Articles
The Following Message Has Been Transcribed For
Clarity, Continuity Of Thought, And Punctuation By
The LEM Transcribing & Editing Team.
Praise the Lord. I would like to talk to you about a movie that I saw the other day. It is an old movie, and this must be the third or fourth time that I have watched it, it is called Lost Horizon, and maybe have you seen it? It is a classic, and every time that I have watched it, I have really been impressed by the movie, I thought it was a very spiritual movie, and I guess I should give you a background of the movie, for the people who are not familiar with it. Did you ever see it? You did not see it, OK.
It is a story about a group of people who are on an airplane which is escaping from China. They are all European people. They have been in China. One man is a very well-known person in politics, and it must have been during the days that Britain had a presence in China, and they was an uprising among the Chinese, and Europeans were in danger.
So this group of Europeans are escaping from this area of China where they could murdered by the rebelling Chinese peoples, and they think that the plane is flying to Shanghai where it is supposed to be safe, but you see that somebody knocks out the pilot of the plane, and takes over. Of course, we have all of the characters that are in the plane. We have the famous politician who is very strong, his weak brother, a beautiful young woman who is dying from an incurable disease, a criminal who is wanted by the police in Europe for embezzlement, and possibly that is all the characters, there may be another character or so. And eventually, they realize that the plane is flying in the wrong direction.
They knock on the cabin of the pilot and he does not answer them. They look through the window, and they see that it is not their pilot. It is not a European man, it is a Chinese man, and they are going in the wrong direction. And, of course, there is interaction between all the characters on the plane. Eventually the plane crashes in the Himalayan mountains, in the wilderness of Tibet. It is just snow-covered wilderness. Everybody thinks that surely they are goners, they will never survive. When suddenly, men appear, all dressed in (it is very cold, there is ice everywhere, it is snowing out, and they are all covered up in skins that are keeping them warm). They are Tibetan people, and they bring clothing with them, and they guide the occupants of the plane to a hidden city called Shangri-La. And in the midst of this frigid atmosphere, there is a city where there are trees and flowers, and people. It is a valley; the city is built in the valley. People walk around with shorts on and no shirts. I do not know if that is physically possible or not, but this is the story.
So, the occupants of the plane are brought to Shangri-La and they are brought to a building that is really a palace. They are given food, they are given rooms, all of their needs are met, but it is obvious that they have been kidnapped, and that they are now captives. Although when they are within the city, they have the free run of the city, but there is no way out. They begin to question their host, I think his name is Chang, and Chang is a very philosophical man. I did not hear anything mentioned about Buddhism or any formal religion, but the philosophy of Chang is Buddhist. It is a very non-resistant attitude. Eastern religion teaches non-resistance, and I am not saying that that is a bad thing, except that it can be carried to a fault.
For example, the hero of the movie is this politician. I do not know if he is a politician, but he is a big political figure, and he is questioning Chang, and Chang who is telling him that there is no conflict in Shangri-La. And our hero asks Chang, Well, what happens if two men like the same woman? And Chang says, It would be considered good manners for the one man to back away and let the other man have the woman. And our hero who is amazed at the response says, What if he refuses to back away? Then Chang says, Then the other man would consider it good manners to back away. There should be no conflict, you see.
Now the other, the first few times that I have seen this movie, I never really thought of it as Buddhism or religion, I do not know how long ago I saw it the last time, but to me it was just a nice movie, where everything is supposed to be wonderful in Shangri-La. People do not age. Apparently, they do die, I do not really understand that. The general teaching is that you stay the age you are when you arrive in Shangri-La, the chronically ill woman began to heal, and there was a 200 year old woman who looked like a thirty year old woman, but when she left Shangri-La, she turned into someone who looked like they were 200 years old, and she died. Yet, the man who founded the place, they called him the Lama, not the Dalai Lama, but the Lama, who supposedly was a Catholic priest, who had founded the city. He was 200 years old, and he died. So, I do not understand that discrepancy, because my understanding of the book is that you do not die when you get to Shangri-La.
I guess I would have actually go read the book to dig that out, which I do not have time to do right now. But basically speaking, Shangri-La is the city that we might call Nirvana, except Nirvana is a state in Hinduism, which is beyond the body. The movie was very physical, the city was physical, the people were physical, the men of city were farmers and sheep shearers, and there were children there, and a schoolteacher, and horseback riding.
So, it was a very physical city, with physical people, engaged in physical pursuits. The majority of the people were engaged in physical pursuits, and they all were one of two people, they who are engaged in intellectual pursuits, music and art, and literature. So there is a seduction coming forth from the whole city, and from the leaders, not so much from the whole city, but from the leaders, from the palace, our hero, and the occupants of the plane, were residing in the palace.
Our hero's younger brother was emotionally unstable. He was desperate to leave, he was aware that he was, that they had been kidnapped and that he was being held against his will, and very discontent. Everyone else seemed to be willing to stay, and stay there forever, with an ideal place to stay. Our hero was called before the Lama, and he actually he was glad to go see the Lama, he was hoping to find a way out, a way back to civilization, through his interview with the Lama. But the Lama spoke to our hero and told him that he was going to inherit the headship and the leadership of Shangri-La, and he spoke a very spiritual speech to him. The Lama spoke a very spiritual speech to our hero, telling him about the wickedness in the hearts of men, and that the world would continue to spiral downward until men stop being selfish, and it just sounded like wonderful speech, and our hero was completely convinced of the goodness of Shangri-La and of his call to be the new leader.
I do not know if he would have called himself the Lama or not, I do not know. Now that I look at it, it does not make any sense at all. I guess I have really become enlightened since I watched the movie the last time, because I would have to ask myself why would the Lama, who was a 200 year old, supposedly very wise man, a Catholic priest (of course it would be a Catholic priest, right?) Why would he turn the headship of this perfect city over to a European man who had no spiritual background? The man was a writer, and a public figure. He was more than just a writer, he was a negotiator, he was a very talented man. Why would this Lama turn the headship of this spiritual city over to someone who was not at all spiritual?
Actually, the story is very racist also. We have a whole city of Tibetan people, and their leader is a European Catholic priest, and he turns the headship over to another European. Well, what about the Tibetans? So I see a lot of holes in the story this time, that I did not see last time. Just to continue with the overview of the story, our hero decides to stay and receive the commission, but his weak brother is determined to leave, and meets a young lady in the city who was as desperate to get out as he is. She claimed that she was kidnapped. It is not true that the leaders were so good, that they were really very cruel, and she was willing to bribe these so-called porters to take them back to civilization.
The Lama had told our hero that this particular woman, she was a Russian woman, that she was really 200 years old (she looked like she was thirty). So we find a confrontation between our hero, his weak brother, and this Russian woman, who completely denies the story that she is 200 years old. She is desperate to get out of there, and she is saying that the whole city is evil, the leaders are evil. To make the story short, her testimony changes the mind of our hero, and he decides to leave with them.
The woman turns out to be very weak. She cannot keep up with the arduous trip of walking through snow and the cold. They are walking for two or three days. Their trip is on foot, and she dies, and her face turns it looks like almost a mummy. You could see that she really was 200 years old, and when she left Shangri-La, I guess she was getting weaker and weaker because her age was catching up to her. And our hero realizes that he made a mistake and that he left this wonderful place, where also, by the way, there was a woman that he fell in love with. It was a perfect place.
He miraculously makes it back to civilization, because he was in a snow-covered wilderness. And he lost his memory. He had amnesia for a while, but as soon as he recovered his memory, like a madman, he was determined to get back to Shangri-La. All I could think about was a salmon, swimming upstream, determined to get back to their place of origin. And he was so determined to get back, that he became a legend. He went back from Great Britain; he went back to China, and he stayed in some communities close to this area. And he was renowned, because he had to somehow ford this great chasm to get back to the area where Shangri-La was. Six times he failed, six times he was turned back, but the seventh time he made it, and the Chinese tribesmen in that area said that he was not even human, that what he accomplished, no human being could accomplish, and he makes it back to Shangri-La. And the music is wonderful, and the acting is very seductive, and it just seems like such a wonderful movie. Someone found the perfect place, in the midst of this war ridden world, where everybody is killing each other.
But when I watched the movie this time, with my present background, I realized that that the teaching was very Eastern, and that it is not true, because Chang, the host in the palace, was telling our hero; there is one line in the movie, where he says, Why are people evil? They are evil because they lack. And here nobody lacks anything, therefore there is no evil.
PASTOR VITALE: Does anybody see the fallacy in that statement? Would anybody like to tell us what the fallacy in that statement is?
COMMENT: Are you saying that if you have every physical need met, that you are going to be happy.
PASTOR VITALE: Right, and why is that not true? Not only will you be happy, you will not be violent, you will not steal, you will not sin. That is what he is saying. Why is that not true?
COMMENT: We all lack the Lord Jesus Christ, that is what we lack.
PASTOR VITALE: Well that is true, we lack righteousness. And no matter how many of our material desires are met, whether even if our physical needs are met, we all have genuine needs of food, clothing, shelter, human relationships, these are real needs. If our every need is met, if our every material need is met, there will still be evil in the heart of man. And actually, the Lord just revealed to me, I did not even see it myself, that the Russian woman, who was desperate to leave, and caused her own destruction because of her desperation to leave; the absence of lack in Shangri-La did not help the evil in her.
I would really have to read the book from this point of view to find out what the author was saying, but the movie seemed to indicate that the author was saying that there was this wonderful place where there was no sin, where everybody was happy, yet the author shows that there is one person who could not benefit from this wonderful place.
So I am not really sure what the author's message is here, but I see that the teaching and the philosophy is Eastern, and that Eastern philosophy is false, because it is not true that if you meet man's every physical need, he will not be a criminal. But of course, if you meet his every need in Christ Jesus, as this sister said, at that point, he will not be criminal. But that was not what the movie was saying. That is not what the story is saying, the story is saying that they have this wonderful city, no crime, no police, no trouble, everybody was very polite and would give up their wife, or their job or whatever, because there is always another one, and therefore, everyone could live in peace together. But there is evil in the heart of man. This Eastern philosophy, we see it permeating the whole nation today. The school system today, the penal code today, there is this false belief, that if you give man another chance, that the evil will go away. But this is Eastern philosophy, it is a lie. Man is evil at his root. He is good and evil, but he is evil in his motives. Even if we do not act out criminal behavior, mortal man is evil in his motives, at his unconscious root, because the spirit that incarnated this whole world is evil.
And the bottom line is, that every thought that deviates from the thought of God is evil. You have to get your definitions of evil straight. Every thought that deviates from the thoughts of God in any given situation, or at any given moment is evil. That is God's definition of evil. And since the whole world has a carnal mind, and we, our thoughts deviate from the thoughts of God continuously, probably 99 and 99-100th percent of the time, until we come into the place where we start thinking with His mind. The whole world is evil, even the good is evil. The goodness of this world is evil in comparison to the Lord. This false message is permeating the whole country. It is the message of Maitreya, it's the message of humanism. It is the message of all the bleeding- heart liberals in the country today, that man is good at his root. And it is this belief that is rendering this country more and more every day in an undefended condition.
I saw a program on TV last night. It had to do with the penal system and the death penalty. The case that was cited was a woman who was recently executed in Texas. I remember seeing the case on TV. She murdered several people. When they were making a plea for her life several months ago, I saw that program and they showed her in the days that she was arrested. She was a brutal woman, and she murdered people without any conscious whatsoever, she just mowed them down, she was like a Bonnie, from Bonnie and Clyde. They arrested her, put her in jail, and over a period of years she claims to have had a spiritual renewal in Jesus Christ, and there were all kinds of witnesses to how her behavior had changed, how her attitude had changed. And I saw her interview, she certainly had changed compared to the videos of the early years that I saw her.
But Governor Bush refused to intervene, the board that had the authority to alleviate her from the death penalty, failed to do so, refused to do so. And they interviewed the husband of one of the women that this convict had killed, and he witnessed her death. He was present at her execution, and he said, It is not pleasant witnessing an execution, but it is something; an execution is not pleasant, but it is something that we have to do, he said, because there were so many people murdered, and it is right that she should die. That the families of the murdered victims are still experiencing lack, the children have lost their parents, the wives or the husbands have lost their mate, and it is not right for the person to not receive punishment because she has had a spiritual renewal. That is not a reason for justice to be removed in this country.
That is the opinion of the conservatives. The liberal front would say, You should let her go, you should let everybody go when they say that they are sorry, and that they are not going to do it again. And this liberal position arises out of a belief that man is good at his root, and if you just give him some treatment, some psychotherapy, a little love, he will turn around and become a solid citizen. I wish it were true, but it seems to me that Christianity is the only (well, I do not really know what Islam teaches, but possibly this is true of Islam), religion that teaches that that man is evil at his root, that he has to be socialized, he has to be taught to be a good person. If left to his own devices, he will be an evil person and do evil.
You see, the whole world is evil by God's definition of evil, in that the thoughts of the world deviate from the Lord. But then we have the definition of evil in this world, the whole world is not evil as this world perceives evil, the whole world is not murdering people, the whole world is not stealing. Most of the people in the world are living socially acceptable lives. But for those people, for those members of society that Satan has found a stronghold in, that Satan has risen up in, and made them murderers and serial killers, and child molesters, they are evil because Satan has found a house to dwell in in these people.
Brethren, everyone that is abused does not become a murderer. They may be messed up in their mind, but everyone that is abused does not become a murderer. There is an evil root in the foundation of mortal man, and that evil root arises wherever it can. Christianity has held down the evil for centuries, and as Christianity or as Adam is dissolved, (we have talked about this in other messages), what is happening in this country and in western Europe is that the imputed Christ Jesus, the regenerated Adam, is being dissolved, and the evil is arising more and more in every generation. And we see that one of the biggest obstacles to the deliverance that the people desperately need is this false philosophy that is circulating throughout the country and throughout the western world. Wrong thinking, the female opinion, the opinion of a reprobate mind.
In the online meeting the other day, we had some exciting revelation as to the spiritual truth of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a hand for a hand. And the spiritual truth is that God has promised us that for every evil aspect of our being, the corresponding righteous aspect within him, will cover us. There is a spiritual significance for every word mentioned. The word hand in the Scripture, for example, means subconscious mind. The subconscious mind of Jehovah, who is Christ Jesus, will cover the subconscious mind of mortal man, which is the fiery serpent. But brethren, that promise is in the regeneration. That promise will come to pass, Jehovah cannot lie. And for every evil aspect of man, that evil aspect shall be covered by the corresponding righteous aspect of Jehovah. But until that time, we must have law and order, and the solid citizen that is trying to live peaceably should be protected, not the criminal who is given over to evil.
So we see that Satan has entered in through Eastern philosophy. And what is very interesting, is that in the countries where Eastern philosophy prevails: in India, and in China (well China today, the government is against religion, but in Tibet and in the Eastern nations), they do not have much crime. They do not have much crime. So, it is confusing to people who are trying to understand how this could be the Serpent arising in people in this nation, because in India they openly worship the Serpent. China openly worships the Dragon, for those who still are engaged in that. China has largely put down religion.
The Buddhists, the Tibetans, they largely worship evil entities. The Dalai Lama knows that. Recently it was on TV, that a group of Tibetans were protesting the Dalai Lama because he had forbidden the worship of a particular entity that this group worshiped, saying that the entity was evil. They worship immortals, evil immortals. And their societies are in order. How could this be? Brethren, it has to do with the anointing that Christians receive from the Holy Spirit, from the acknowledgment and the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ. As I have explained to you many times, this world exists on the energy or the spirit that was breathed into it at the beginning. At the beginning, Jehovah breathed the breath of life into the man, and the man, Adam, he had an open circulating relationship with the Godhead. That energy was unending. It says Jehovah breathed the breath of life into the man, but that breath kept being breathed into it. That word in Genesis, Jehovah breathed makes us think that Jehovah went whoo, and the breath went into the man, no. Jehovah is a sun, a source of unending energy, which continued to pour into the man until the day that the man was seduced by the woman, and his sins stood between himself and Jehovah.
So, the energy in the man before the fall could not be used up, because there was a face to face relationship with Jehovah through Elohim. But ever since the fall, when the creation fell into this black hole and became sealed off from the power of God, whatever energy was in the creation at that time began to be recycled and is still being recycled to this day. Jehovah, through His covenant with Abraham, which eventually resulted in the Holy Spirit being imparted to the world through Christianity, is the source of additional energy that is filtering into this black hole. And the principalities and powers that rule this world from the invisible plane, from the astral plane in particular, want that energy!
So, as Christendom begins to fall, these entities are arising in the Christian world, and as the powers and principalities drain the energy from Christians, the result of it is that they become evil. I think that I am lacking some information, but basically what I have told you is the truth. The reason that Jesus called His people sheep is because we have something that can be sheared. The anointing can be sheared from us. And the powers and principalities or the immortals in the astral plane are seeking to enter into Christians wherever they can. And then they take the fleece of the Holy Spirit, plus whatever energy is in that person, and drain them to the point of insanity, to the point where evil manifests through them.
Edited 10/2/21, rh
