Articles
Part 3 of 4 Parts
The Following Message Has Been Transcribed For
Clarity, Continuity Of Thought, And Punctuation By
The LEM Transcribing & Editing Team.
We are picking up with verse 15 in Ezekiel, Chapter 39. We touched on verse 15 on Part 2, but I am going to go over it because I do not think I really did a good job on Part 2. I tried to hoof this message; what that means is I tried to preach it without any research.
And when I got to verse 15, the Lord pretty much told me to lay it down, that He wanted you to have a deeper message than the surface message, which is the only the message that could come forth without me looking in the Hebrew and seeing the other possible translations of these words. Those of you who have been studying with us for a while know that at least one of the things that the Lord is doing here is that He has anointed me to bring forth the spirit of the word.
Just as in the English language, if you look up in Webster's Dictionary, there could be as many as 20 definitions to any one word, so it is in the Hebrew and in the Greek, in the Hebrew Lexicon. For every Hebrew word in the original Scripture, there could be 20, sometimes 40 or more definitions.
And the translation that we see in the King James, or any other translation, exists because the King James translators made a decision to choose one of those 20 definitions. And the King James translators were scholars; they were carnal men, and they were not anointed or equipped to bring forth the spirit of the word. They were anointed and equipped by the Lord to bring forth the letter of the word. The letter of the word is important. It is powerful; it does much good; it blesses many people and has been blessing many people for 2,000 years.
PASTOR VITALE: But we are told in the Book of Daniel that, in the last days... Does anybody know what is supposed to happen in the last days?
COMMENT: Knowledge and understanding.
PASTOR VITALE: Knowledge. OK, that is true. The King James says that knowledge will increase. And I suggest to you that at least part of the knowledge is the spiritual understanding of the Scripture. So what I do is I go into the Hebrew, and under the anointing of Christ (sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes) I will choose a different translation than the King James translators chose. And this is how we are bringing forth the spirit of the word.
I have not changed one Hebrew word or one Greek word from the Scripture. I have changed the English translations, and there is a depth of the word coming forth that you may have never heard before. So as always, I ask you, if you have never heard something before, or you do not agree with it, at the very least, you owe it to yourself to put it before the Lord and ask Him whether or not it is true.
You do not have to agree with me. That is perfectly all right. I do not require it for you to sit here. Just the only thing I require for you to sit here is that you are orderly. You are free to disagree with me if you like.
So we are picking up with verse 15 of Ezekiel 39: And the passengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man's bone, then shall he set up a sign by it, till the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-Gog.
We have already established that the passengers are the spiritual men who are traveling through the earth. There is a spiritual man who is passing through the generations of the earth. Does anybody remember what his name is?
His name is Adam. He was formed and the beginning of time, and the Scripture tells us that the Father set him up in the garden. The Father gave him his own righteousness, so that he should have dominion over the negative forces of the earth. But the man chose to disobey God and to partake of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which was a spiritual experience that was forbidden unto him.
The Lord had determined that the man would receive instruction that would give him information and a knowledge of good and evil that would be given to him without his actually falling down and partaking of that evil. There was a way that God was going to instruct the man that he would have full understanding and knowledge of evil without partaking of it. But what happened was that the man chose to partake of it.
Now, I know the Scripture says. Eve ate of the fruit, and she gave to the man, but the Scripture in the New Testament says, The woman was deceived, but the man was not deceived. So the man chose to partake of a knowledge, an experiential knowledge. He chose to experience the evil; and thus he fell, and he died.
And he fell. Where did he fall? He fell down into hell. He was in heaven. He was in the Garden of Eden; that was heaven, and he fell down into hell. And this, brethren, I suggest to you, is the hell that he fell down into. It is a place where a spiritual man has separated from God. Adam died. His spirit died through separation from the Father. He separated from God and fell down into this fleshly world, where men labor continuously to survive. This is a world of labor.
We read in Genesis (is it Genesis 3 where the curse is pronounced?), that God says to Adam, And you shall labor for everything that you need. In the Garden of Eden, brethren, man did not labor. He spoke, and his needs were met. He thought, and his needs were met. He did not even have to speak. Down here in hell, we must labor for everything that we need. We must labor for food; we must labor for clothing. We labor to survive continuously. We labor with our hands.
So we see that the creation of God died, and he is a spiritual man that is dwelling in flesh bodies. He is one spiritual man. The Scripture says, God made a man. This is a many-membered man. Mankind is likened to a plant. We see many Scriptures that indicate that Jesus said, He is the vine, and we are the branches. He said, We are the planting of the Lord. He speaks about grapes being crushed in in the wine press, indicating the judgments which are coming upon men.
There are many Scriptures in the Book of Isaiah. The Book of Isaiah says, The Lord planted a garden, and figs came forth that were inedible. So we see that the entire Bible is a parable. Why would the Lord be writing in parables? Because, brethren, man is in a deep sleep which has dulled his spiritual senses. This term, deep sleep, means that we are sleeping spiritually. Have you ever been in a classroom, or seen a movie about a classroom, where one of the young students is daydreaming? And the teacher says, Wake up. Wake up. Well, the child is not sleeping. His mind is just someplace else.
Well, brethren, our mind is some place other than the Garden of Eden. Our mind has gone someplace else, and we are spiritually sleeping. We are asleep to the kingdom of God, or to heaven, or to the Garden of Eden. But we are awake to this existence that we have. This existence has a name. In the Book of Genesis, it is called the Land of Nod. Nod means to be sleeping.
And it has another name; it is called hell. Some people cannot see the forest for the trees. They are expecting this body to die, so that their physical body can go to a place called hell. But, brethren, our spirit has fallen down into the hell of this carnal mind and this flesh, through which Satan has the power torment us with all kinds of physical pain. And we are in a soul, through which Satan has the power to torment us with all kinds of emotional pain.
So we see that the Book of Genesis tells us that God only made one man. He is a many-membered man, just as this is one plant with many leaves on it. There is a spiritual man who has died. He is appearing in many human bodies, and he is in this earth waiting for his Father to raise him from the dead.
Now, because his spirit is dead, the bodies that he dwells in die. For many generations the humanity that the spiritual man is dwelling in must continue to reproduce itself so that this one spiritual man, who is waiting to be raised from the dead, will not be without an existence. Until that time when he enters into the judgment, (and what is a judgment? It is a correction from a condition of mind which is sin) which will raise us back up into the heavenlies with the Father.
The Scripture clearly states there is no marriage, or giving in marriage in heaven. Why would that be, brethren? Because the purpose of marriage and giving in marriage, or at least the primary purpose, is the perpetuation of the species. There must be children. There must be new bodies for the spiritual man to dwell in, until such time as he is raised from the dead by his Father. And when his Father raises his spiritual life from the dead, the bodies that he is dwelling in at the time will become permanent. And there will no longer be any need to perpetuate the species. The bodies that he is dwelling in, at the moment of his resurrection from the dead, will be preserved, and they will be in heaven. And there will be no more marriage or giving in marriage.
So we see that the passengers in the earth, those who are passing through the earth, are the spiritual men. The many-membered spiritual man is passing through the earth. These are the passengers that Ezekiel is speaking about.
And the passengers that pass through the land (the land being these bodies and souls that we dwell in), when any seeth a man's bone...
PASTOR VITALE: Bones in the Scripture typify... anybody?
COMMENT: Spirit.
PASTOR VITALE: Spirit. Brethren, we need to know that, when we look for the spirit of the word, it is the unraveling of the parables. The whole Scripture is a parable, and that means that there are many words which are symbols for deep spiritual truth.
We know that, in another chapter in Ezekiel, the Lord challenges the prophet and says, Shall these bones live again? And some Christians think that actual skeletons are going to be dug up at a physical grave. But I tell you, brethren, I do not believe that. And I ask you to pray about this. It is not the actual, physical bone skeletons that are going to live again, but it is your dead spirit that died when it was separated from God that is going to live again when the Son of God appears in your very own spirit, thus raising you from the dead. So we see that bone typifies spirit.
And the passengers that pass through the land, when any seeth a man's bone (spirit). That means a man's spirit. It is the opposite of Christ's spirit. Right now, we all have the spirit which is in man. When that human spirit becomes joined to the Lord Jesus Christ, he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. So when the human spirit, which is in us right now, becomes joined to the Lord Jesus Christ, it is no longer the spirit of man.
When two people get married, the woman takes on the man's name. Well, she is supposed to anyway. You cannot go by this country these days. The woman takes on the man's name. She takes on his lifestyle. She becomes a part of the family that he is building. It is family name, is it not?
So when your human spirit marries the Lord Jesus Christ, you take on His characteristics. He does not take on your characteristics. And the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God. So when your spirit becomes joined to His Spirit, you shall be (and I am just making a joke for purposes of helping you to understand), you shall become the "Mrs.". Does the Scripture not say that the Church is the Bride of Christ?
What does that mean? It means that we inherit everything He is. When a woman marries a man today, usually, the marriage vows include some such statement as, to the man, Do you bestow upon this woman all of your worldly goods? Everything you have becomes hers, and everything she has becomes yours. The only problem is everything the Woman has (everything the Church has) is sin. We do not have anything that the Lord needs. What do we have that He needs? We are dead. We are fallen. We are filled with sin. We are absolutely corruptible. What do we have that He needs?
But we have inherited everything that is His. We have inherited eternal life. We have inherited righteousness. We have inherited sinlessness. We have inherited incorruption. When, in fact, His Spirit joins to our spirit, we shall melt into Him. We shall become so one with Him that we shall be everything that He is, and we shall no longer be the spirit of man, but our spirit shall be one with the Spirit of God. And when your spirit is one with God, brethren, you shall have the mind of God.
Now, there are many Christians today that are fearful when they hear this statement, You shall be gods, because it registers in their mind that fallen man, you and me in all of our corruption, in all of our imperfection, wants to be God. What a horrible, horrible thought. Except, if you stop to think about it, it has already happened because it is the Devil himself who is the god of this world.
That is why you are in misery. That is why your flesh is dying. That is why you get sick. That is why your back is aching from arthritis in this damp weather. That is why whatever the problem that is occurring in your life is, it is happening because the god of this world is the spirit of man. Did Jesus not say to the Pharisees, Your daddy is the Devil? We are the offspring of the Devil down here in hell, and the god of this world is our daddy.
You read about this later on in Ezekiel 39. The Scripture speaks about the princes of the earth. Well, Daddy is the king. The Devil is the king of this place. Each individual is a prince of the earth, this fallen place. Our spirit is buried under the earth of this land. We have something similar, a similar situation with regard to the mark of the beast.
And those of you that are familiar with my teaching have heard me say this many times. Do not worry about getting the mark of the beast. You already have it. You were born with it. The mark of the beast is your fallen mind. It is your fallen mind that causes you to engage in corrupt, fallen behavior, typified by the mark in your hand. The mark on your forehead is your fallen mind, and the mark on your hand (hand, if you do a study in the Scripture, it means ministry. It is behavior. It is what you do, not only with this hand, but what you do with the whole body, the hand typifying your body). You already have the mark. It is not a tattoo. This Bible is a spiritual book. It is speaking about spiritual things.
So in the same manner, brethren, I suggest to you that this fear of the Church, about man becoming a god in his fallen condition, it is a very real fear. That is something to be very concerned about. But what you do not seem to realize is that it has already happened. That is why we are in the condition that we are in. Look at what is going on in this world today. Look what is going on in this country because man has become his own god. He is the god of humanism.
So we see that, when the Lord Jesus Christ joins to our spirit and we truly become gods, we shall be righteous men. We shall be holy as our Father in heaven is holy. We shall become gods of the Elohim. We shall become members of the family of Jehovah, the true Creator of the universe.
Your fears, brethren, have already come to pass. Corrupt man is in charge of this world. Oh, but I thought, Pastor Sheila, you said the Lord Jesus Christ is in control? Yes, He is. And He has turned this world over to the Devil. Can you hear it? I am going to say it again. The Lord Jesus Christ is in full control. And He has said, Humanity, you have sinned. And I have turned you over to the Devil.
We are in jail, brethren. We are in jail until the hour of rehabilitation: rehabilitation of this body, rehabilitation of this soul. What are we waiting for? Rehabilitation of our spirit, brethren. Our spirit is corrupt. We were sold under sin. When our original ancestor, Adam, rebelled, we were sold under sin. We were turned over to the Devil and bound by chains of darkness, which are spiritual chains which exist in the mind.
For what purpose? So that the whole creation would not be wiped out but that we should survive in a condition of death, until such time as the Lord Jesus Christ will judge our sins and raise us from the dead, because judgment results in correction. When the Devil judges your sin, you die. When the Lord Jesus Christ judges your sin, you are raised from the dead. So we see Jehovah made a judgment. He made a decision when the man sinned and died, to not wipe out the creation but to preserve it until such time that He was ready to raise it from the dead.
Everything that Jehovah (or the Lord Jesus Christ, they are one, of course), do is counterfeited by Satan. Some of you might know that there is available (I do not know if they are doing it or not. I think they are doing it already. Are they freezing their bodies already? Yes, they are doing it already). It is a lot of money, but if you are willing to do it, you can have your body frozen. And most people that are paying for this service believe that, at some time in the future, a cure will be found for the disease that killed them.
But of course, we know that it is a spiritual disease that has killed us, and freezing a physical body is a perversion of what Jehovah is doing to humanity. But He has preserved us until such time as He cures our sin. Many human beings are deceived. They say, How could we be dead? We are walking; we are talking; we are marrying; we are giving in marriage; we are eating; we are drinking; we are having babies. What do you mean we are dead?
Paul said, To be carnally minded is death. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the definition of death is the death of this body. The scriptural definition of death is spiritual separation from God. And in fact, one of the three Greek words that is translated death, thanatos, specifically refers to the separation of the spirit. I think, in the Greek lexicons, it says separation of the spirit from the soul. But with regard to our original condition, when our spirit is separated from the Spirit of the Father, we die.
And the very definitions of hell that appears in Strong's Concordance, or at least one of the definitions, is a place where the separated spirit has a continued existence, a place underneath the earth where the separated spirit has an existence. So we have an existence, and our spirit is underneath the earth of this soul of this body. If the Lord would just open up your eyes, it is as obvious as the nose on your face.
And the spiritual man that passes through this soul, the land of this soul, when he seeth a man's spirit, then shall he set up a sign by it.
And when we looked up those words, we found out the Hebrew word translated to set up a sign by it means to stab it to their side. And we said that this is speaking about crucifixion. Paul said, I am crucified to the world, yet I live; but not I, Christ liveth in me.
So we see two different usages of the word crucifixion in the Scripture. It is the same Greek word that is used to indicate the crucifixion of the body of the man, Jesus of Nazareth, who was Christ. Crucifixion killed that physical body. But if you look up the word crucifixion in Webster's Dictionary, the first definition of the word crucifixion is not negative; it is positive. It means to strengthen with stakes. It means to put a stake through something for the purpose of making it strong. If you look at the way they construct a lot of these barriers along the highways, you will see that inside of the cement barriers are metal stakes that they built the cement around, to strengthen the cement.
So we see a positive usage of the word crucifixion in the Scripture. Paul said, I am crucified to the world, yet I live; but not I, Christ in me. So the positive usage of that word in the Scripture indicates the Lord Jesus Christ, one of His titles, is the nail. Another one of His titles is the needle. Another one of His titles is the jagged Rock. The Lord Jesus Christ is a sharp, piercing instrument. He is a piercing Spirit. He has power to pierce through, and He is coming to us in the form of the Holy Spirit in this hour.
The resurrected life of the Lord Jesus Christ is appearing in the earth as the Holy Spirit, and He is piercing your heart. He is penetrating your heart, and He is digging. He is going deep. He is looking for your human spirit. And when He finds your human spirit, He is piercing right through your human spirit. And that piercing through is resulting in a union of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the glorified Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ and of your human spirit.
And when that piercing through is completed, Lord willing, an increase will result from it. Just as when a male sperm pierces through a female ovum, there is an increase. What is that? The beginnings of a new life. So when your heart is pierced by the Lord Jesus Christ, the name of that increase is Christ Jesus, Christ in you, the hope of glory. The Savior who will dwell in the midst of you, God in the midst of you, begins to arise and be formed in you.
So we see here that, when the spiritual man sees a man's bone, he is going to see to it that it is pierced through by the Lord Jesus Christ, so that that man's spirit will have an increase, so that that man's spirit will produce Christ Jesus, the Son of God.
Then shall he set up a sign on it. He shall see to it that it produces Christ Jesus until the buriers have buried it in the valley of Hamon-Gog.
Until the buriers have buried it. Well, why would you want to be burying it? What are you burying? I suggest to you that what is being buried, brethren, is the carnal mind because the spirit of man is the midst of the carnal mind. You may recall that the human spirit is joined to Satan and has given birth to the carnal mind. And when the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ pierces through a man's heart, He is going right for that human spirit who is joined to Satan and the carnal mind.
Then, when the increase comes and Christ Jesus arises, He is going to overshadow the carnal mind and bury the carnal mind under His wonderful, increased life. And the way the Scripture describes it is that Christ Jesus is going to bubble up. There is going to be an increase, a foaming increase. He is going to shadow over the carnal mind, and the carnal mind will be buried, we are told, in the valley of Hamon-Gog.
Now, this word Hamon-Gog, it is really two words, Hamon and Gog. And we talked about Gog at the beginning of Chapter 39, and at the beginning of Chapter 8: Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog. We have already established on at least two messages that Gog is the carnal mind. The word Hamon, it is Strong's #1995, and it means multitude. That is what it tells you in Strong's, and that is the carnal interpretation of the word.
But if you look up in our other concordance, Genesius, another possible translation of that word Hamon is emotion of the mind; and Gog means the carnal mind. I want to suggest to you that the Scripture is saying that which is being buried is the mind which is emotional. The carnal mind is being buried by the new life of Christ Jesus, which has bubbled up and is overshadowing it.
Now, brethren, if Christ is being formed in you, you are double-minded. You have two minds: the mind of Christ and the carnal mind. The carnal mind is emotional. The Christ mind is rational. Now, there is nothing wrong with having emotions, but for understanding spiritual things, for spiritual purposes, the emotions are considered female.
Now, a lot of people misunderstand the Scripture. They think that the Scriptures are sexist. A lot of people speak out against Paul. Paul was not a sexist, nor was he a woman hater. He was a great man of God, and he had a revelation that male-female are types of spiritual principles. Christ is male; everything other than Christ is female. Your carnal mind is female, and emotion is resident in your carnal mind. It has nothing to do with whether you are a physical woman or not. Every human being, physically male and physically female, in this hour, has a carnal mind.
There is another Scripture that says there is no male or female in Christ Jesus. What that means is that your physical sexuality has nothing to do with what you are spiritually. There is a spiritual male and female. And the carnal mind is female, and Christ is male. So if your mind is carnal, it does not matter what your body is; you are a spiritual female. And emotion is associated with the carnal mind and spiritual femininity.
Now, there is nothing wrong with being emotional, but your emotions must be under the authority of a man. And the only man is Christ Jesus. If you are emotional, and Christ Jesus is not ruling those emotions, if those emotions are ruling you, you are a man in trouble. And when I talk about human beings, when I say man, I mean men and women. I am talking about the man Adam. He is both male and female. There are men and women who are human beings. If your emotions are not under the rule of the spiritual man, Christ Jesus, you have problems in your life.
Your emotions are influencing you to do things that are to your destruction. Your emotions are influencing you to do things that are to your hurt. Your emotions are influencing you to do things that are hurting other people. Your emotions are influencing you to do things that are causing you to reap destruction, because you have sown destruction. Your emotions are causing you to do things that are causing you to reap hurt, because you have sown hurt. Emotions have their place in life, but they must be under the rule of a spiritual authority.
You cannot do anything you want to do. You cannot give full reign to your emotions. We have had some psychological studies here. The Lord has taught us about the id, which is the unconscious mind, which is unrestrained passion on every level. You cannot walk in someone's house and take their radio because you like it. You cannot do anything that you want.
So the way we exist and survive here in this world is that we have a conscience, which is called a superego, and we have a personality which mediates between our raging passions and lusts and the reality of consequences that will happen to us if we do whatever our id wants us to do. So we see that the human mind is in parts, just like the human body is in parts.
We look like we are one, but we have many organs within us. The mind is in parts also, and those parts have to integrate; they have to work together as one smooth, flowing whole, for us to have a well-adjusted life. What is that? It is a life with a large measure of peace, without being thrown in jail or being up and down and being tormented and tortured because of all kinds of emotional or physical problems.
So we see that the mind, which is emotional, is the carnal mind. And the mind, which has emotions, but emotions that are controlled and directed so that our emotions do us good and not hurt. It is OK to experience emotion in moderation under certain, carefully defined conditions. That is why children are under authorities. They would eat chocolate three times a day, and they would probably die from dehydration.
Children need direction. Adults need direction. The difference between children and adults is that children have their direction imposed upon them from an external source, from their caretaker, usually their parents but not always. Adults, by definition, are human beings who have controls imposed upon them which are internalized. Adults are not supposed to need caretakers. They are supposed to have internalized the teachings of their caretakers, so now they can restrain themselves from eating chocolate three times a day.
But sometimes, the upbringing of children is damaged, and the child does not internalize the knowledge or the self-control or the discipline necessary to be one's own caretaker. Because that is what an adult is, you are your own caretaker. And then we see adults in our society in trouble.
Adults in this society in trouble require external control for their emotions. It is acceptable for a child. It is not acceptable for an adult. You can be a child who needs external control, and nobody is telling you that you are anything that is out of the ordinary. But if you are an adult who cannot control himself to the point that he needs the external controls of hospitals or policemen, something has gone wrong in the development of your personality. But Jesus can fix it. He can fix it. He can fix anything and everything.
So we see that this man's bone is buried in the valley of Hamon-Gog. Hamon-Gog meaning the emotional mind, the carnal mind, and a valley is a low place. Some of you might know that the Scripture speaks about valleys and mountains. The valley is the low place of the soul, and the mountain is the high place of the spirit.
When the Spirit of God comes in and gives us full salvation (we have drawn it on the board. We have drawn valleys up and down), the Spirit of God will come in; He is going to fill up all the valleys, and He is going to even them off, just as if you had several empty cups of water, and the water comes in and fills them all up. And the water will be the same level with the mountains. That which was a valley is going to be filled up with the Spirit of God and become equal with the mountaintops.
Another word for salvation is evenness. Right now, we are uneven. We are up and down. Sometimes this up-and-down condition goes to an extreme. The psychiatrists call that condition manic-depressive. One minute, you are all the way up flying high, happy as could be, and the next minute, they could wipe up the floor with you; you are so depressed and sad. High and low, high and low, high and low.
Salvation is evenness, peace, serenity, consistency. You can have emotions, but they are not controlling you. You are controlling your emotions. That is the whole difference. When you are emotional in your carnal mind, your emotions are controlling you. That is like having a horse put a saddle on you and take off with you running. Emotions are OK, but they must be under the control of your rational mind. They cannot be controlling you. For them to do so is a complete disaster.
So we see that the spiritual man is going to be burying his carnal mind, which is in the low place. It is going to be buried in the low place underneath the mind of Christ. That is what this Scripture is talking about.
Ezekiel, Chapter 39, Verse 16: And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah; thus shall they cleanse the land.
Now the Hebrew word translated Hamonah is the same Hebrew word translated Hamon in the verse above, where it says Hamon-Gog. So why did the King James translators say Hamon in verse 15 and Hamonah in verse 16? I do not know. Maybe you could explain it to me.
Anybody reading this message that gets all upset when I change the translation, the King James translators do the same thing consistently. If you have a computer, and you want to trace it, you can find out all the times that they choose a different English translation for the same Hebrew word. It is throughout the King James translation. They do it themselves.
And also the name of the city shall be Hamonah. The carnal mind, that is what they are talking about. And thus shall they cleanse the land.
First of all, what city are they speaking about? I suggest to you that the city that the Scripture is speaking about is in verse 9.
So we see that this Chapter 39 of Ezekiel is speaking about the cities of Israel. And the name of the city shall be Hamonah. Names in the Scripture typify what? Anybody?
COMMENT: Spirit.
PASTOR VITALE: Spirit, spirit, spirit. So the spirit of Israel shall be in the carnal mind. The Scripture is saying the carnal mind is going to buried, and the spirit, which is in the carnal mind, is going to be buried.
PASTOR VITALE: And what is the name of the spirit, which is in the carnal mind? Anybody?
COMMENT: Satan.
PASTOR VITALE: Satan. Satan is the name of the spirit which is in the carnal mind. So we see that, in verses 15 and 16 of Ezekiel 39, the Lord is promising us that both the carnal mind and Satan, who are known corporately as the Devil (the Devil has a spirit named Satan and a mind that is carnal); the Devil is going to be buried under the authority of Christ Jesus. You see, all power in heaven and earth has been given unto the Lord Jesus Christ, and the way He is taking that power is by burying the existing god of this world.
It takes military strength to take over a nation. We just saw it happen in Haiti. The elected official, the publicly elected official, was not allowed to execute his office in Haiti. He was living in the United States. A military dictator was ruling the nation. So the United States went in with soldiers and aircraft carriers and all kinds of military force, and they are reinstating the elected official. Well, yes, the Lord Jesus Christ has received all power in heaven and earth. The Father said it is His. Now He has to come in with spiritual military power and unseat the sitting authority, whose name is the Devil.
And He is not about to pack up and leave any more than Cédras is packing up and leaving Haiti. Military dictators do not usually do that, although it does happen. Ferdinand Marcos ran from the Philippines. Sometimes they do it. But they only do it after you have absolutely convinced them that they are going to die if they continue to sit on their throne. Who is going to get up and leave a kingdom? So if you think the Devil is going to pack up and leave, and salute on his way out, you are silly. He is going to have to be bombed out of here.
And where is he dwelling? In your own mind. You think he is going to get up and move because you stood up on a prayer line and said, Jesus, You are my savior? You are silly, and you are childish. And if some preacher has told you that, you have believed a lie. Let us go on.
We are still in verse 16: Thus they shall cleanse the land.
The Hebrew word translated cleanse is a Hebrew word which means purify. And it is referring to severe pollution, such as in the case of a leper.
And we have spiritual leprosy today. What is spiritual leprosy called, anybody? It is called sin. It is killing us. It is causing our body to corrupt. In leprosy, you have fingers that fall off. Say, the nose falls off. Your body just completely deteriorates. It is my understanding that, when a body dies, it is just a matter of time, and the flesh disintegrates. Well, in the disease called leprosy, your flesh disintegrates when you are still alive.
And that is what is happening to us today, spiritually speaking. There is a spiritual man whose body is literally disintegrating on him as he exists. That is why he needs to continue to produce new bodies.
So the whole purpose of marking the man's bone, or marking his spirit, is to get Christ formed in him. So Christ Jesus can cover over your carnal mind, so that the land can be cleansed because, when Christ Jesus covers over your carnal mind, your carnal mind will cease from sin, and your mind shall become the kingdom of heaven, and you shall have attained to the first stage of the resurrection. Ezekiel 39 is speaking about the Lord's promise of deliverance from this fallen condition of death, which is in hell.
Verse 17: And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God, speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, 'Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink blood.'
Now, this is interesting verse. Before I go any further, I want to suggest to you that there are two sacrifices being spoken about here. This is another witness to what the Lord has been showing us, that there are two sacrifices.
There is a bloodless sacrifice and a bloody sacrifice. We need both of them to enter into heaven. Why? Because the bloodless sacrifice is heaven, the kingdom of God within us. Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you. The place that He went to prepare for us is the kingdom of God, which is within us. When Jesus said, I go prepare a place for you, He was in a human body.
After that statement, He was crucified; He was raised from the dead; He ascended. He was converted into pure Spirit, and He is now pouring out of His Spirit upon all of our flesh. And when a drop of His Spirit gets inside of us, He no longer is flesh and blood, but He is flesh and bone. He no longer has, in His glorified condition, the red blood that was flowing through His veins as Jesus of Nazareth. He has been converted to a higher life form. He is now flesh and bone.
What does that mean? It means He is Spirit and soul, but He is no longer a red-blooded man. He is a Spirit. He appeared to Paul as a ball of light. And when that Spirit gets inside of you, He is dwelling inside of your flesh. But He is flesh and bone. He is inside of you. He is inside of your flesh and blood. But the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is Spirit in this hour. He is Spirit dwelling inside of you. And if He has increased in you, He has become Christ Jesus.
And when Jesus of Nazareth, in His glorified condition, gets inside of you, He is the kingdom of God. Well, actually, the kingdom of God is Christ. I am sorry. The Lord Jesus has to join with your human spirit. And when Christ Jesus begins to be formed in you, that is the formation of the kingdom of God. That is the mustard seed that is going to grow up to be a great tree, which is the Tree of Life.
So the place that He went to prepare for us, is the Kingdom of God, which He prepared through His crucifixion, His resurrection, His ascension and His outpouring upon mankind in the form of the Holy Spirit and then when He entered into your heart. He is now preparing that place for you by His glorified Spirit, and He is the bloodless sacrifice.
And it was His soul life that was sacrificed. He gave up His life as the man, Jesus of Nazareth. He could have lived forever, but He gave up that personality to go on to a higher life form, so that He could share his victory with us. And He is now the bloodless sacrifice. That sacrifice has been transformed into a bloodless condition that is dwelling inside of us.
So we have a whole message on this now. The Scripture says, You cannot enter into the new covenant without blood. You cannot enter into the holy place without blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.
Well, Jesus died for me, and He bled for me, and my sins are remitted. Well, brethren, how come you are still dying? You must be missing a piece of information somewhere. You see, Jesus has done all He is going to do, and He is in your heart, and He has prepared a place for you, and the kingdom of God is waiting for you.
And He is standing at the door of your carnal heart, knocking. And He is saying to your human spirit, Come on out. Come on out and enter into my life. Pierce the veil of my flesh and enter in. But there is no way you can pierce the veil of His flesh and enter in without the shedding of the blood of your own carnal mind.
Why? Because your carnal mind does not want you to enter into the kingdom of God, brethren. He is going to try to kill you if you try to do it. He is not rejoicing with you that the kingdom of God is within you. He is not happy for you. He is threatening you with your very life if you leave him for Christ Jesus. And the only way you are getting away from the Devil is to kill him. You must shed his blood.
And remember, the Devil has a mind; it is called the carnal mind. And there is a spirit in that mind, whose name is Satan. The Devil is the name for your old man. Your new man has a name. What is the name of your new man? Christ Jesus. The name of your old man is the Devil, and you are married to him.
Paul clearly tells us you are married to him. Paul says, But from the moment that Christ Jesus begins to be formed in you, consider yourself divorced from this Devil that you are married to, and start submitting and yielding to Christ Jesus, your new husband. But that is by faith. You are still married to the Devil. He is not going to let you go. You have got to kill him. You see, you are married to him.
Do you remember what I told you at the beginning of this message? When the Lord Jesus Christ joins to your spirit, you inherit everything that He is, everything that He has and everything that He possesses. And that is all righteousness and goodness and eternal life. But right now, you are married to the Devil. And you are partaking of everything that he is: death and sin and torment and destruction.
Sin. You are married to sin. You are joined to sin. You are one flesh with sin. This is a great mystery, the Scripture says, A man and his wife, they are one flesh. You are married to the Devil. He is sin. You are sin. There is no remission of that sin without the shedding of your husband's blood. He is not letting you go, brethren, even if you say pretty please. You have to crush him. He dies by lack of use. If you do not use it, you lose it. Stop using your carnal mind and start living out of Christ.
But it not so easy to stop using him. He wants you to use him. He wants you to live through him. He wants you to join with him in a union of your mind. He wants you to join with him in his thoughts of death and destruction and corruption. He wants you to agree because, when you agree in mind with his wickedness, you will do what he is thinking through you.
And every time you agree with him in mind, you die because, every time you sin, the judgment of sin is pronounced upon you. The Scripture says that we have been subjected to death because of the fear of death, brethren, not a human fear. That word fear means submission.
The reason we are trapped down here in the realm of death, and we cannot move into eternal life, is because we are in submission to death. We are married to him. We are one flesh with him. We are fornicating with him every second of every minute of every hour of our life. And every time we fornicate with him, he grabs us harder; he grabs us stronger. His tentacles go into us.
You must say no to him, and every time you say no to him, his tentacles lose power over you. His claws lose power over you. Every time you say no to him, and you cleave unto the Lord Jesus Christ, you weaken him. You must whip him by waging a warfare of the mind, and the weapon that you have against him is Christ Jesus.
So back to Ezekiel. So this is how the land shall be cleansed, by the burying of the carnal mind under your new man and husband, Christ Jesus.
Verse 17: And, thou Son of man, thus saith the Lord God, speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field.
That word every, in the Hebrew, it can also be translated whole. Feathered fowl; anything to do with birds in the Scripture is speaking about the spiritual man. The Scripture is saying, Speak to the whole, many-membered spiritual man. So we see that this message is not just for Israel; it is for all of humanity.
Speak to the whole, many-membered man and to every beast of the field. The beast of the field, if you check it out in the Hebrew, it is speaking about the soul, and it also means the whole soul.
Speak to the whole, many-membered soul, and speak to the whole, many-membered spiritual man. Now, the spiritual man is the husband, and the soul is the wife. The spiritual man is in the form of the mind, which is within the soul. The soul reflects, or is a reflection of, or is an expression of, whatever mind is possessing her.
PASTOR VITALE: When the mind that is possessing the soul is carnal, as it is today, the soul is dead. Why? Because of...
COMMENT: Sin.
COMMENT: Sin.
PASTOR VITALE: But I have the Lord Jesus Christ, you say. Yes, you do, brethren, but He is not possessing you. He is the guy on the side. You do not like that way it sounds? Tough. It is true. You have to divorce your true husband and marry the guy on the side, and then He will be possessing you. The only thing is it is legal for Jesus to be the guy on the side because He is saving your life, because He is righteous, because you are married to some corrupt monster. So He is breaking the rules, and it is OK for Him to do it.
So we see the mind that is possessing this soul which God made, in this hour, is the carnal mind; and therefore, the soul is dead, and the body is dead, dead and dying. These bodies start to die the minute the baby is born. Why? Because the soul is dead. Why is the soul dead? Because the mind is dead. Why is the mind dead? Because the spirit and the mind are separated from God.
The Scripture is saying, in Ezekiel 39:17, Speak unto the whole spiritual man, which is dead, and speak to the whole soul, which is also dead because the mind is dead. And this is what I want you to say to them: Assemble yourselves, and come. Assemble yourselves, and come.
The word assemble is a Hebrew word which means to gather, and we have done several studies on that word. I believe, in this particular case, it is used to speak about incarnation. It is speaking about the incarnation of Christ. It is speaking about the gathering together of the elements necessary for Christ to be formed in you.
And what are the elements necessary for Christ to be formed in you? You need a human spirit. You need the Holy Spirit. You need first to be born of water. What does that mean? In order for Christ to be formed in you, you must have a human body, brethren. You must have a human body. Christ is not being formed in skeletons underneath the ground. You must be born again. You must be born of water, and you must be born of...
COMMENT: Spirit.
PASTOR VITALE: Spiritual blood. The King James says born of blood. You have to start out with a human body. You need a human spirit. You need a Holy Spirit. Gather yourselves together. Let Christ be gathered together, and let Christ be formed in you. That is what the Scripture is saying.
Gather together, and come. The Hebrew word translated come means to enter in. Now, this is confusing. It happens a lot in the Old Testament. The word assemble means gather, and then in the King James, you have the word gather, which does not mean gather. We are going to choose another translation from the Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon, which means to take away, to vanish or to perish.
The Hebrew word that is translated assemble does not have an alternative translation of to take away or perish. So we are using that, the only translation, to gather. The Hebrew word translated to gather has an alternative translation: to take away or to perish. And I am suggesting to you what the Scripture is saying: Let the mind of Christ be gathered together. Let it be formed, and let the carnal mind perish.
Brethren, you can only be double-minded for a season. It is a perversion to have two minds. James clearly says, These things should not be. What most Christians do not understand is that it is necessary to be double-minded for a season because we cannot live without a mind. So the Lord brings forth the mind of Christ in us before He causes our carnal mind to perish. For a season, therefore, we must be double-minded. It is a temporary pervasion.
And that is what verse 17 is speaking about. Although it is not clear in the King James translation, it is clear if you could at it in the Interlinear and look up these words. He is saying, Speak to the whole spiritual man. Speak to the whole soul. And this is the message: Let Christ be formed in you, and enter in. Enter into what? Enter into Christ, and let the carnal mind perish.
This phrase, on every side, it is Strong's #5439. It is speaking about that which is round about anything. And I am suggesting to you that that phrase makes it very clear that it is the carnal mind that should perish.
Why? Because the carnal mind is round about what? What is the carnal mind round about? Christ. Christ is being formed in the midst of the carnal mind. Let Christ be conceived in the midst of your carnal mind and let Christ start killing your carnal mind from that position underneath, and let the carnal mind perish. Let that which is round about Christ perish.
God does not want your carnal mind perishing if Christ is not formed in you. You are going to die. He does not want you dead. He does not want you dead. You are not going to heaven when you die. He wants you to live. He wants Christ to be formed in you. All you suicide spirits, I rebuke you. All you lying devils that say I might as well just lie down and die and go to heaven, I curse you all at your roots.
That is not God. He wants you to live, so that Christ can be formed in you, so that you can become the head and not the tail, so that you can walk in overcoming victory here on the earth. He wants you to make an open show of powers and principalities. He wants those powers and principalities to try to kill you, and to fail. Because Christ has been raised from the dead in you, Jesus made an open show of them. They could not keep Him in the grave, brethren. God does not want you dead. He wants you overcoming the god of this world. The god of this world wants you dead.
Jesus did not ascend to another plane until He was purified from sin. If your body dies and leaves this plane before your soul and your spirit are purified from sin, you are not passing on. You are going the way of all flesh. Your body disintegrates; your soul disintegrates; your spirit goes back to the Father.
Where in the Bible do you see this, that when your body dies, it goes on to heaven? Where do you see this? Jesus was sinless when His body died; and therefore, the Father raised Him from the dead, and He ascended into another plane called heaven, in a glorified, sinless condition.
Do not die, brethren. Fight for your life. Someone here is grappling with suicide today. I rebuke you. There is no victory in suicide. There is victory in life. Glory to God.
We are in verse 17: Assemble yourselves. Incarnate Christ. Enter into him, and let the carnal mind surrounding him perish.
And then the King James translation says something about sacrifice, Come to my sacrifice, that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel. The Scripture is saying, Come into my sacrifice. The Lord Jesus Christ, He says, Enter in.
Look, brethren. Look at it with me. It is really clear if you could see it. Assemble yourselves. Gather Christ, and come enter into... enter into what? Enter into my sacrifice, that I do sacrifice for you. And I just spent 15 minutes explaining to you that the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ is the kingdom of God, which is within you.
The Scripture is saying, Let Christ be formed in you, and let your human spirit, which is presently joined to the carnal mind, enter into that kingdom. And then gather yourself, that which is around you, and let that which is around you, the carnal mind, perish on the mountains of Israel. The mountains of Israel are speaking about the high place of Israel, which is the human spirit.
Let this sacrifice, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, join with your human spirit. Let Christ be formed. Let the carnal mind perish. Enter into my life, saith the Lord, that ye may eat flesh and drink blood.
That ye may eat flesh and drink blood (that you may eat that which is surrounding Christ until it is consumed and has perished). Christ is consuming everything to do with your carnal mind.
This is expressed in the Scripture in this way: That the Devil and the beast and Satan (I may not have it exactly right) and the false prophet were cast into the Lake of Fire, and they were consumed.
Now, listen, brethren, you have got a carnal mind. Fire consumes. That is in your English dictionary. Fire consumes. So you always thought some vultures were going to go around eating human flesh. You are carnal. You are carnal. You are carnal. You are carnal. The Lake of Fire, which is Christ Jesus within you, is consuming the spiritual existence known as the Devil.
Your physical body does not have to die. Your physical body is not being thrown into a Lake of Fire; but your personality, the old man, the Devil, is being cast into the Lake of Fire, which is your new man. We are talking about a joining of the old man with the new man. And the new man is not being corrupted. And the new man is not being killed, but the old man is passing away, for the fire shall consume him. The Scripture says that our humanity is typified by wood. And when you put wood and fire together, does the fire die? No, the wood is consumed.
So we see that humanity is being called to a resurrection of the dead, which begins with the formation within each individual man of a new man, a new life. We must become pregnant with the life of God, for we shall be saved in childbearing. When the manchild of Revelation 12 is formed in us (as we read in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 12), the Dragon is right there waiting to consume the Christ in you the moment He is born. You are not entering into this salvation without killing the Dragon. But you have everything that you need to kill him in Christ Jesus. It is doable, brethren. It is doable.
Verse 18: Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan.
Now, those of you who have been studying with me for a while know that, when we get a verse like this, every word means something. Every word in the Scripture counts. And I did pray about this, and this is what these different words mean.
Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty. The mighty is speaking about the Dragon. Now, remember, the Devil is our fallen personality. The Dragon is the Serpent who was in the garden from the beginning, who is now appearing behind the scenes in this soul realm. His name was the Serpent, before this creation was incarnated as we see it now, and when the creation was incarnated into this soulish realm, his name changed to the Dragon.
We see that principle throughout the Scripture; it is very common. When someone's nature changes, or when a situation changes, the Lord changes their name so that we can understand that the Serpent was the one that appeared in the garden at the beginning of time, but when he incarnated into this fallen world system, his name changed to the Dragon.
And so we see the Dragon making his appearance in Revelation 12, where he is called that Old Serpent, or that Serpent from ancient times that is appearing here in modern times. That is the Dragon. He is the power source behind the Devil, which is the personality of modern man. And he is a spirit. He is a spirit.
We are still in verse 18: Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth.
I suggest to you that the princes of the earth is speaking about fallen humanity. We are the many-membered Devil, the many-membered, fallen man called the Devil. So we see that the dragon is the current incarnation of the Serpent, and the Devil is fallen man. And the Dragon is within man.
Please note they are the princes of the earth. So that means they are the individual members of the earth man, of the many-membered earth man.
And ye shall drink the blood and eat the flesh of rams, of lambs, of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan.
Rams are male sheep. A ram is a clean animal, and a lamb is young male sheep. And I suggest to you that those two words are speaking about the believers in whom Christ is being formed. The lambs are those who have an immature imparted anointing, the ones in whom Christ Jesus is beginning to be formed. And the rams are those who have a mature imparted anointing, those in whom Christ Jesus is maturing.
So this may sound strange to you. Here we are talking about who is going to be consumed. You are saying, Are those ones with Christ Jesus in them going to be consumed? Yes. The men with Christ Jesus in them still have carnal minds. The carnal minds of all these different categories of people must be consumed, even the Christians for whom Christ is being formed. You still have a carnal mind. So this procedure is for you too.
The Christians with Christ Jesus just beginning to be mature and the Christians in whom Christ Jesus is mature. Then we talk about goats. Goats in the Scripture typify men without Christ. We see this contest in Daniel 8 between the ram and the goat. So the goats typify men without Christ. And then we have two more words: bullocks, which means young bulls, and fatlings, which mean well-fed calves.
Fatlings of Bashan. Now, Bashan is a geographical area which belongs to the tribe of Manasseh. Remember, Manasseh and Ephraim were the two son of Joseph and an Egyptian woman. They were half-breeds, brethren. Manasseh lost his inheritance to Ephraim. Why? Because God chose Ephraim. He chose the younger over the older by the right of... does anybody know? The right of what?
COMMENT: The heir.
PASTOR VITALE: No, the heir was Manasseh.
COMMENT: The right of election.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, by the right of election. The Father can do anything that He wants. The Father can pick anyone that He wants. He can pick anyone from any tribe that He wants. He can break any rule that He wants. He can do something that seems unfair to you. He can do anything that He wants. Who can question the mind of God? Who can give counsel to God?
You do not like what He does? That is too bad. You do not like the way He does it? You do not like who He chooses for a particular office? You do not like His plan? You do not like the way He has decided to deliver you? That is too bad. Do not push against the pricks, brethren. You cannot win if you are fighting against God. You cannot win.
So we see that Manasseh lost his inheritance to Ephraim not because Manasseh sinned but because of God's right of election.
We see that bullocks, young bulls, typify Ephraim, or the first stage of the imputed anointing. What is that? It is Christians that have the Holy Ghost, and what they have is faith. And then we see that fatlings typify Manasseh, the second stage, or the second group of people with the Holy Ghost, the Christians who are engaging in healing and deliverance ministry, one more mature than the other.
So we see that the carnal minds of all of humanity are being offered up: those men who are in Christ, those men who do not have anything of God at all and those men who have faith in Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost.
Well, I thought, if I just had the Holy Ghost, I was saved and I was going to heaven and the second death was not going to hurt me, and you must be mistaken, Pastor Sheila. No, I am not mistaken.
Jeremiah 9:25 says: Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will punish all of them which are circumcised along with the uncircumcised.
And the next verse is, which I did not print out here: Because the circumcised (or the Jew, or, for our purposes, the Christian today are not circumcised in their heart). Oh, but I am Christian; I thought I was circumcised in my heart. Brethren, the term, to be circumcised in your heart, means that you are sinless. The circumcision of your heart is the cutting away of your carnal mind, leaving only the sinless man, Christ Jesus, living through you.
Now, brethren, if you are a Christian, if you have the Holy Ghost, if you speak in tongues, you must ask yourself, Are you without sin? I know there are some people in the Church that believe they are without sin, but I am sorry to tell you this is not true. You may be without sin by faith because God has promised to purge you of your sins. And every sin that you confess is working for your good, towards your change, towards righteousness. But if you were truly without sin as a condition of your reality, you would not get sick, nor would you be aging, nor would you die.
So you are misunderstanding the Scripture, brethren. You are not circumcised in your heart. Your carnal mind cannot be cut away until the man Christ Jesus is fully mature in you, mature enough to sustain the existence of your flesh. What does that mean? It means, if I punctured your veins, if I cut your wrists, brethren, and all of your blood flowed out of your body, the man Christ Jesus in you is mature enough to sustain your flesh without blood.
Are you going to try it? Who here is going to try it? You will die. If you slit your wrists and let all the blood flow out of your body, you will die.
When Jesus of Nazareth was crucified (I do not know; maybe it happened that way), if every drop of blood drained out of His body, the Christ in that man had the ability to sustain the life of His flesh. That is why He said, No man can take my life. You see?
How do you kill somebody? Brethren, how do you kill a fallen man? You either pierce an organ that is necessary for survival; either you stop the heart from beating (and what does the heart do? It pumps blood). Or you pierce the lungs, so that the body cannot get air. That is how you kill a man that is sustained by the blood.
The Scripture says, The life of the flesh is in the blood. So if you play with the organs, which are circulating the blood or taking air into the body, the man ceases to exist. But in the resurrected Christ, in the man who was truly possessed and controlled by Christ Jesus, this flesh is not sustained by the blood flowing through the veins. Neither is it sustained by the lungs or any other physical organ.
But we are told, in Revelation 22, There shall be no night there, speaking about the New Jerusalem, which is man. It is the man that has been renewed in Christ Jesus. There shall be no night there, for the Son of God, He shall be the light of the city. It is Christ in us that shall sustain the life of this flesh.
Therefore, you too will be able to say, No man can take my life, because the methods of man to cause you to cease to exist will not work. If they stab you and your blood drains out, Christ will sustain your life. If they stab you in your lungs and you stop breathing, Christ will sustain your life.
Jesus' brethren said to Him, You have got to eat something; you are going to die. He said, I have meat that you know not of. The life of Christ was sustaining the life of His physical flesh. He was not dependent on bread, on water, on blood or on the air from this planet's atmosphere. He was completely sustained from within.
Brethren, this condition that man is in, whereby we are dependent upon external sources, can you relate this to my earlier exhortation about childhood and adulthood? The child is dependent on external authority to help him control his emotions and to feed him and care for him and sustain his existence.
But when he is an adult, Lord willing, if everything has gone well, that child has internalized the mental processes of the caretaker. He now knows how to take care of himself. He knows how to bathe himself. He knows how to feed himself. He knows how to take care of himself so that he does not get sick. He knows how to go to work, how to hold a job, how to socially interact with people. He knows how to survive. He has internalized everything that the caretaker enforced from the outside upon him.
The same thing is true spiritually. We are spiritual children, and we are under tutors and governors, spiritually speaking, which go beyond human beings. We are under the control of the atmosphere. We are under the control of external food sources. We are under the control of external clothing. We are under the control of external nurturing. Even when we are adults, we need fellowship; we need friendships; we need love; we need family life. It is all outside of us.
But, brethren, when you become a spiritual man, everything that is outside of you and sustaining you shall be internalized in the form of the man Christ Jesus, and you will be completely independent of any external need which exists in this world system. If the atmosphere collapses, you will still live. If an atom bomb falls, you will still live. If the food supply dries up, you will still live. Can you hear it? It is glorious.
This is a vile condition of spiritual immaturity, to be dependent on external substances. Even the worldly authorities will tell you. Brethren, if you want to be a healthy adult, if you want to live a rewarding life, develop your mind. Do not put your whole life in your wife or in your husband or in your children. Because the day could come; well, the day will come, hopefully, that your children will marry and depart from you under godly conditions. You may lose your husband. You may lose your wife.
I am not saying that you should not have other human beings in your life, what I am saying is you should develop your mind, develop your talents, have other things in this life so that, if, God forbid, you lose your mate, you are not devastated. Worldly authorities tell you that.
It is a vile condition of weakness to be empty inside and to have all of your needs met by that which is outside of you. You can lose what is outside of you, but your talents you cannot lose. Your gifts you cannot lose. Your accomplishments you cannot lose. Love of yourself you should not lose. You should not be dependent on someone outside of you to love you. If you love yourself, you will have many people loving you. But you must love yourself, or your relationships will be abusive.
If you are empty inside, if you are negative inside, you will attract negativity. The world knows this. The psychiatrists know this. People who are desperate for love either cannot find a relationship or attract the most destructive relationships going. Love yourself; be happy with yourself; develop your skills and your talents, and the people outside of you that you attract will be positive people who will have positive relationships with you.
Well, the same thing is true spiritually. As Christ is developed in you, you will become independent, and your relationships will transfer from soul ties to spirit ties. You will mature spiritually, and eventually you will begin to ascend into the kingdom of God. And when you are completed in Him, because He is our completion, we will not need anything.
That does not mean there will not be any people in your life. The healthiest marriages are between independent people that come together out of a mutual desire to be together, not because they cannot exist alone. The healthiest marriages are between two people who can exist alone, but who choose to be together, who mutually choose to be together.
Verse 19: And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.
Now, please note, in verse 18: Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth. Speaking about the natural man, this is speaking about the consumption of the carnal mind, the bloody sacrifice.
Verse 19: And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.
Two sacrifices. My sacrifice, as the Scripture says, is the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, the bloodless sacrifice. As happens many times in the Scriptures, I have told you many times, I am not sure why, but the sequence is reversed. The Scripture speaks first about the sacrifice of your carnal mind; and second, the partaking of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the Holy Spirit coming into you and having the beginnings of the kingdom of God formed in you.
But we see that it appears backwards in the King James. The first thing that must happen to you is that you must partake of my sacrifice, speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ. You must partake of the bloodless sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because He is a spirit right now, a glorified spirit, and there is no human blood involved in Him. There is still spiritual blood, but it says bloodless to distinguish Him from the bloody sacrifice of the carnal mind.
First, you partake of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. The kingdom of God begins to be formed in you. And then Christ Jesus in you partakes of the bloody sacrifice when He begins to consume the carnal mind. And I remind you that the type of the priesthood, the type of the true priesthood, which is the priesthood after the Order of...
COMMENT: Melchizedek.
PASTOR VITALE: Melchizedek. That is true priesthood. The type of that priesthood, which is a Levitical priesthood, offers up sacrifices on behalf of the people, and the priests eat the meat. The man brings his goat or brings his bullock to the priest. The priest offers it up on behalf of the man, and then the priest gets to eat the food.
Well, Christ Jesus offers up the sacrifice of the carnal mind, and then He eats it. Only Christ Jesus is the Lake of Fire, and the eating of the sacrifice is the consumption, or the burning, of the carnal mind in the fire. The fire laps it up. It consumes the sacrifice.
Verse 20: Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men and with all men of war, saith the Lord.
Oh, I did have a Scripture reference for you. Let me back up.
John 6:53 says: Then Jesus said unto them, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
So we see Jesus speaking about eating flesh and drinking blood, and He clearly did not mean the flesh and blood of the man Jesus of Nazareth. He was speaking about His spiritual blood. And He did use that term, flesh and blood, when speaking to human beings because He was still in the flesh. And in this instance, He meant His spiritual blood. He is still the bloodless sacrifice.
It is not a contradiction. As we have studied many times, the Lord will express Himself one way, under one set of circumstances, and another way, under another set of circumstances, to make specific point. For example, the Lord speaks about the judgment, which is falling upon mankind in the terms of the wine press in Revelation 14, and then He speaks about the judgment in the terms of the Lake of Fire in Revelation, I think it is Chapter 21.
And we do have a message where we make an excellent case that both of these judgments are the same judgment, just being viewed from a different viewpoint. The wine press is speaking about the judgment, which is going to produce the life of God in men. It is painful, and it is crushing, but the end of it is that the Spirit of Christ will be revealed in you. And the Lake of Fire is the other side of the judgment of God, which is consuming all of the sin in your life.
But it is the same judgment. It is doing two things. When judgment falls on you, it is consuming the sin in your life, and it is producing the Spirit of Christ in you. It is doing two things. So the judgment has one name to indicate what is happening to your carnal mind, or one name to indicate the negative, the destructive force of the judgment. And the judgment takes another name to indicate the positive force of the judgment.
So we see Jesus saying, Eat my flesh and drink my blood. Even though He is not speaking about His human blood, He is making a point to the Jews that they have to partake of His spiritual life. But at the same time, once Jesus is glorified, He is the bloodless sacrifice, to indicate that there are two different sacrifices. That is how the Scripture does it. He is the bloodless sacrifice, as compared to the bloody sacrifice of the carnal mind. You thought it was easy trying to understand these Scriptures, huh? It is not.
And we have the phrase to eat until you are full. I guess I am still back in verse 19 here. And you shall eat until you are full. That expression, to eat until you are full, is speaking about salvation.
Colossians 2:10 says: And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.
Completeness, fullness; it is speaking about salvation. All of us are incomplete. We are without our righteousness. That is how come we are sinners. We are lacking righteousness. And when Jesus joins Himself to us and completes us, we shall be saved. The end of our faith is the salvation of our soul.
Verse 20: Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men and with all men of war, saith the Lord.
Ye shall be filled at my table. When I looked at this in the Hebrew, I saw that it is really not accurate to say at my table but on my table. And this Hebrew word translated table is Strong's #7979, and it can be translated altar. And so everyone who was built upon my altar shall be saved. Built upon my altar.
We had some teachings on altars, spiritual altars, and the spiritual altar is that union upon which the god of the individual person is formed. The union of the Lord Jesus Christ with the human spirit forms an altar, and Christ Jesus grows out of that union. And Christ Jesus is the perpetual sacrifice, which sits on the altar, which is formed of the Lord Jesus Christ and your human spirit.
He is the bush that burns but is not consumed. In this hour, the altar, or the foundation that man is built upon, is the altar of the Serpent. The Serpent is joined with our human spirit, and that which has grown out of that union is the Devil. And the Devil, whose mind is the carnal mind and whose spirit is Satan, is resting upon that serpentine altar. And that sacrifice is consumed, because the soul that sins dies. These bodies die, and the soul continues to die.
So the hidden message in this Scripture, verse 20, which says, Thus ye shall be filled, or you shall be completed, or you shall be saved, at my table, or at my altar; you shall be saved.
All of the horses. That word with is not in the Hebrew. All of the horses, the chariots, the mighty men and the men of war, shall all be saved when the altar of my life is formed in you.
If you look in the Hebrew, that is what the Scripture is saying. You shall all be saved from this realm of hell and death when the altar of Christ is formed in you and the serpentine altar is knocked down. And you may know that, in the Old Testament, every time the Lord Jesus Christ brings judgment upon idolatry, He tears down the altars. If you have read in the Old Testament, He is always tearing down the altars, destroying the idols and tearing down the altars.
And we have had in other messages that the true idol; we are told, I think it is in one of the prophets, that the true idols are in your heart. The true idol is your carnal mind, which is formed in the image of the Serpent. So when the power of God comes into a man's life, He is knocking down the serpentine altar. He is tearing down the idols of the Serpent's image, and He is connecting Jesus Christ to you and raising up the altar of Christ and bringing forth Christ Jesus on that altar, the sacrifice that is never consumed. We are speaking here about eternal life.
So verse 20 is saying, When the altar of Christ is raised up, horses, chariots, and mighty men and men of war are going to be saved. The horses typify the human bodies, the chariots (we have had all this in other messages. We found these symbols).
Chariots typify the souls that dwell in the body. And a chariot, in the Old Testament, it is speaking about a saddle. It is speaking about that which the horse is drawing. It can mean either an old-fashion chariot, like you have seen in the old Roman movies, or it can be talking about a saddle. But the chariot is that which is between the horse and the rider.
The rider is the spiritual man who sits in the saddle or the chariot, which is the soul, and the soul sits in the body. That is what we are speaking about spiritually here. And the word mighty men, although it is plural in the King James, if you look in the Hebrew, it is singular. It says mighty man. It is Strong's #1368, and it means tyrant. I suggest to you the tyrant is the Devil, the god of this world. And the phrase men of war, I suggest to you, are all the individuals of this many-membered Devil. It is speaking about the individual devils of this world.
That is all of us. We are all devils. Look, if your daddy is the Devil, you are a Devil. If your daddy is a horse, you are a horse. If your daddy is a cow, you are a cow. If your daddy is the Devil, you are a Devil. So all you devils out there, spirit, soul and body, you are all going to be saved when the altar of Christ is formed in you.
And when the altar of Christ is formed in you, Christ Jesus will be formed upon it, and He will knock down the altar of the Serpent, and He will consume that sacrifice of your carnal mind. And that is where your salvation is, for there is no remission of sin without the shedding of the blood of your carnal mind.
And the Scripture that says, You shall be baptized for the remission of sins. Brethren, the water baptism is only the first step of a many-faceted baptism, which results in the remission of sin. There is one spirit, many administrations of that spirit. There is one baptism, the Scripture says. Well, how come the Scripture talks about water baptism, the baptism with the Holy Spirit, the baptism of suffering? Well, is that not a contradiction? There is only one baptism. No, it is not a contradiction, brethren. It is one baptism with many phases of it.
Water baptism is the first step of a many-membered baptism. The last step of this many-membered baptism is the baptism with fire. Are we not supposed to baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire? How could you draw the conclusion that the only baptism, out of all the baptisms in the Scripture, is the baptism with water, the most harmless of them all?
Brethren, you must have a carnal mind if you could think that. It does not make any sense at all. Why do you not say the only baptism is the baptism of fire? Why the most harmless out of all of them do you choose to be the only baptism?
And for all of you Pharisees that are manifesting right now, I believe in water baptism. I believe it is the first step. You should take it. The last step is the baptism with fire. And when you are baptized with the fire, which is the Lake of Fire, when the whole Devil personality in you is cast into the Lake of Fire, your sins shall be remitted. They will be dead. Hallelujah.
Transcribed by VerbalFusion, 9/12/21
1st Edit, rh, 9/17/21