer to you, but for those of us who desire to understand what God is saying to us, what I just read to you is nothing but gibberish. It is gibberish. Does anybody know what that means? Does anybody here know what that means? Anybody want to translate? No volunteers translating? It was a joke, Rita. I am saying that verse 18 makes -- it is speaking English but nobody knows what it means.

 

So let us try and find out what it means. "I will gather them that are sorrowful." "I will gather." The Hebrew word translated gather is Strong's 622. It is a word that can be translated to scrape together or to take unto oneself. We have dealt with this word before. This is one of the words which I cannot prove to you what my choice of translation is. You have to pray about it. But my opinion is that this word is indicating incarnation. The scraping together of the many parts -- many spiritual parts necessary for incarnation. We have a -- we spent some time on that in the 32 series out of chapter -- I think it is chapter 18, perhaps 19, in the Book of Revelation where we found some understanding of incarnation. We can see a natural type of it in the way a fetus is formed in the womb. The fetus is formed piecemeal. The heart is the first organ, and the skin and the flesh and the other organs are literally built around the heart within the woman's womb. I believe that this is the principle that the Lord is drawing upon when he says, "Scrape together." He is talking about gathering the spiritual elements that form the mind of a man and a personality, that it is something that is built just like you make a cake. You get your eggs and your butter and your flour, and you blend the whole thing. And if you have ears to hear you could see that that is what happens with a fetus being formed in the womb. The Lord gathers the blood and he gathers the flesh and he gathers the hormones and he gathers the bone, and he literally builds the fetus. In the same manner, our soul and our mind and our personality is formed, and it is formed within the fetus in the same manner.

 

So I am of the opinion, based on several studies [?underneath?] the context of this verse, that this word to gather -- and there are more than -- there is more than one Hebrew word which is translated to gather. But this word, Strong's 622 which can be translated to scrape together or to take unto oneself, is speaking about the formation of a soul or a mind. You have to read the rest of the verse to find out which the verse is talking about, a soul or a mind. But I believe it is speaking about the incarnation of a spiritual entity, either a whole human being, a soul or a mind being formed within that soul or within that man.

 

"I will gather them that are sorrowful for the assembly." The Interlinear translates this word sorrowful, afflicted. It is Strong's 3013, and can be translated to be pained in mind. So we see that the word clearly is not restricted to physical affliction, but that to translate it to be afflicted or wounded or experiencing pain in your mind is a legitimate translation of this word according to our Hebrew lexicon which is written by a man called Gesenius.

 

And I also would like to use this term, pained in mind, to refer you to the teaching here about how Satan controls us either with pleasure or pain. Depending on the degree of character which is built into the person, Satan is controlling you either with pleasure or pain. The people who have the lessor amount of character are being controlled by pleasure, and I am sorry if that offends you, but if the shoe fits, wear it. If Satan can get you to do things that are against the law of God or against your own best interest by giving you sex or by giving you drugs or by giving you alcohol, you are being controlled by pleasure. I am sorry if you do not like it, but it is the truth. But if you are a disciplined person and he cannot get you to perform negative behavior -- well, it is usually behavior, but even with your mind. It could be the use of witchcraft. If he cannot get you to agree to do ungodly things with pleasure, the next thing he goes to is pain. He threatens to give you pain if you do not do ungodly things. What are you talking about, Sheila? Well, your beloved wife of 25 years tells you she will leave you if you do not stop answering God's call. That is Satan speaking through your wife. Who will you obey? He may give you sickness in your body, and the doctors tell you if you take any more morphine, you will become addicted. Will you deal with the pain or will you take the morphine and become a drug addict? Will you sell out your business partner because being honest will cause you to face a decrease in finances which would be very painful to you? That is what I am talking about.

 

There is pain involved in being ruled by the carnal mind, so we see the Scripture in Zephaniah 3:18 speaking about a group of people who are pained in their mind. We are talking about people who are trying to live holy. How do I draw that conclusion? They are resisting the pleasure principle. They are resisting the pleasure principle. They are trying to lead a decent life, and they are in pain because Satan wants to bring them down. Let me tell you, brethren, the more you live for Christ, the more pain you will experience until such time as the Lord bring you out. But it could be a long time. No pain, no gain. Dancers and all forms of athletes live with pain continuously. They are continuously in pain. If you are truly a warrior for Christ, you are going to be having pain. There is no question about it. If there is no pain, you are not a man in Christ. Believe it. You are a woman or a child. You have not even begun to grow.

 

"I will gather -- I will incarnate those who are pained in their mind for the solemn assembly." Now listen, brethren, we are talking about the formation of the mind of Christ in a group of people here. Can you hear what I am saying? The mind of Christ is being formed in the group of people who have rejected the pleasure principle. If you think that you are going to be a Christian who is going to dance and sing and leap and bound and have everything you want given unto you with no stress and no overcoming and no resistance and no trouble, and you think that Christ is going to be formed in you and you are going to ascend automatically, here is a Scripture right here that calls you a fool. You are just a fool, brethren. It is just not true. And you are deceived because of the pride of your own mind. There is nothing in this world that is good that you get without pain. Even the world knows that. Only the silly Christians think otherwise. There is no marriage that is good without pain. There is no child that is born without some pain. There is no skill that is accomplished without hours of discipline, some disciplines being more painful than others. You think because you answer an altar and say I do that you are just going to ascend? You are silly, and the whole world knows it. That is why they laugh at us.

 

"I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly." Solemn assembly. The Interlinear translates that word, the place appointed. So we see this is a Hebrew word, Strong's 4150, which can mean a people. It can mean an appointed people. But it can also mean the place of assembly. And as I prayed about this whole verse, I had chosen to translate it in context of this verse the place of assembly, and I will tell you why. Because we are talking about the incarnation of the Christ mind, and where is the Christ mind assembled? Does anybody know? Where is the Christ mind assembled? Where is the place of the gathering together of the elements of the mind of Christ? First of all, let me ask you this. What are the elements which are being scraped together to find the mind of Christ?

 

            [INAUDIBLE]

 

The human spirit and what else?

 

            The soul.

 

The soul. Yeah, well, not really for the mind of Christ. We have the human spirit and the --

            The Father.

 

The Father in the form of the Holy Spirit. It is within the soul, but I do not think the soul is an element. We are looking for spiritual elements. We have the human spirit and the Holy Spirit coming together to form an altar, a spiritual altar, and out of that spiritual altar is formed a mind.

 

And you might recall in your reading of the formation of the arc of the tabernacle in the wilderness when the mercy seat was formed and the Cherubim set up the cloud of the Spirit of God ascended and abode there. So that is a type of the human spirit coming together with the Holy Spirit and forming a spiritual altar. And you might say, well, the cloud of the life of God abode or abides on that altar. Just another way of saying it. A mind is formed as a result of that union. The mind, which is the garment of God, and God abides -- well, when it is Holy -- human spirit and the Holy Spirit, it is Jehovah in this hour coming in the form of the Lord Jesus Christ that is resting upon this spiritual altar just as the cloud of the life of God rested upon the mercy seat in the ark of the covenant in the wilderness.

  

So we are translating this phrase, the solemn assembly, as the appointed place. Well, that was the second part of my question. So if we are speaking about the incarnation of the mind of Christ, what is the appointed place? What or where is the place which the Lord has appointed for the Christ mind to be formed? Does anybody remember? Where is the Christ mind formed?

 

He is being formed within the carnal minds of men. Within the carnal minds of men. Remember, the Holy Spirit is penetrating the carnal mind in an attempt to make contact with the human spirit. Remember that the carnal mind is formed of the union between the human spirit and Satan, which is the formation of the serpentine altar, and as a result of that union, we see the formation of the devil, and the devil has a conscious mind called the carnal mind and an unconscious mind called Satan. So we have a devil personality, and within that personality is the carnal mind which is on an altar which is formed by the union of Satan and the human spirit. So the Holy Spirit is penetrating into the personality of the fallen man. He is literally penetrating the devil, penetrating the carnal mind of the devil, to get to the human spirit. And when the Holy Spirit touches that human spirit, he is erecting an altar within the altar, if you can hear it. He is literally erecting another altar right within the devil's own territory. And once that altar is erected, we have Christ Jesus coming forth, and within Christ Jesus is the mind of Christ as the conscious mind and the Spirit of Christ as the unconscious mind.

 

So we say that the mind of Christ is being formed within the carnal mind, and that the carnal mind, and even greater than that, this whole, serpentine, fallen, Adamic personality is a womb in which Christ Jesus and his mind, the mind of Christ, is being formed in man. And as soon as this man Christ Jesus is powerful or mature enough to sustain the life of this flesh that we are in, he will destroy that wicked mind which is the devil, and Satan shall be made to depart from us, and forever we shall be with the Lord because we shall sin no more, but we shall be set free and we -- from whom? From sin and death, from the serpent, from Satan, from the carnal mind, and we who are red as crimson shall be white as snow.

  

This is the true conversion, brethren. If you are naive enough to think that you were converted because you answered an altar call and you stopped taking drugs, you are denying yourself of the glory of a knowledge of the glorious vision which the Lord has promised to us. You have shortchanged yourself. There is a Scripture in the Old Testament where the prophet goes to the king and says, "Shoot your arrows. Shoot as ma- -- shoot your arrows as far as you can shoot them," and the king shot the arrows but he had limited vision, and the prophet said, "As far as you could shoot your arrows, that much land and that much victory will be given unto you." And the king shot what he thought was sufficient, and the prophet said to him, "That is all the vision you have? That is all you think your God can give unto you?" Your shortness of vision is sin unto you, and the consequences of your shortness of vision is that you will never attain to the fullness of what you could have attained in Christ because you could not even imagine that God was able to give it to you.

  

Brethren, we must believe that the Lord can give us everything because what we cannot believe him for he will never give us. Why? Because he hates us? Because he is punishing us? No. It is the way that we are built. If we do not believe that he can do it, it just will not happen. Have to believe he can do everything. It is important to believe that there are no limits on God. That is why I encourage you all the time to not tell him what you need; tell him what your problem is and let him solve it because he gives so much more than our carnal mind would ask for. To choose to run your own life is foolishness. You could never run your life as well as the Lord could run your life. Never, ever. You could never provide for yourself as well as he could provide for you. Without a vision, my people perish.

 

So I suggest to you that the appointed place, the place appointed for the mind of Christ to be formed, is within the fallen personality of man and more specifically within the carnal mind. What are we saying? That the scraping together from the appointed place is actually the renewing of the carnal mind. Which carnal mind is renewed? By breaking up the carnal mind first into soul and spirit, then into the joints and marrow, and isolating the human spirit. The stripping of the human spirit from the flesh of the carnal mind, and from the -- her union with the -- with Satan who is acting as a Spirit. She must be broken down to her basic self, and that is a painful process called the white throne judgment. As soon as she is separated, she -- actually simultaneously, while she is being separated, she is being rebuilt or renewed in the image of Christ. The human spirit is the seed that in this hour is joined to an ungodly weed. She has to be separated out and cleaned up and scraped clean so that she can be -- well, let me see. Put it to you this way. She has to be separated out from the carnal mind and scraped clean from her union with Satan, from that -- she has to be freed from that serpentine altar so that the Lord Jesus Christ can join fully with her, bringing forth the altar of Christ which will bring forth the man Christ Jesus in whom the mind of Christ dwells. We have to stripped down to our basic parts, brethren. It hurts. But the end of it is life. There is no other way. There is no other way. If the Lord says there is no other way, you either accept his way or you dri- -- brethren, it is just time to grow up.

  

In this hour, we see man's medicine getting around things. You might tell a young woman there is only way for you to get pregnant. Well, now we have artificial insemination. But everything man does has ungodly potential consequences to it. It is against nature. So we see Satan altering nature. But aside from Satan's alteration of nature, there is only one way for a woman to conceive, and there is only way for a woman to bear a child. I know we have Caesarean section in this hour but even if you do not speak about Caesarean section, the child must be formed in a womb. We have some satanic talk of bearing children in test tubes. It is hideous. It is not of God. There is only one way. You have to conceive and you have to have the baby, and before you can conceive -- see, we have some problems conceiving. Some women have problems conceiving. Some women need surgery before they can conceive. There are all kinds of problems in this world. Well, we are fallen and we are dead and we are having some trouble conceiving, so we have to -- we need a D&C. We have to get our spiritual parts, our human spirit, cleaned up. She needs to be scraped. Is that not what they call it? It is a scraping, right? Her spiritual potential to reproduce needs to be scraped, and we have the word right here. What is going to gather together the scrapings? Not which is scraped away but that which is left after she is scraped, and he is going to gather her together with himself and incarnate his Son. Remember everything in the soul realm is the exact opposite than in the Spirit, so when it says he is gathering scrapings, it sounds like he is taking that which is scraped. But we know he is not taking the scrapings, he is taking that which remains. He is taking that which is scraped, not the scrapings. Praise the Lord. OK. So let us go on.

  

"I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of Thee, to whom" -- well, this is -- I do not even know what they are talking about. "Who are of Thee, to whom." In the Interlinear there is a specific Hebrew word translated who are of Thee. Interlinear translates it they were, and actually it is merely the Hebrew verb to be, and it is not incarnated. It is not -- I am sorry. It is not conjugated. It is just to be. It does not say: he is, I am, you are, they were. It is in an infinitive form which means we do not know what tense it is in nor do we know the subject. Therefore the translator has the license or the option to translate it in any way they want. The Hebrew has many uns- -- lack of specifics in it. There is great opportunity for translator's license. There are words missing. There are words not conjugated. Man- -- much of this translation is not clear; it is up to the translator. And as I have told you many times, the deeper the revelation, the more -- or the less specific the Hebrew seems to be. It is just proving out what Jesus said, that he speaks in parables to the multitudes, and it is only to the disciples that are given to really understand the deep truth. He -- it is just proven. The deeper the revelation in the Hebrew, the less clear the Hebrew language is.

 

Because you see, the tense of the verb and the subject of verb are all clues as to what the Lord is telling us. So if you get a verb in an infinitive form and you do not what the subject is and you do not know what the tense is, you are really at a disadvantage if you do not have the revelation in your heart. You are probably either going to just throw your hands up and walk away or you are going to just make something up as we found the King James translators did many times in it. I am in no way criticizing them. They were left with no choice. Without a revelation from the Word of the Lord, the Hebrew words just did not make any sense, so they took them and they lis- -- looked at them, and they just made the most sense out of them that they could. Jesus.

 

"Are of Thee." It is the word to be. "Are of Thee." What did I do here? The reproach of it was a burden. Oh, I see. There were two other words in the Interlinear that were not translated at all in the King James, and the Interlinear translates them "over her." The Hebrew word is Strong's 5921. The King James translators did not know what to do with it so they did not even translate it at all. And it means to suspend over without touching, to be higher than, to go beyond. So we are talking about the gathering together of the carnal mind -- of the Christ mind within the carnal mind for those or for he who is higher. Well, I suggest to you that what -- this is a very difficult translation here. What it is saying is the gathering together of the one who was higher, which is Christ. The gathering together of the one who was higher, which is Christ, in the appointed place of the carnal mind. That is what I am telling you.

 

I just want to take a minute here to pray. I do not know whether this is a curse coming into the meeting right now or whether it is my own mind or what, but I was -- it came to my ears recently that someone is strongly calling this a false doctrine and strongly resisting this form of teaching, saying that the King James translation is infallible, and here I am explaining to you that that is a very silly thing to say. Anyone with any brains at all co- -- what I am saying, this could be checked out very easily. If you look in the Hebrew -- what I am saying is true that the verbs are in the infinitive, and the King James translators just did the best they could, but they really did not know what it meant. So I am being attacked in my mind right now with this comment, so I just want to pray against it.

  

I just break every curse that is coming against the teaching here, and I completely cast it down. You anti-Christ spirit and you wicked spirit of pride that will not enter into the Kingdom and trying your best to pray people out of this church and stopping other people from entering into the Kingdom, I sharply criticize you and I rebuke you and I doubly and triply rebuke you because I do not even believe that you believe what you are saying, but you are just saying it because you do not want to face up to the truth about why you really left this church, and it is easier for you to say that there is false doctrine here than for you to face up to the fact that you left for an ungodly reason. And for that reason, I send every curse that you are sending against us back upon your own head that you should be turned over to Satan that you might learn not to blaspheme and use the Word of God as an excuse to justify your own wickedness. And I pray that God use everything for your good and that the end of this is that you be restored in good standing. Not necessarily here, but wherever God will have you because you certainly cannot be in good standing with God spreading this kind of stuff around, or even if you are keeping it within your own mind, it is going forth as a curse here, and hoping that people leave this ministry and praying that people leave this ministry to justify your own evil deeds. You certainly are not in right standing with God, and I pray for your restoration that he should have mercy on you, and I forgive your sins. But I know that it will take a judgment to bring you back because you cannot come back unless you repent. You cannot repent unless you confess your true reasons for what you are doing. So we just tear down your walls of denial and wage war against your mind control and your witchcraft, and we utterly smash your lies and your denial and your defenses and your walls and your weapons, and we pronounce truth upon you, despite yourself, that God should be glorified and that this sin that you are committing against your savior should be purged from you. And we hope -- we bless you and hope for the best for you. In the name of Jesus.

  

So we see two words, over her, meaning to be higher than, which words modify the verb to gather. To gather, to incarnate. What is being incarnated? That which is higher. The mind of Christ is being incarnated. And also this -- well, these -- this word, it is Strong's 5921. It means to be higher than, to go beyond.

  

I would like to diverge here for a moment to remind you, or for those of you that were not here at the time to point out to you, that we dealt with this concept of going beyond on message number 71 part 10, when we dealt with 2 Corinthians 12:2. We found out that this concept of going beyond in 2 Corinthians 12:2 is speaking about going beyond the existing age. And, brethren, the carnal mind is an age. It is this present age of hell and death exists in the carnal mind. So to go beyond the carnal mind means that our true reality which is spirit, our human spirit, should ascend into the mind of Christ in which there is all knowledge. And I am suggesting to you that these words translated in the Interlinear, over her which means to be higher than or to go beyond, is being used in the same way that the Scripture uses them in 2 Corinthians 12:2 to go beyond this mind that is keeping us bound to death and by our human spirit to ascend into the mind of Christ which is deliverance and life everlasting.

  

Our Alternate Translation of 2 Corinthians 12:2 says, "I knew a man in Christ about 14 years ago, whether in or out of the body I cannot tell; God knows, who was caught up beyond the dark, earthen, satanic part of his mind into the mind of Christ." That is our Alternate Translation for that verse, and if you would like to find out how I got that Alternate Translation, you can look at the ta- -- listen to the message, 71 part 10, or in the new reprint. It is not in the present printout of our Alternate Translation of the New Testament, but when we reprint which, Lord willing, will be within the next month, I have incorporated in that Alternate Translation a footnote which is taken out of the notes of message 71 part 10 which explains how we got that translation. Praise God.

 

"I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of Thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden." The Hebrew word translated reproach is Strong's 2781. This word can be translated pudenda. You may recall we have dealt with this word time in and time out and time again in the prophets. Pudenda are referring -- that word refers to sexual organs, usually male -- usually female -- a female sexual organ much more so than the male sexual organ. Most of the time, it is the female sexual organ. And the female sexual organ speaking spiritually is what? The carnal mind. The carnal mind. The sexual organ of this fallen creation is the carnal mind. That is the Hebrew word translated reproach.

  

"The reproach of it was a burden." A burden. The Hebrew word translated burden is Strong's 2186. It is a word that means to stink. It means a stink, a corruption, to be abominable. Gesenius says that this word is from an unused root which means form or appearance or to put into shape or to rule, and I suggest to you that that which stinks and that which is corruption, and that which is abominable, and that which has been shaped into a form or has been shaped into something that is appearing is this world, this physical world, plus our physical bodies, which are made from the garbage of the earth, have been put into shape or formed into this world over which Satan rules. So the word burden, I suggest to you, is speaking about the physical world system which is named hell. It is the world we live in plus it is this body which our spirit lives in. They are both made out of the same substance.

 

Alternate Translation, Zephaniah 3:18: "I shall incarnate Christ Jesus from within the carnal mind and go beyond this abominable age which Satan has formed and is ruling over." So we see that the abominable age is the carnal mind and the Kingdom age -- and the carnal mind of this present age. We are hoping for the age to come. Some of us are blessed enough to be existing in the church age. The church age is coexisting with this abominable age. It is the church age is the imputed anointing which makes us double-minded. When we are double-minded, we are coexisting in this abominable age and in the church age. We have two minds: the carnal mind and the mind of Christ. But eventually, only one mind can prevail, and our hope is Christ in us, the hope of glory, our hope is that we shall enter into the -- no- -- that we shall ascend even beyond the church age and enter into the Kingdom of -- the Kingdom age, the age which is the greatest of all the ages, the age of the Kingdom of Heaven whereby we are no longer double-minded, but the two minds are bound together with Christ Jesus on top and the carnal mind on the bottom, which condition utterly paralyzes and makes inoperable the carnal mind. That is our hope, brethren, because in that condition we cease from sin.

  

Continuing with Zephaniah 3:19: "Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee, and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out. And I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame."

  

Behold can be translated [?surely?showing?]. "At that time." This phrase, at that time, is the Hebrew word Strong's 6256. It means specifically a certain time. This word means a specific time as opposed to the word translated in verse 18 which is translated solemn assembly. You may recall in verse 18 we had the phrase solemn assembly which we translated a certain time, or really we translated it a certain place, an age. But now this word in verse 19 that says a certain time, it is a different word, and this is specifically speaking about a certain time. It cannot be translated a certain place or an age. It means a specific time.

 

So, "Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee." The Hebrew word translated undo, Strong's 6213, means to offer up as one would offer up a sacrifice. The word all means the whole: not only [?everyone?every one?] that afflicts you but the whole mind, the whole personality that afflicts you, the whole spiritual structure of the devil which includes the carnal mind, conscious mind and Satan, the unconscious mind. The whole devil is the one who is afflicting you, and we are told in verse 19 of Zephaniah 3, at this specific time Christ Jesus shall offer up the devil, including the carnal mind, and Satan as his sacrifice unto the Lord Jesus Christ.

  

"Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee." In the Interlinear, the tense is present. All those that are afflicting thee. It is an ongoing process. Strong's 6031, it means to oppress or to subjugate. So we see at that time -- at what time? At the day that the Lord Jesus Christ manifest his Son, Christ Jesus, in us in full spiritual maturity. He is going to take vengeance upon, or subjugate, the whole satanic mind, or the whole satanic world, which is oppressing us which is subjecting us. And I remind you of our Alternate Translation in Romans verses -- oh, my dear. I did not put down what chapter it was. I think it is Romans 8. Oh, here is my pen. Let me just fix this. Romans 8:18-22 tells us all about the one who is subjecting us.

  

Alternate Translation, Romans 8:18-22: "Nevertheless because the Lord has given us the hope that Christ will subject the one who subjected us" -- who subjected us? Satan. "Christ will subject the one who subjected us." Satan through her carnal mind has subjected us. Subjected us to what? Subjected us to the illusion of this fallen world. We are bound down here in this place called hell because of spiritual weakness. But our hope is that Christ will come and bring the one who is forcing us down here in subjection to his mind, and as we discussed in the exhortation this morning, when the mind of Christ prevails, he will have the power to disperse this wicked image of this wicked world and establish the righteousness of his Kingdom.

  

The only -- excuse me. The only problem for us is that we cannot enter into his Kingdom with sin so we must be delivered from sin in order to be translated from the image of this -- of being subjected to the image of this fallen world to be translated into a place where we will be subjected to the image of Eden -- the garden of Eden or the image of the Kingdom of Heaven, we must be cleansed from our sin because this is not just a question of mind control, but this is a situation where we can only enter into the preferable Kingdom when we were cleansed from sin. Nevertheless, brethren, because the Lord has given us the hope that Christ will subject the one who subjected us, I believe that the calamities of this present age are nothing in comparison to what we shall experience when the Spirit of God is revealed in us and the creature shall be freed from the slavery of corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Therefore, we know that since neither the Father nor the man desired that the creation be subjected to Satan, the whole creature is groaning until this present time with the labor pains which are preceding the birth of the Sons of -- of the Sons which God is eagerly expecting. Jesus.

  

I just have a comment here for you and then we are going to take a break. We will take our morning break. I would like to call to your attention that verse 16, if you look at it in the King James, first encourages Jerusalem, Jehovah's soul, and then Zion, which is the mind of that soul. Verse 17 promises salvation to the soul, and verse 18 promises a renewed mind to those who are subjected to the painful mind. Verse 19 is telling the dead fallen soul specifically that Jehovah intend -- well, what Jehovah intends to do for her, and verse 20 is telling his spiritual nation, Israel, specifically what he intends to do for them [?with?for?] his spiritual nation. Let us say Christ Jesus. I think that makes it clearer. So as we go into our Alternate Translation of verse 19, I am pointing out to you that the one who Jehovah is speaking to in verse 19 is the soul, and in verse 20 he is speaking to Christ Jesus.

  

Alternate Translation, the first third of Zephaniah 3:19: "'Surely at the appointed time,' says Jehovah, 'I will offer the carnal mind who is holding the dead fallen soul captive as a sacrifice to the Lord Jesus Christ.'"

  

The promise is to the soul. "I will offer the carnal mind who is holding you, dead fallen soul, captive as a sacrifice to the Lord Jesus Christ," and we will find out later on that it is actually the second generation of Christ, Christ in you, the hope of glory, Christ Jesus, who will be offering your very own carnal mind up to the Lord Jesus Christ as a sacrifice, and that in order for that promise to be fulfilled in you, Christ Jesus must be born in you, and for Christ Jesus to be born in you, you must first have an experience with the Holy Spirit which forms a spiritual altar in you upon which Christ Jesus is formed.

  

There is a program, there is a plan of salvation, and either you are going to experience it as God has planned it out or you will not experience it. You cannot use witchcraft on the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot change his mind. You cannot alter his plans. You can have all the temper tantrums you want. They might work with fallen men but the Lord Jesus Christ is immovable. You will come his way or he will not come. Come where? Into the Kingdom of God and everlasting life. There is only one way. You would like to believe that there are many paths which lead to God. You believe it. But in that hour that a group of men who are indestructible appear on the earth, you will find out that your way was a false way, and the Scripture says that you shall be ashamed. Not a toxic shame that destroys you, but you shall experience the spiritual shame of having been deceived by your carnal mind, and you will find out that the gods which you have worshipped are vanity. They are vain gods which cannot give you life but have just used you and eaten your flesh for their own purposes. [?Rita?].

 

Praise the Lord. Continuing with the second third of Zephaniah 3:19: "And I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out."

  

"And I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out." The Hebrew word translated save, Strong's 3467, it is the word tr- -- that is translated salvation. In other places it would be equivalent of the Greek word that we translate salvation. It also means to aid or assist. So I will aid or assist her that halteth. The Interlinear translates this word lain. Halteth, lain, Strong's 6760. It means to incline to one side. This is the same word which is used in Genesis 32:31 which reads, "And as Jacob passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh." You may recall that -- well, I added in the word Jacob -- that this what happened to Jacob. This is the account of the angel touching his thigh and crippling him. Why? Because he was so strong-willed that he wanted to run his own life. This is happening to believers spiritually right now. Those of use that do not have the power to turn our lives over to Jesus Christ, the Lord is coming and crippling us spiritually so that we can do it. You may recall that the circumstances surrounding this experience that Jacob had with the angel crippling him was that Jacob was very frightened of his brother Esau or frightened of being killed, and he cried out to Jehovah to help him. So we see in the hour of Jacob's great despair, we see that his running his own life had brought him to a place where he was afraid of losing that life, and eventually to a point of powerlessness where he had to try [sic] out to God -- cry out to God at which point the Lord made a judgment that he was not strong enough to stop opposing God and running his own life. Therefore, in answer to his -- Jacob's very own prayer for help from God, the angel crippled him.

  

So we have many believers crying out to God to help them, and when the Lord comes to cripple them, the believer is yelling, Satan, Satan, Satan is after me. No, it is the angel of the Lord coming to cripple you, taking your transportation away, taking what you love away, taking your ungodly relationship away, taking your fornication away, taking your idolatry away because you may have forgotten but you cried out one night and said, Lord Jesus, please help me. But the way you think that God is going to help you or the way you thought he would help you is not the way he is helping you. He cannot help you until you stop doing it your way. In most cases -- many of our cases, we just cannot get that through our heads, so the Lord has to start crippling us, breaking our power. So if you have given your life to Christ and you seem to be experiencing failure on every side, perhaps your will is too strong, brethren, and perhaps the Lord is breaking your own power to control your life so that he can, in fact, answer your prayer which he cannot do when you are in the way, OK? He cannot answer your prayer when you are in the way opposing his will in your life. Your problem is that you thought he would do it your way, so therefore you do not think you are in his way, but the truth is, he is not going to do it your way, and you are in his way. So he has to cripple you and get you out of his way so that he can answer your prayer. And if you do not understand what I said, play the message again because it is the truth.

  

Remember that there are two sides to the soul which the Lord formed, and those two sides are -- anybody recall?

  

            Spirit.

  

Spirit and soul. Yeah, spirit and soul. The soul being made of the earth. The Spirit being made out of the substance of God. Adam was wounded when he was seduced, and is now -- seduced by whom? Seduced by the serpent. And he is now favoring or joined to Satan, his earthen side. When Adam was seduced by the Satan -- not by the Satan. OK. I really do not want to make an issue out of this on this message, but I hear all of these Pharisees screaming Eve was the one seduced, so we have a teaching on that, and I think it appears in Romans -- messages on Romans 6. You can hear about that. Remember, the man and the woman were one, and the man was not deceived. But I am not going to get into that in this message. But when the woman was deceived, she gave to her husband. He ate of the same tree, and the whole creation fell as a result of seduction.

  

So we see that since the seduction of God's creation, the creation is unbalanced. We tilt it and we are now leaning towards the earthen side inside of the spiritual side. When we were leaning towards the spiritual side, when the emphasis was on the spiritual side because the mind in the creation was Christ, we were balanced. Even though there was more emphasis on the spiritual side, we were still balanced. But when the emphasis went to the earthen side, our spiritual side was wounded or crippled, and spiritually speaking we are now limping because our spiritual side is not fully functioning. The reason she is not functioning is that she is married to a soul instead of a spirit.

 

Let me go -- the Lord wants me to go into that in a little more detail. For the creation to be fully balanced, the human spirit must be joined to another spirit, and having brought forth a mind which is therefore spirit. The mother spirit, the father spirit, and the son is spirit. But when the woman -- but when the living soul and the spirit thereof was -- specifically was seduced by the serpent, she -- as a result of the curse that God put on the creation, because of this event, she married the serpent. The serpent is acting like a spirit but is in fact soul. So we see that the human spirit is not joined to another spirit. She is joined to an element of the soul. She is married to soul. And we see that that which is born of the flesh or that which is born of soul is soul. So when the one acting in the male role is soul and not spirit, the offspring which comes forth is soul. And therefore the mind and the creation which is supposed to be spirit which creates a balanced creation is not spirit but it is soul, and therefore the creation, you might say, is top-heavy or leaning to one side. We are leaning to the earthen side, to the carnal side, to the flesh side, and we died because we are unbalanced. There is supposed to be three-part spirit: human spirit, the Father and the mind. They were -- we are supposed to have a three-part spirit, but our mind is only one-part spirit. And the person in the -- or the element in the male role is soul and the offspring is soul. So the mind that is supposed to be a threefold spirit is only one-third spirit, and the two-thirds are earth or soul, and therefore we are limping because the spiritual side is not adequately supported. She is too weak to hold up her end so we are favoring the soulish side.

  

And this is why Christ must be crucified because there is another definition of the word crucifixion than to kill by crucifixion. If you look it up in Webster's, I believe it is the first tra- -- not translation but the first definition of the word crucifixion is to strengthen by piercing through with stakes. If you have something that is falling down, you put wooden stakes through it to stop it from falling. Therefore, in the expression the crucifixion of Christ, we are not speaking about the death of Lord Jesus. How do I know? You have to read the whole context of the verse. Paul said, "I am crucified with Christ yet I have not died. I am still alive." Therefore, we must take the definition of the word crucifixion which is positive, which means to be crucified by Christ means to be shored up and strengthened. So we see that the crucifixion of Christ is the strengthening of Christ, and the human spirit is the manifestation of Christ which is in the living soul.

 

How can I say that? The human spirit is the female seed of God's life which is destined and was destined to give birth to the Son of God. So for as far as the Lord in concerned, this female ovum which is destined to produce the Son of God, when the Lord looks at her for all intents and purposes, she is his Son. When Jehovah joins with her -- who? When Jehovah joins with the human spirit, the Son of God, Christ Jesus, will be the result. So therefore, when Jehovah looks at the human spirit, he says, "Aha, there is my Son."

  

It is the same principle as Jehovah looking at Abraham's loins and saying, "I see that sperm there but I do not call you a sperm. I call you Levi." The Lord looks at you and no matter what condition you are in, and he relates to you as you will be at the end of your development. In that same manner, the Lord Jesus Christ looks at the church and the mess that we are in, and he calls us Sons of God. He calls us saints. He calls us his holy ones. And the silly members of the church actually think we are holy already. No, you are silly women. God is calling you by what he fully intends to make you. So now he has called you by his name, brethren. Now you must remain into his name, and he is coming with fire, and he is coming with a brush, and he is coming with fuller's soap, and you are screaming and yelling and thinking that Satan is after you. No, it is the Lord Jesus Christ who is after you because you cannot have his name and be walking around in the filth that you are walking around in. So from the minute he gives you his name, he is chastening you because from the minute he gives you his name, you have become his Son, and you cannot stay in that condition and be his Son.

 

So getting back to the Scripture that we are in right now. We find the Lord saying that this soul that he formed is limping because her spiritual side is not balanced. She is one-third spirit and two-thirds soul or earth, and she is therefore limping. This is why she must be crucified. This is why the Lord Jesus Christ must penetrate her and himself to her, increase her, this one-third spirit. The Lord Jesus Christ will come and now she is two-thirds spirit, and as a result of that union, she will bear the Son, Christ Jesus, and she will be three-parts spirit, and that threefold [?cord?] will rise up and kill the threefold weed in the garden called the carnal mind because the cultivated plant has been born, and the weed must die. Hallelujah. Jesus.

 

So we are dealing with the second third of Zephaniah 3:19: "And I will save her that halteth." Halteth or needs aid. So who is the one who needs aid? Let me refer you to Genesis 2:18. This is our Alternate Translation, brethren. "And the Lord Jehovah said, 'It is not to the man's benefit to be separate, isolated and without spiritual help, aid or support. So I will make an instrumental, or a spiritual, device which will support him.'" And you thought he made woman to serve man. Brethren, women serving and supporting men is a condition of the curse. And by and large, the condition of the curse is that every spiritual promise in this book has been lowered into this physical realm. The woman, spiritually speaking, the human spirit, was made to support the man. But in the spiritual world, it is a glorious condition to be joined together to Christ Jesus and supporting him, supporting the whole soul which is -- becomes male when the mind is Christ. But down here in the earth under the curse, it can be difficult being a woman and being subjected to a man. If you wind up subjected to a cruel man, it can be a very hard life. Therefore, we see Christians being continuously warned not to bring spiritual truth down into the flesh because that which is glorious when it is kept up in the Spirit becomes burdensome, egregious and deadly when it is brought down into the flesh. And in fact, that soul that Jehovah made died when it fell down into the flesh. So we see this condition of woman being helpmate unto man a condition frequently of death. It is a condition of death.

  

I am sorry, but it is the truth. A woman who is fulfilling her role scripturally in this fallen condition dies to her own identity. Read your history books. Ask your grandmothers or people or speak to women from nations who still have a marital system where the -- which is traditional. If you are a woman, your whole life is to make life easier for your husband and to raise his children. You are a servant in the household. You take care of his clothes. You shine his shoes. You cook for him. You do everything necessary to emotionally and spiritually support him so that he can go forth and be the man. And this is acceptable and good in God's sight. And as soon as women started going to college and getting education and getting careers and individuating, society began to deteriorate.

 

Now do not stop reading the message, and do not look to burn me. I am a social commentator. I myself am a liberated woman, and I declare unto you it is possible to be a liberated woman in Christ. But I declare unto you I do not see any way to be a liberated woman in Christ and have a husband and family because if you want to get married, you are supposed to die to your own individuality and be the support in the marriage. Can you not hear what I am saying? You see, it is OK for a man to be a spiritual male and a physical male because it is not his role to be the support. It is OK for him, under the curse, to develop himself to his fullest creative potential. That is what he is supposed to do. But women, that is not what you are supposed to do under the curse. And anybody with an honest heart will tell you that from the moment women begin to individuate, the family structure begins to fall apart. Is that not true? Is that not true? And in some cases, the nation is falling apart because of the deterioration of the family. You cannot be both a man and a woman. It does not work under the curse. It works in Christ Jesus. When you are married to Christ and your family is the church, it works. Oh, God. I just hear the rage in the spirit in this message.

 

Brethren, there is no marriage or giving in marriage in heaven, and if you really desire to ascend there, you have to give up marriage and giving in marriage. There is an in-between stage where you could have one foot in the Kingdom and one foot in this life, but you cannot ascend above it fully into the Kingdom hoping to be a human woman altar. It does not work. It is oil and water. It does not mix. Either your spirit or your soul. Either you are living under the curse or you are not living under the curse. And to be a woman under the curse is radically different than to be a woman outside of the curse.

 

Although there is a big difference between being a man under the curse and out from under the curse. Being a man both under the curse and out from under the curse is compatible for a much longer degree of your maturity than it is for a woman. It is much more compatible to have a wife and a family to a much deeper place of maturity in the Kingdom. It is acceptable to a much deeper penetration of the Kingdom than it is for the women, and that is just the truth. Even though you hate the truth and you probably would like to strangle me right now, it is still the truth.

  

So we say that the true aid that God promised Adam is not of a human fallen woman, but the aid which God promised Adam is Christ Jesus, which is the mind of Christ. It is Adam's human spirit which needs aid, and that aid is Christ Jesus who was given unto us in two stages. First, we receive the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost joins with our human spirit, or crucifies our human spirit. The Holy Ghost is outside of us, is the Holy Ghost. When he penetrates our heart, he becomes the -- once he joins to our human spirit -- well, let me say it this way. I said that wrong. The Holy Ghost is the glorified Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ outside of the realm -- the eternal realm of God. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. When he enters into the realm of the mind of a man, he becomes the Holy Ghost. That was what I was trying to say. Excuse me please.

 

Matthew 16:24 says, "Then Jesus said unto his disciples, 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'" We are speaking here about -- the reason I gave you this Scripture is to show you that Christ Jesus is given unto us in two stages, and the Scripture I just read you is speaking about the partaking of the Holy Ghost, the first stage. "Then Jesus said unto his disciples, 'If any man will come after me'" -- I do not know why I put that in there. Let me read my own note. The word translated "take up his cross" is the Greek word arrow. It is the same word used in Mark 16:16 with regard to taking up serpents, and the same word used to describe Jes- -- is used to describe -- excuse me -- Jesus' ascension or going up. A cross is a wood stake, and I suggest to you that it signifies man's humanity which is symbolically cut out of a tree. The only way to take up your cross then, I suggest to you, is to nail that part of our humanity which is spirit, that is the human spirit, to the Lord Jesus Christ. Such a crucifixion or penetration results in the conception of the warrior Christ Jesus who will eventually offer the carnal mind up as a sacrifice to the Lord Jesus Christ and marry the soul which Jehovah made. So I see why I put that note in. We are talking about the one who needs aid, and I told you that Jehovah is aiding us in two stages. First by giving us the Holy Ghost who joins to your human spirit, crucifying our human spirit, strengthening her, and that crucifixion brings forth or conceives Christ Jesus who is the second stage of God's help to us. The conception of Christ Jesus is expressed in the following phrase: "Gather her that was driven out." So we see that to save the one who halteth, you are speaking about giving her the Holy Ghost. And to gather her that was driven out, it is speaking about Christ Jesus being formed in us. Praise the Lord.

  

As another witness to you, we have the Alternate Translation of Romans 5:10-11: "Because if, when we were enemies," -- excuse me -- "we were reconciled to God because of Jesus' death. Much better than being reconciled, our soul shall be saved when the imparted Christ is fully born in us. And we are not rejoicing only in our atonement, Christ Jesus, but also in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, through whom we received him." So we see that we are reconciled to God through the impartation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we -- and that the impartation of the Lord Jesus Christ results in our atonement, meaning the blood of the covenant being posted on our soul. This is Christ Jesus. I feel like I am up against a stone wall. Let me try it again. "Because of when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God because of Jesus' death. Much better than being reconciled, our soul shall be saved as a result of the result of the reconciliation."

 

Reconciliation takes place when we receive the Holy Ghost, brethren. You are not saved when you receive the Holy Ghost. You are reconciled unto God. But salvation does not come forth until that reconciliation, or that reconciliation factor which is the Holy Ghost, joins to your human spirit and begins the formation of Christ Jesus in you. It is the presence of Christ Jesus in you which ultimately saves your soul. Christ Jesus is our atonement. He is the blood. It is the blood of his spiritual life actually growing in our soul which can be likened to the p- -- the la- -- the blood of the lamb which was painted on the doorposts of the homes of Israel the night that the angel of death passed over. We are saved. What are we saved from? We are saved from death. We are saved from death when the blood of the lamb is painted on the doorposts of our soul. So we are not saved until Christ Jesus is marking us, and the way we get Christ Jesus is through the reconciliation which comes by the receiving of the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Holy Ghost.

  

I hope I made that clear. Let me read it one more time. Then we will just go on. "Because of when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God because of Jesus'  death. Much better than being reconciled, our soul shall be saved when the imparted Christ is fully born in us." That is Christ Jesus. And we are not rejoicing only in our atonement which is Christ Jesus which is our salvation, but we are also rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, without which we would never have Christ Jesus. You have to get -- take stage one before you get stage two. You cannot move right into Christ Jesus. You have to be fertilized first with the seed of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Word, and the Word is the seed, and then the Word is the seed of God. The Word of God is the seed.

 

Continuing with the second third of Zephaniah 3:19: "And I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out." To gather, Strong's 6908, to take with the hand, to draw in. This is a different Hebrew word than the Hebrew word translated to gather in verse 18. We have translated the word in verse 18 as to incarnate. That is the word that means to scrape together, you may recall, and we are translating the word translated to gather here in verse 19 as to draw in, as to draw into the Kingdom. And he will gather her that was -- or he will draw her in that was driven out. The one who was driven out he is now drawing in. Driven out of where? Who was the one who was driven out?

  

Adam, fallen Adam disgraced in sin, was driven out of the garden of Eden, brethren. So we say the soul which Jehovah formed which fell because of rebellion and was driven out of the garden because of the mercy of God which did not want her to enter into a condition of internal torment. The garden of Eden? There was no death in the garden of Eden, and the soul which God had formed was now married to Satan, bearing his child, the carnal mind, which is a condition of pain if you recall the beginning of this message. To have a carnal mind is to be in a condition of pain. Therefore, Jehovah said, "Drive them out of the garden lest they live forever with a mind which gives them pain." Drive them out of the garden. Let them be joined by chains of darkness -- by chains to the darkness, which is Satan, until such time as I bring forth my Christ in the creation who will kill the carnal mind which is controlling them by pain and restore them back unto life. The mercy of God, brethren.

  

So, brethren, we are dealing with the second third of Zephaniah 3:19.

 

Did you fix those controls with the equalizer and everything? Praise the Lord. OK. OK.

  

We are dealing with the second third of Zephaniah 3:19, the phrase which says, “And gather her that was driven out.” Driven out, Strong’s 5080, means to expel, to be cast down, to seduce. We lost just a couple of seconds of our transmission, just a couple of seconds. Stop.

  

            [INAUDIBLE]

 

What is --

 

[AUDIO CUTS OUT]

  

-- was seduced -- actually I know the Scripture says Eve was the one who was seduced, but, brethren, the man stood by and did nothing, and the man was not deceived; the woman was deceived. So the whole soul was seduced and expelled, or cast down, out of the garden.

 

So please note that the dead fallen soul was driven out of Eden and is now favoring her earthen side. Satan and the carnal mind are her earthen side, and they are holding her captive.

 

Alternate Translation, the second third of Zephaniah 3:19: “And I shall support the one who is leaning on her earthen side and draw the one who was seduced back into the garden.”

 

“And I shall support the one who is leaning on her earthen side and draw the one who was seduced back into the garden.”

  

Amplified Translation, the second third of Zephaniah 3:19: “And I shall strengthen my dead fallen soul who is leaning on her earthen side since she was seduced and draw her back into the kingdom of God by nailing or crucifying her to the Lord Jesus Christ.” “And I shall strengthen my dead fallen soul who is leaning on her earthen side since she was seduced and draw her back into the kingdom of God by nailing or crucifying her to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

  

And let me remind you what I said earlier, that in this context the concept of crucifixion is not to destroy but to strengthen, to shore up by the adding of stakes to something to add strength to. So this is interesting. It is the first time to my memory that we are dealing with a second definition of an English word that is radically different than what we are used to. We have found that in the Hebrew a lot, that we choose definitions of the Hebrew words that are completely contrary to what the King James translation says. But I do not remember any such significant study where we have chosen an unconventional but very valid English definition of a word which means the exact opposite of what we have known it to mean for our whole time that we have been in the church. Where crucifixion has meant death, but in this case means life. And the reason, for all of you unbelievers and Pharisees out there, that we have chosen this positive definition is that if we consider the whole context of the verse, we have no choice. We have no choice.

  

And our witness is Paul saying, “I am crucified to Christ, but yet I live. But not I, but Christ who dwelleth in me.” So we see, under certain circumstances crucifixion produces life, and under other circumstances crucifixion produces death. Crucifixion of the physical body produces the death of that body, but crucifixion of the human spirit by the Lord Jesus Christ produces the life of Christ Jesus. Once again, we see an action, crucifixion, which produces life in the spirit but produces death in the soul. And as we teach here, and as you hear -- this is one thing you hear all over the church world. To bring down a spiritual Word into this realm of the soul will kill that spiritual Word. The letter of the law will kill you. It will put you in bondage and it will destroy your spiritual life.

 

So that which is spiritual, brethren, let it remain spiritual, and that which is of the soul, let it remain soulish. Although some soulish things, it is valid to raise up into the Spirit. But it is never valid to pull that which is spiritual down into the soul realm because you will kill it and you will kill yourself. It is always OK to ascend, but descension is destruction. Once you have attained to a pur- -- a certain place in the Spirit, to come down to a lower realm is called what? Anybody? It is called backsliding, brethren. It is not a good thing. It is something to be resisted. If it happens to you, you cry out to Jesus and you get raised up again. You do not receive condemnation but it is something to resist. You do not accept it and declare it to be wonderful and make a feast that you have come down for a higher realm to a lower realm. You kill the fatted calf when you are ascending, not when you are descending.

  

A witness to what we are just teaching here now is Matthew 16:24 which says, “Then Jesus said unto his disciples, ‘If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’” Oh boy. Did I not teach that already? I thought I went through that already. Well, praise the Lord. Maybe I put it in twice. OK. So the -- let me mark that to check it on my notes. I probably just had it in my notes twice this morning. I really did not have time to go over them today.

 

So we see that in order to take up one’s cross and follow Jesus, but one’s cross being one’s soul, it is necessary to have our carnal mind crucified so that -- what is that? That the Lord Jesus Christ should penetrate our carnal mind so that he might contact our human spirit and form a spiritual altar with her upon which Christ Jesus will be formed. Because you need power to follow Jesus, brethren. You cannot just rise up and follow Jesus. Your carnal mind is not going to let you do that. He is going to try to stop you with pleasure. Then he will try to stop you with pain. And if he cannot stop you with pleasure or pain, he will try to kill you. I mean, physically kill you. I am not kidding. So Jesus said -- Jesus did not say just follow me. He said, “Take up your cross and follow me,” and what he means is that you cannot follow me. Says the Lord, “You cannot do it unless you take up your cross.” You cannot follow me unless your carnal mind is crucified, and the Holy Spirit makes contact with your human spirit, and Christ Jesus is conceived and begins to be formed in you. You will not have the power necessary to follow me because the carnal mind will slap you right down so fast you will not even know what hit you. And those of you that have been around this ministry for a while know how many people have tried to follow Jesus in a deep walk that when -- in the type of deep walk that we have here and have been slapped down viciously by Satan. Viciously.

  

Continuing with the third third of Zephaniah 3:19: “And I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.” “And I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.” The Hebrew word translated get is Strong’s 5414. It means to sit or to put in place, to set up. I do not think I checked out whether or not this is the same word that is used in Genesis where it says, “And God put or set Adam in the garden.” I suspect it is the same word though. And it is a word that means to set upright, to give a spiritual dominion over.

 

“And I will get them or put them or set them praise and fame.” You see, if you are using the translations praise and fame, the translation to put or place or set does not make any sense but we are going to say that the Hebrew word translated praise, Strong’s 8416 which means glory, is speaking about the Spirit of God in this visible, soulish world. We have used that translation many times in many translations.

  

Glory, brethren, is the Spirit of God appearing in this soulish realm. It is the Spirit of God which is breath or vapor appearing in a lower realm which is typified by water. Water. As the Spirit of God descends, it goes from vapor which is its most high position and vapor is unstable. It is -- in that it is unformed and frequently invisible as it descends, or as it cools, it turns into water which is very much visible but still unstable and unformed. And as it continues to descend, it becomes ice. It is the same element in its coldest stage is formable. You pour the water into a vessel, an ice cube tray, a cup, a Mickey Mouse mold, whatever, you put it in the freezer, and when the water hardens, it takes form. Or there is such a thing as ice sculpture. Some people take blocks of ice and sculpt it. So we see that our physical form down here in hell is a result of the Spirit of God cooling off in us, cooling off, and we are stuck in one form. It is not ideal. It is a condition of hell. It is a condition of the curse.

  

Ideally, we would be in an unstable form over which we have control. What does that mean? We can take whatever form we like. We are not unstable in that we are subject -- you see, down here in this world, which is called hell, the word unstable is not a good word. To be emotionally unstable is not a good condition to be in. But to be spiritually unstable is a valuable thing because when you are spiritually unstable it means that you can take any form you want. Jesus -- the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth could take any form that he wanted: a ball of light, Jesus of the Nazareth the man in the days of his flesh with the holes in his arms, a total stranger. He could take any form that he wanted because he was spiritually unstable. So once again, we have a condition where to be unstable in this physical world would mean to be emotionally unstable because our body is never unstable. Our body stays the same. So we would be emotionally unstable. It means to be out of control, and it is a bad thing. But to be unstable in the spirit is a good thing, and it is a high spiritual place, a condition over which you have control and is beneficial to you as a Son of God.

  

We also find that down here in hell, workers of witchcraft can or do have the power to make their bodies unstable. We spoke about it in the exhortation earlier this morning. They have the power to change their physical form. But that is not a condition which is permitted by God to change this low -- this body which is in a low, physical form to have the power to change its form. That is not permitted by God. Why not? This body is a prison house that the Lord has placed us in. We are not supposed to be changing its form. It is only when we have ascended to a condition of sinlessness that we have authority from the high-ranking Spirit of God to change our form. The workers of witchcraft who have the power to change their physical form do it for evil purposes. They do it to deceive, to camouflage, to hurt and to do evil. Brethren, why in your present condition would you want to use spiritual power to change your appearance? For what possible purpose? For what possible righteous purpose would you want to do that?

  

So you say unto me for what possible righteous purpose would Jesus of Nazareth, who was raised from the dead, want to do it? To be honest with you, I do not have an understanding of it but I do know that it was righteous. Why? Because he was raised from the dead in a condition of sinlessness. We know that these -- the Spirit of God sent a lying Spirit to King Ahab that from man to do as an outright deception, but God did it and God cannot sin, you see. So if God does camouflage hims- -- his true appearance or his true identity, his motive is righteous and therefore it is not sin unto him. But there is no reason that a human man could disguise himself and it be righteous. That is why we do not have the power to do it. Because we are fallen and our mind thinks evil continuously. And we need to be raised from the dead and renewed in the spirit of our mind because we are spiritually insane. We need a savior and forgiveness of sins because we are pitiful and fallen and vile and desperate, and that is why we are hurting and in pain.

 

“I will give them -- I will get them praise and fame in every land.” Praise is speaking about the Spirit of God appearing in this soulish realm. And how does the Spirit of God appear in this soulish realm? He appears in the personality of a man. The soul realm is personality. The Spirit of God in the soul realm is personality.

  

Fame. The Interlinear says, “For a name.” You may notice that verse 19 says fame and verse 20 -- I believe verse 20 says name if I am not mistaken. Yes, verse 20 says, “I will make you a name and a praise.” It is the same Greek word -- same Hebrew word. In verse 19 it is translated fame and in verse 20 it is translated name. Why? Ask the King James translators. I do not know why. It is the same Hebrew word. And I am not saying that there is anything wrong with what they did. I am just pointing out to you that the King James translators, for whatever their reason, and we have seen this many times, choose different translations of the same word as the mood moves them. We choose alternate translations of the same Hebrew word based on the context of the whole verse and also based on the current revelation that the Lord is ministering to us by his Spirit. I am sure that the King James translators had some reason. I am just not sure what it is. It might have just been something as simple as variety. I have some experience in writing and with writers, and I know that it is a sound writing principle to not use the same word over and over again in the same sentence or in the same paragraph. Therefore, you will find people who write using a reference book called a thesaurus, Roget’s Thesaurus. The way they use it is to find synonyms. In other words, if they are writing a paragraph, for example, where it is appropriate to use the same idea three times in that paragraph, they will endeavor to find three different words which express the same idea because it is not good writing style to use the same word three times. It does not sound good to your ear. So a seasoned writer will specifically look for three synonyms, three different ways to express the same idea. Jesus. Hallelujah.

  

“And I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.” I will set them, or place them, in the soul realm. The word fame is Strong’s 8034. It is translated fame in verse 19, name in verse 20, but another potential translation which appears in our lexicon which is written by Gesenius is mark. The number of the word, Strong’s number, is 8034 and we are choosing the translation mark as in mark of the beast.

 

And I will set them in the soul realm a mark, a mark we are told, in every land. The Hebrew word translated every means all. It is Strong’s 3605. And we have translated this word many times to be whole. I am of the opinion, almost without exception -- I cannot tell you without exception because I have not looked up every single case in the Bible where it says the whole land, where it says every land -- excuse me. Every land. But every time we have ever had this phrase, it is seemed to have been appropriate in the verse to translate it the whole land. And not every land, brethren, but the whole land. The whole of this soul which God has formed. The whole of this many-membered soul. Or you might say, brethren, in every man. The Lord is placing a mark in the soul of every man. It is the mark of God. We read about it in Ezekiel 9, and you are all worried about getting the mark of the beast. You are spinning your wheels. You were born with it. You are looking for a tattoo. You are silly. His mark is the mind which is in you. Satan has marked you by giving you his mind. You are marked. You are identified. You are exposed as to what? That you are the concubine and love and sex slave of Satan. Your child, or his child, is appearing in your mind, in your emotions and in your behavior. The mark, the proof that you are under the possession and ownership of Satan himself, is that he openly expresses the mind and the existence of his offspring through your members. It is a very obvious mark except to those who are blind.

  

Please note that the phrase every land, therefore, is speaking about the whole many-membered, fallen dead soul. This includes the clay of the soul as well as the gold of the human spirit, and in fact the mark that Jehovah’s soul is being marked with is the mind of God which is in his Christ. Brethren, the image of God must be appearing in your human spirit. She is of the molten image which is either in the form of Satan or in the form of the Spirit of Christ, and the mark of God must also appear in the clay of your soul which is your emotions and your personality. The image of the Father appears first in your spirit which is your mind, and then your mind marks the clay or the emotions of your soul. So we see that the image of the Spirit which is our ruler and our God and our husband and our master and our Lord and owner appears twofold, in our spirit and in our soul, and that that mark must be erased from our soul and from our spirit in order for us to be engraved with the mark of God.

  

So do not worry about getting the mark of the beast, brethren. You have already got it, and the Lord Jesus Christ is all over you trying to erase it. You think it is Satan but it is not Satan. It is your new master because all power in heaven and earth has been given to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are the purchased possession. We have been redeemed by his blood. He is our new owner or our new master, and he is not going to keep us with an unclean mark in our spirit and our soul. We have been brought into his house, we are being brought into his house, and we are being made eunuchs. Our ability to reproduce, the nature which is presently ours which we are born with, is being cut off. Our ability to reproduce the seed that we carry within us is being castrated. To be made a eunuch down here in hell is very humiliating and destructive to one’s emotions and to the quality of one’s life, but to be made a eunuch in the house of the Lord is a glory unto his name and an experience with -- which raises us up to a higher realm in which we receive much life and many benefits way beyond anything we could receive down here.

  

But I do not know anyone that is going willingly. We are all going kicking and scratching and screaming and messing up every step of the way. But my Bible says Jesus Christ led captivity captive, and that means you and that means me. He is taking our carnal minds captive, and we are going up kicking and scratching and screaming, and when we get there, we will thank him. And he is taking it, all the kicking and scratching and screaming. And as I have told you many times, this is the greatness of his sacrifice for us. Men hung on crosses for six hours. Many men hung on crosses for six hours. There is nothing unusual about Jesus doing that. Most men hung on crosses way longer than six hours. He died quickly. So you say the difference is that he did not deserve it. Well, that is true. He did not deserve it. But, brethren, the sacrifice that he has made for you is that he is hanging on the cross of the soul of humanity already for 2,000 years, and he is being afflicted by our sin for 2,000 years, and I believe it will be another 1,500 years he is nailed to this dead tree, and we are tormenting him every second of his experience down here. So do not talk to me about six hours, brethren. Can you imagine 3,500 years? I do not know about you, but I cannot. It is a superhuman sacrifice that no man could bear. No nat- -- no fallen man could bear it. It is a sacrifice of great magnitude and intense proportions. It is a superhuman sacrifice. It is a sacrifice that no human being is capable of. And if you think that I am diminishing his sacrifice on the cross, you have got it backwards. You are diminishing his sacrifice by sa- -- by limiting it to six human hours. You are limiting his sacrifice by saying that the great work that he did is something that any man could bear. [?Well,?while?] untold numbers of men have been crucified for six hours. But Jesus, he is the only man -- or Christ Jesus is the only man -- he is the only mediator between God and man that could bear, that did bear, that is bearing our sin so far for 2,000 years, and I believe will continue to bear it for another 1,500 years, and for that I give him all the glory. And if you cannot hear that, get it before God because your carnal mind is standing in your way. Jesus.

  

So we are dealing with the third third of Zephaniah 3:19: “And I will get them praise. I will set them in the soul realm and fame. I will mark them in every land in every member of this soul where they have been put to shame.”

 

I have a witness for you, Ezekiel 9:4, with regard to being marked: “And the Lord said unto him” -- unto who? The man with the inkhorn, and the -- what is that? It is an implement that is capable of marking the soul symbolically speaking. The Scripture calls it an inkhorn. “And the Lord said unto him, ‘Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.’” So we see, brethren, to receive the mark of God, there is a requirement. You must be moaning and groaning and sighing and crying for all the abominations that are being done in the minds of God’s people. And I declare to you that you are not feeling those feelings if Christ is not being formed in you. Has to be some spirit of righteousness there, some beginning of righteousness, for the Lord to send forth the inkhorn writer and make your primary mind Christ.

  

You see, there has to already be Christ being formed there, and the inkhorn writer is increasing him to the fullness because we cannot really say we have the mark of God. I cannot really say I have the mark of God. The mark of God is full stature, brethren. I have the mark of the beast, and then I have a spirit of righteousness which is within me which is doing the best he can to convert my soul. But I am still a fallen man, and my primary, overriding mark is the beast. For me to say that I have the mark of God, my soul must be beheaded for the witness of Jesus. The carnal mind must be cut down and Christ Jesus must be established on the throne of my heart.

So we see that the work of the inkhorn writer is to establish Christ as the king over the vessels which are sighing and moaning and groaning. What -- in Israel. What does that mean? It means that they are seeing the sin. It means they are seeing the sin in the people and it is vexing their Spirit. That means they are afflicted by the sin, brethren. The sin is hurting them and they do not have the power to rise above it. But they are hanging in there and hating that sin and striving as hard as they can to not let it manifest through them, and their reward for this, brethren, is that Christ Jesus is coming to behead their souls from the influence of the carnal mind and to set the mark of God upon them that the mind of Christ should be their mind. But they do not have to moan -- why do you think they are moaning and groaning? Why do you think they are sighing and crying? They are not just observing their sin, brethren. They are being hurt by the sin. We were talking about that tonight. It is not on the message but we were talking about it tonight. We are being hurt by people’s sin when we do not yell to it. Or even when we yell to it, we are being hurt by it when there is righteousness in us. Relief is coming. Relief is coming. We shall be severed from our carnal mind which makes this condition possible, and we shall receive the mark of God which is the mind of Christ, which will enable us to perceive the sin of men without experiencing its pain and its painful results. Hallelujah. Goodness. My goodness.

  

Are we on?

 

“Where they have been put to shame.” Strong’s 1322. The Hebrew word translated “where they have been put to shame” means an idol. It is speaking about an idol which deceives the hope of the worshippers and puts them to shame. The car- -- this is speaking about -- the true idol is the carnal mind. The Interlinear says, “The land of their shame.” That is the dead soul which is occupied by the carnal mind. You see, the reason that God hates idols as much as he does is that they are a false hope. See, it is not -- God is not jealous as a man is jealous. God is jealous because his people are rejecting him for vanity, and the rejection of him is killing them. God is jealous because your behavior, brethren, is killing you.

 

I just -- before this message went on, I just had a laughing reaction to why somebody was not here tonight, and I think I offended somebody here. But let me tell you, God laughs at these things. God laughs at these things. You need to know that this is vanity. That their every excuse in the book is used to not come to a meeting that God calls you to, that God mocks it and he laughs at it, and he calls it what it is. It is sin, and it is idolatry, and it is lies in your mind, and it is an attitude of mind that causes you to lose what God wants to give you. It has nothing to do with me here or my meetings. When you are crying out to God and you are in desperate need and you stay away from a place where he has deliverance for you meeting after meeting after meeting, it is a form of idolatry. It is vanity. It is putting you to shame that you cannot do what God wants you to do, that you cannot get to where God wants you to get, and God laughs at his enemies and he mocks his enemies and he makes it manifest and reveals for all who have ears to hear that you are worshipping idols and that your excuses are vain and without value and that they are shaming you. How are they shaming you? Was there not another Scripture that says, “And Jesus put the powers and principalities to open shame”? What does that mean? They had no power over him. Well, for God to be calling you someplace and you failing to get there meeting after meeting after meeting, I tell you without condemnation, Satan has put you to shame, and you need to know it, and you need to hear it. It is an even worse condition to be in than to actually leave a ministry that you are called to. To try service after service after service to get there and not get there. You are being put to an open shame, and you need to hear it. You need to be told it. Either you are an outright liar or you are powerless in the face of Satan. And for someone who has been a Christian for years to be that powerless in the face of Satan is an open shame, and the Lord does nothing in secret, and he does not cover that kind of a sin. So if somebody here has judged me, I encourage you to repent because your judgment is false. Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay. If you choose not to come, that is fine. It is between you and God. But to fail to get here service after service after service, you have shamed the name of your God, and I will tell him myself.

 

Alternate Translation, the third third of Zephaniah 3:19: “And I will set them” -- Jehovah’s soul and Christ Jesus, the soul and the mind of the soul, Christ Jesus. “And I will set them in the visible world and mark the whole fallen dead soul, which is already marked with Satan’s carnal mind, with Jehovah’s nature.”

  

“And I will set them” -- who? The whole many-membered soul and Christ Jesus, the mind in that soul -- “in the visible world and I will mark that whole fallen dead soul, which is already marked with Satan’s carnal mind, with Jehovah’s nature.” And I remind you, in order to do that, he first -- who? Jehovah -- first has to erase the mark that Satan has put on you. So we see here a condition of -- I do not know what we have been calling this, but it is omission. It is a form of omission. It is a condition where amplification is necessary. The Scripture does not say that you need the mark of the beast removed from you. All that it tells you is that Jehovah has promised to give you his mark. Somehow you have to find out that there is an unstated fact. Something is unstated in that Scripture. It is left out. It is assumed that you know it. So for those of you who do not know it, amplification is necessary. I must tell you that there is an unstated promise there. I shall erase the mark of the beast from your soul and from your mind so that I can replace it with the mark, or the nature, of Jehovah. The judgment of God, the white throne judgment, is a great mystery. It is a mystery that is a gift of God. This painful experience is a gift of God. Why is it painful? Why did he make us this way? I do not know but I know that he is righteous.

  

Amplified Translation, third third, Zephaniah 3:19: “And I will set the many-members of the fallen dead soul in the visible world, and I will mark her. Who? The fallen dead soul. I will mark her, the one who is already marked with Satan’s carnal mind, and I will mark her with the mind of Christ which is in Christ Jesus.” “And I will set the many-members of the fallen dead soul in the visible world and mark her, the one who is already marked with Satan’s carnal mind, with the mind of Christ which is in Christ Jesus.”

 

Well, then -- well, this is my note but I already told it to you. Well, then how can the soul which is already marked with the mark of the beast receive the mark of God? The mark of the beast, the carnal mind, must first be erased. It is the only way. This procedure which erases is called the white throne judgment.

  

Alternate Translation, the whole of Zephaniah 3:19: “Surely at the appointed time, I will offer the carnal mind, which is holding the dead fallen soul captive, as a sacrifice to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I shall strengthen my dead fallen soul, who is leaning on her earthen side since she was seduced, and draw her back into the kingdom of God by nailing or by crucifying her to the Lord” --

  

[AUDIO CUTS OUT]

  

-- “and I will set the many-members of the fallen dead soul in the visible world and mark her, the one who is already marked with Satan’s carnal mind, with the mind of Christ which is in Christ Jesus.”

 

Continuing with Zephaniah 3:20: “‘At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you. For I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth when I turn back your captivity before your eyes,’ saith the Lord.”

 

Jesus. Now remember, I gave you a comment on message 1 reminding you that verse 19 is referring to the soul and verse 20 is referring to the mind which is in that soul. If you read the two verses in the King James, you will see that they sound very similar, and perhaps that is why the King James translators chose to translate that Hebrew word fame in verse 19 and name in verse 20 because the two verses are so similar. My first reaction was why are these two verses so similar? And I wondered about it until the Lord showed me that verse 19 is referring to the soul and verse 20 is referring to the mind or the spirit which is in that soul.

 

“At that time.” A certain time. Remember, this is a word which means a specific time as opposed to the word in verse 18 which is translated solemn assembly which can be translated a certain place or an age. It is the same word used in verse 19. “At that time I will bring you again.” To bring, Strong’s 935. I will lead you in, to bring in, even in the time. I do not know why I -- that is Strong’s 6256. I do not know why I -- I guess it must just mean that because I do not have anything typed in here. “Even at the time that I will gather you.” Gather, Strong’s 6908, to grasp with the hand, to draw in. To grasp with the hand, to draw in. “Even at that time I will bring you again, even in the time that I will gather you.”

 

Alternate Translation, the first third of Zephaniah 3:20: “At that certain time, I will lead Christ Jesus to and then draw him into the kingdom of God.”

 

So we see that the drawing of Christ Jesus into the kingdom of God comes in two stages. It is an event, the entering in of Christ Jesus into the kingdom of God. I guess it is not really the kingdom of God. It should be the kingdom of heaven. If the drawing -- because Eden -- the return to Eden, brethren, is the kingdom of heaven.

 

Let me review that for you. Does any- -- can anybody review that for us? The difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven? Anybody want to try that? Oh, we have a taker. Would you put it on the microphone, please? Praise God. You do not want to try? OK. Anybody?

 

            Is it the kingdom of God is when the mind of Christ is in you and yet the carnal mind is still -- there is two minds --

 

Yes, correct.

 

            -- and that the kingdom of heaven is when the mind of Christ has overtaken the carnal mind or become --

 

Well, wa- -- the term --

  

            -- the dominant one?

 

-- we are using is paralyzed, yeah. She has to be unable to make us sin, yeah. Overtaken is correct but that is -- it is correct but it is clearer to say that the kingdom of God has paralyzed the carnal mind, made her incapable of sin, by locking the two minds together so that they function as one mind. OK.

  

So the kingdom of God is a condition of duality. You may have Christ in you in full stature but the carnal mind is still functioning. That means you still sin even though you have sinlessness within you. You still sin. But to have a mind which is the kingdom of heaven is a condition of sinlessness because the kingdom of God within you has completely incapacitated that carnal mind and rendered her powerless to make you sin. So we see the kingdom of heaven is the restoration of the partial tree of the knowledge of good and evil back into a union with the tree of life, with the tree of life dominating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Glory to God.

  

Alternate Translation, first third, Zephaniah 3:20: “At that certain time I will lead Christ Jesus to and then draw him into the kingdom of heaven.”

  

So we see Christ Jesus being drawn back into the kingdom of heaven, which was called the garden of Eden before the fall, is a two-prong procedure. I remind you, first we must receive the Holy Ghost which is the reconciliation -- which is our reconciliation into a relationship with the Father. And then that reconciliation forms a spiritual altar which results in the formation of Christ Jesus in us. Christ Jesus, the man, a spiritual man, Christ Jesus, the only mediator between God and man. Christ Jesus has a conscious mind and an unconscious mind, and the name of his conscious mind is, anybody? The mind of --

  

            Christ.

  

Christ. And his unconscious mind is the Spirit of Christ. Amen. Hallelujah.

 

“At that certain time I will lead Christ Jesus to receiving of the Holy Ghost and then draw him into the formation of” -- I guess that is not exactly accurate. “At that certain time, I will lead Christ Jesus to” -- I guess it must be full stature -- “and then draw him into the kingdom of heaven by giving him the power to overcome the carnal mind.” Thank you, Lord, for correction. “And at that time I will lead the already-formed Christ Jesus to a condition of full stature, and then I will draw him into or lead him into or bring him into the kingdom of heaven as I instruct him and empower him to paralyze the carnal mind.” Glory to God.

 

Continuing with the second third of Zephaniah 3:20: “For I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth.” Make you, give you, it is the same -- this verse 20 is very similar to verse 19. I will give you a name. It is the 8034, the same word translated famous in verse 19. Praise is the same. It means the Spirit of God in the soul realm. “Among all of the peoples of the earth.” This Hebrew translated peoples is Strong’s 5971, and it refers to a single race or a tribe. It means that everybody which has the mind of Christ, which everybody -- everybody which has the man Christ Jesus dwelling within him as his personality will be one tribe, the Israel of God.

  

Please note that the whole earth shall be one single race or tribe. So we see that in verse 19 Jehovah is dealing with the whole soul. That means soul and spirit. And in verse 20, he is dealing with the people of the earth, the individual Sons of God. The individual Sons of God. 

 

Alternate Translation, the second third, Zephaniah 3:20: “And I shall make you famous amongst all men in the visible world.”

  

Amplified Translation, second third, Zephaniah 3:20: “And everyone in the visible world shall know that your spirit is the Spirit of Christ.”

 

You see right now those of us which have Christ, he can only be discerned by other people who have the Spirit of Christ. We are not recognized, brethren. That is why many are sick and dying because they cannot discern the body of Christ. Neither can they discern him within themselves. They cannot tell the difference between their carnal mind or Christ Jesus which is being formed in them. Neither can they recognize Christ Jesus in another man. They do not receive his counsel. They do not receive his correction. They do not receive his rebuke because they are blinded by the pride of their carnal mind which says who do you think you are? They cannot recognize dignitaries. Why? Because they are brute beasts. What does that mean? Their mind is carnal. Jesus.

 

“And I shall make you famous amongst all men in the visible world.”

 

Amplified Translation. “And everyone in the visible world shall know that your spirit is the Spirit of Christ.”

 

God is going to do something. I think it is a combination of a manifestation through us that will make us recognizable. Because right now we look like everyday men because fallen men see our sin. They see our sin and it blinds them to that within us which really does have power and righteousness in Christ. They stumble at our sin. They stumble at our infirmity. Paul said, “I came to you with my infirmity but you received me as an angel of God. Even though I still had sin and therefore looked like an average man to you, you recognized and received the Christ in me.” You recognized who he was. And for that reason you were blessed of the Christ in me. You see? If you stumble at my flesh and all that you could see is my sin and my imperfection, you will fail to benefit from the Christ in me. It is your loss, you see. It is your loss.

  

Please note the sequence of the phrase praise and fame. In verse 19 that is praise is stated first and then fame as opposed to the sequence in verse 20 which says name and praise. That is name appears first and then praise. There are not accidents in the Scripture, brethren, even in sequence. And this is the significance: praise signifying soul and name signifying spirit. The Lord places soul before spirit in verse 19, which verse is speaking to the soul. Who do I know? Back in verse 16 we are told first God is speaking to Jerusalem, typifying the soul, and then he is speaking to Zion, typifying the spirit. And in verse 20, the word spirit is placed before soul because the Lord is speaking specifically to Christ Jesus.

  

Continuing with the third third of Zephaniah 3:20: “‘When I turn back your captivity before your eyes,’ saith the Lord.” Turn back is Strong’s 7725. It means to turn oneself, meaning conversion. Captivity, Strong’s 7622, means to restore anyone to his former welfare and happiness. Before your eyes is Strong’s 5869. It really means to be seen with the eyes. However the Lord is going to do it, it is going to be obvious to the world that we are not average men. And I know that there is a Scripture. I believe it is in one of the epistles of Peter where it speaks about our public appearance. Right now, we are only having a private showing for those who have eyes to see. We are in secret. We are hidden. We are veiled. God has to reveal us unto you. We are really -- we are in secret. If God does not reveal us unto you, you will never recognize it, and the chances are you will not benefit from the riches that are within him if you cannot see him. Although it is possible the Lord will raise up someone -- a Son to pray for you without your knowing it. It is possible. But the day is coming that we are having a public appearance. Exactly what that means, I do not know, but it is in one of the epistles of Peter I believe.

 

And it will be revealed who is the genuine article and who is the phony because when the genuine article is publicly revealed, what does that mean? When the Sons of God are appearing obviously to all men, those who are imitations will no longer be able to pull off their lies because when the real thing is made manifest, the most common man will be able to recognize the phony. That is the Word of the Lord. In this hour, it is not only possible to be deceived. Thousands if not millions of Christians are being deceived. By preachers who say they are preaching by Christ and they are not. By faith healers who say they are of Christ and they are not. By ministers who are taking their money and they say it is for the kingdom of God and it is not. But in that day when Christ publicly reveals his Sons, the most spiritually immature man will be able to tell the phony because the real Sons will be so obvious. Is that not wonderful? I think that is wonderful. What a promise.

  

I am not sure what it means. I do believe that one of the factors will be sinlessness. That this public appearance will not occur until we have been elevated unto a condition of sinlessness. But exactly what we will look like or what we will be doing which will make us so obvious to the man on the street, I am not sure. The chances are that there will be signs and wonders and miraculous healings, but even so, I am not really sure exactly what the circumstances will be that common men will be able to recognize us.

 

Continuing with the third third of Zephaniah 3:20: “‘When I turn back your captivity before your eyes,’ saith the Lord.”

  

Alternate Translation, third third of Zephaniah 3:20: “When your visible appearance reveals that I have converted your mind back to Christ Jesus and made your soul alive again.” “When your visible appearance reveals that I have converted your mind back to Christ Jesus and made your soul alive again.”

  

Witness, Romans 8:11: “And if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus the man dwells in you, the one that raised up the mind of Christ” -- or the spiritual man Christ Jesus -- “from the dead in you shall also make your soul alive, and apparently this condition will be visible to the most carnal of men.”

  

Alternate Translation, Zephaniah 3:20: “At that certain time I will lead Christ Jesus to and then draw him into the kingdom of heaven. And” -- how did I change that? I think I changed that back here. OK.

  

“At that certain time I will lead Christ Jesus to full stature and then draw him into the kingdom of heaven, and everyone in the visible world shall know that your spirit is the Spirit of Christ when your visible appearance reveals that I have converted your mind back to Christ Jesus and made your soul alive again.”

 

Please note that the Lord is first leading his soul into full stature and then gathering Christ Jesus into the kingdom of heaven. The leading in is done by the Holy Ghost, and the gathering in, or the in-gathering, is done by Christ Jesus.

  

John 6:44 says, “No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. And I will raise him up at the last day.” No man can become as Jesus. That is to say no man can become Christ Jesus, or Christ Jesus cannot be formed in any man except the Father which sent Jesus in the form of the Holy Spirit draw him, or draw that man, and Jesus in the form of the Holy Spirit will raise up Christ from the dead at the end of the age, you see? You cannot come into Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus cannot be formed in you unless the Father draw you, and the way that the Father draw you -- and by the way, if you look up that Greek word translated draw, it means forcibly draw you against your will. It means to lasso you and drag you. So you cannot become a man in whom Christ Jesus is being formed unless the Father lays -- forcibly lays hold of you. And what does that mean? His Holy Spirit has to forcibly penetrate or crucify your carnal mind, join with your human spirit, form an altar which is in Christ, upon which Christ Jesus, or a res- -- as a result of which Christ Jesus will be formed. You cannot receive the Lord Jesus Christ. He must take you by a forcible penetration. And remember that the carnal mind is standing there in every way trying to expel him and repel him and keep him from penetrating your heart. The only way Christ Jesus can be formed in you is by an outright warfare, and you think all you have to do is say, Jesus, I receive you. You are silly. This verse, John 6:44, is speaking about leading the called-out ones into the kingdom. “I will raise him up at that last day.”

  

John 14:6 says, “Jesus saith unto him, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.’” Now look, no man cometh unto Christ Jesus unless the Father draw him, but no man cometh unto the Father unless he comes by Jesus. Well, what in the world are we talking about here? The two different steps, brethren. Christ Jesus cannot be formed in you unless the Father in the form of the Holy Spirit comes and lassoes you and draws you in. And even though Christ Jesus is being formed in you, you cannot come unto the Father. What does that mean? Jesus said, “I go unto my Father,” and what happened to Jesus? He was returned to pure Spirit. So even after the man Jesus -- even after the man Christ Jesus is formed in you, you cannot be returned to spirit form -- which procedure is called what? Does anybody know?

  

            [INAUDIBLE]

  

Glorification. You cannot be glorified unless Jesus brings you there. So the Father brings you to Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus brings you to glorification. And that is exactly what we are reading about in Zephaniah 3, the Scripture which says, if I can find it for you, “At that time I will bring you again, and even at that time I will gather you.” “I will bring you into Christ Jesus and I will gather you unto glorification.” The Father brings us to Christ Jesus and Christ Jesus brings us to glorification. Hallelujah.

 

I remember when I first heard those two Scriptures, I thought surely they were a contradiction. There is no contradiction in the word of God, brethren. Either you do not understand what it says or it is possible that it is a poor translation. But most of the time you just do not understand it or there is a missing piece of information. But in -- as far as the spirit of the word is concerned, there is no conflict. There is no contradiction. There is no error. The law and the word of God is perfect. You are imperfect, your mind is imperfect, your understanding is imperfect, and your arrogance dares to think that the word of God is just something conjured up by men. May God have mercy on all of our souls because of our ignorance.

  

Jesus is saying that Christ Jesus is the way, the Spirit of Truth and the only true life, and that no man can be glorified or returned to Spirit as Jesus of Nazareth did without first being born again of the Spirit as the man Christ Jesus. This verse is speaking about the gathering into the kingdom of heaven.

  

Please note that the first phrase of Zephaniah 3:20 is speaking about the two stages of the first phase of Jehovah’s covenant with humanity called grace which is extended first to the Jew and then to the gentile in two different forms. And the second phrase called union which is extended to both the Jew and the gentile in the same form. What am I talking about? We touched on this, brethren, in our Alternate Translation of Zechariah 11:14 which says, “And I overturned their carnal minds so that the imparted anointing could be liberated which” -- and this imparted anointing is the binding together of the grace of the old covenant which was offered first to Judah in one form and then to Israel in the other form, combining that with the grace of the new covenant which is made with the Israel of God.

 

Please note, brethren, that the term Israel in this verse is speaking about a United Israel that is speaking about all 12 tribes, and in this hour Judah consists of the tribe of Judah and -- the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. This is in the separated kingdom. And the 10 tribes of Israel are manifesting today as Western Europe. What happened to the 10 tribes? Some people will speak to you about the 10 lost tribes. You are free to disagree with me if you want, but I am inclined to believe that the 10 tribes, which were assimilated into the Assyrian Empire, today are our Western European nations. You do not have to believe that if you do not want to but they had to go somewhere, and as we see the church today, I believe that the members of the church are the members of the tribes of Israel which were assimilated into the pagan world and then brought into the Christian culture. So as strange as this may seem, the 10 tribes of Israel which were in deeper sin than the two tribes of Judah are coming unto the -- unto Christ faster than Judah in the form of Western Europe -- Christian Western Europe. It is a great mystery.

  

Let me say it again. The 10 tribes of Israel fell into idolatry whereas Judah remained some semblance of relationship with Jehovah. The 10 tribes that fell into outright idolatry, the -- those peoples which are the predecessors of modern -- of the modern European nations, those peoples were in pure idolatry before Christ came. They received Christianity 2,000 or mo- -- well, we expect Judah to be ushered into the kingdom at any moment. Two thousand years before Judah, the 10 tribes which fell into such sin that they were completely turned over to paganism by Jehovah, came unto Christianity before Judah.

  

The Lord just spoke to me, brethren. Do you know what he just said to me? He is quite amazing. This is what he just said to me. That the law of Moses was just too grievous for the 10 tribes of Israel to bear. There is even a Scripture that I think that says, “Even the Jews could not bear it. The law was so hard to keep.” Is that not -- are you -- you are shaking your head, yes? Was there such a Scripture? I will have to look for it. I believe it is somewhere in the New Testament. Even -- I think Jesus said it. Even the Jews could not keep the law of Moses. It was grievous. Do you know how hard it is to keep the law of Moses? His detailed, ritualistic law? It is very hard. Israel to this day is keeping it imperfectly, but there are some -- did I say Israel? Judah to this day is keeping it imperfectly, but there is a group of Jews in the earth today that are keeping it somewhat. But the law was so grievous for the 10 tribes of Israel that they could not make it, brethren. They simply could not make it. So they fell into paganism.

 

And what is it that Jehovah did for them? Did he burn them in hell forever? No. Jehovah made a judgment that they genuinely could not do it, and he made an easier way for them because this ministry of the Holy Spirit is much easier to live with than keeping the law of Moses, and that is why the Jews who sinned more than Judah -- I should say the Israelites who sinned more than Judah, they fell into complete and total idolatry, received the easier ministry of the Holy Ghost 2,000 years ahead of the Jews. Why? Because they simply could not keep the law of Moses.

  

Is God a respecter of persons? No, he meets you where you are. He looks at your heart and he makes a judgment as to what you really can do. And if you really, genuinely are trying your best and cannot meet the standard that he has set up in a particular hour or in a particular group, he will give you special treatment. But it has to be the Lord who makes the decision that you are really trying as hard as you can, and he looks at you and says, “I look at your heart. You are just not going to make it. I could see it. You are just not going to make it. You are just not strong enough so I am going to make a way of escape for you.” And then the carnally minded brother looks up and says, “Respecter of persons, that could not be Jesus speaking through that preacher. God is no respecter of persons.” He is not. He is a merciful, loving, honest, decent, fair God but his decency and his fairness and his honesty is of such a high proportion that your mind cannot even comprehend it. Did you hear what I said? You were not sleeping?

 

When I was in Nigeria, on my second trip to Nigeria, I experienced this. There was a woman in the congregation who was filled with fear while I was preaching about the warfare, and she honestly expressed it in front of the whole group. The compassion of Christ arose in me and I perceived that she was genuine. She was terrified that she would not make it, that she was truly not capable of waging this warfare. So I comforted her, and I told her not to fear, that the Lord Jesus would bring her through, and I prayed for her, and she calmed down. As soon as she had calmed down, a woman arose in the same group of people, obviously much stronger than the first woman and very indignant that I would suggest to this woman that she might enter in without an act of warfare. Very indignant. The ministry of Christ to the second woman was this exact explanation. Jesus meets you where you are. And to the fearful, he says, “Be not afraid for I am able to get you through.” But to the strong who are cowardly, he says, “Go back for you are not worthy to be a Son.”

 

Do not look at your brother, brethren, because you will surely stumble and fall into the ditch. The ways of the Lord are perfect, and he is perfectly meeting you where you are, and he is perfectly requiring of you what you are able to do, and if you compare yourself to your brother you will surely slip and fall because you are not your brother. Do not expect the same treatment as your brother is getting. You will kill yourself with your greed and your envy and your pride and your rebellion. Get your eyes on yourself. Get your eyes on yourself. Get your eyes on yourself and do not criticize God or his prophets lest a worse sin come upon you.

  

So I -- when I made up these notes, brethren, I had intended to review this two stages of grace, but I really do not feel to do it. How much time do we have left up?

 

            [INAUDIBLE]

  

I do not even know that I have time to do it. I will briefly tell you this. There is only one covenant that Jehovah has made with man. It is a covenant which comes in two stages. Some people call it the old covenant and the new covenant. The old covenant says, “You are sinners, but I receive you into a relationship with me which is called reconciliation.” And the second stage, or the new covenant -- well, let me back up. And the first stage, or the old covenant, says, “I receive you in your sinful condition but I will relate to you as if you are purified because you cannot ev- -- I will not even talk to you if you are not purified. So I will relate to you as if you are purified even though you are not.” And the second stage, which some people call the new covenant, is that agreement with Jehovah whereby he in fact makes you sinless. He cleans you from your sin and binds you together with him.

 

The first stage of his covenant with man, or the old covenant, is in two parts. He ministers that grace of reconciliation to the Jew through the law of Moses and through the gentile through the law of the Holy Spirit. Two different ministrations to two different groups of people, both of which have the same effect of reconciling men unto God into a relationship whereby the Lord receives them as though they were sinless, for the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. Both groups of people, Jew and gentile, shall experience the second phase of Jehovah’s covenant with man, or the new covenant, together in that they shall both partake of the cleansing process which will rip sin out of them and actually bring them into a real condition of righteousness, and the machinery for this procedure of cleansing us from spiritual filth is called the white throne judgment. Both Jew and gentile shall be subjected to the white throne judgment which will complete and fulfill the terms of Jehovah’s contract with mankind. [?Done?].

That is all that I will say today. We do have other messages on it if you would like to review this.

 

Recap, Zephaniah 3:18-20: “And I shall incarnate Christ Jesus from within the carnal mind and go beyond this abominable age which Satan has formed and is ruling over. Surely at the appointed time, I will offer the carnal mind, which is holding the dead fallen soul captive, as a sacrifice to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I shall strengthen my dead fallen soul, who is leaning on her earthen side since she was seduced, and draw her back into the kingdom of God by nailing or crucifying her to the Lord Jesus Christ, and I will set the many-members of the fallen dead soul in the visible world and mark her, the one who is already marked with Satan’s carnal mind, with the mind of Christ which is in Christ Jesus. And at that time I will lead Christ Jesus to full stature and then draw him into the kingdom of heaven, and everyone in the visible world shall know that your Spirit is the Spirit of Christ when your visible appearance reveals that I have converted your mind back to Christ Jesus and made your soul alive again.”

  

Praise God. I did not have time to amplify and intersperse these verses, and I had hoped to amplify and intersperse the whole chapter 3, and then I had hoped to amplify and intersperse the whole Book of Zephaniah. So when I have time to do this, I might make a short message on it. It should not take more than a 45-minute message. So unless the Lord tells me not to do it, at some time in the near future we will have one more message on the Book of Zephaniah, and at this time I believe the Lord is telling me to publish a pamphlet of Zeph- -- of the Alternate Translation of Zephaniah by itself. So unless he tells me I did not hear from him correctly, that is what we will be doing, and that is very exciting because this is the first book that we have an Alternate Translation on the complete book. Although it is a short book, it is the first book that we have completed, and whether or I not will put the footnotes in it or not, I do not know. We will see what I will hear from the Lord. The vision that I have for the footnotes is to go into my -- the notes that I preach -- that I teach from and include them in the pamphlet as footnotes.

 

It all takes time, you know. We will see. If the Lord tells me to do it, I will do it. But in any event, I expect to have a pamphlet of the Book of Zephaniah by itself at some time in the future. Pray for me, brethren. Pray for me. I really need your prayers. I want you to know that I am very aware of the strength that I receive from your prayers. Just pray for strength for me to do what God wants me to do. I am very aware of the strengthening effect of your prayers, and I really thank you for them, and I covet them.

  

So we will end here tonight. Any questions? We just have a few minutes left on the message.

  

Transcribed by VerbalFusion 12/20/17

1st Edit 12/27/17 rh