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The Following Message Has Been Transcribed For

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In Matthew 12, it talks about the return of the evil spirit.

 

Matthew 12:43-45
⁴³ When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
⁴⁴ Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
⁴⁵ Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.   KJV

 

COMMENT: I wanted to know, when it talks about, … then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there…, but what happens to those seven spirits? Do they just manifest somewhere else and enter other people? Or do the seven just stay with the one person?

 

PASTOR VITALE: That is a good question, except that that is a very poor translation. And it is a very inaccurate translation.

 

Number one, throughout the whole King James translation, you will see the expression, and he cast or they cast out devils. They cast out devils. That Greek word that is translated devils; the Greek word for devil is diablos. Some people have heard that in English. You have heard that? Diablos, diabolical. That is where the word diabolical comes from. That is not the Greek word that is translated demons. The Greek word that means demons is daimonia. And that means demons, and there are many demons.

 

What is the difference between the devil and the demons? The devil is the fallen personality of mankind.  There is one spiritual man in the earth. He is a spiritual man. You can think of him as a tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. That is his symbol, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He is a spiritual man. And just as the tree has many leaves growing out of it, there is one tree, one root, one base, many leaves. There is one spiritual man.

 

And this corporate spiritual man, which is fallen Adam, the creation of God who fell, that is who the devil is. So there is only one devil. But demons are evil thoughts, individual thoughts that come out of one person's mind, each person symbolized by a leaf on the tree. Every time an evil thought goes forth, it goes forth like an arrow. It can hurt another human being. That is what a demon is.

 

So this particular Scripture, it is not diablos, nor is it daimonia. It is spirit. It is spirit, and it is not talking about evil spirits. It is not talking about demons. It is talking about the corporate spirit of fallen man. You see, the devil, he has a mind. The name of the devil's mind, does anybody know?

 

COMMENT: The carnal mind.

 

COMMENT: The carnal mind. And the devil also has a spirit, which is also the unconscious mind.

 

COMMENT: Satan.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Satan. That is right.

 

So that Scripture, I know this is how the whole church world preaches it. The whole church world preaches it this way, that if you have a demon cast out of you, and your house is not swept clean, that it comes back with seven more. But it is not true. That account, if you study it in the Scripture, is speaking about the continuous ongoing incarnation of fallen man, who, because he is dead, because he died, the bodies that he dwells in, eventually, we wear out.

 

The Scripture describes it as a garment. His garment keeps wearing out, and he has to keep getting new ones. That is why he reproduces, and people have babies. And that is why Jesus said, In the kingdom of heaven, there is no marriage or giving in marriage. Why? Because when Christ inhabits these bodies, they are going to receive life and stop wearing out. So there will not be any reason to reproduce anymore. So that Scripture is talking about the continuous incarnation of the fallen man in new human bodies to keep him going.

 

Matthew 22:30

³⁰ For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.   KJV

But I think what you would like to know (and it is a valid question, although that Scripture does not support it), is where do the demons go when they are cast out? That is what you want to know. They die. They die.

 

We have to ask ourselves what demons are. What are demons? They are thoughts. But another way of looking at it is that they are offspring. They are that which is born of the union between Satan in the male role and the carnal mind.  It is the fruit of the carnal mind. They are part spirit, and they are part soul.

 

So just as, when this body dies, it decomposes and it turns to dust, when a demon dies, it decomposes. And it breaks down to spirit and soul. It dies. Just like this body dies, and just like your soul dies, the soul that sins, dies. The demon that is cast out dies. It is like a fish out of water. It cannot live in the air.

 

I know some ministries teach about free-floating spirits. And it is a very common error in the church to think that demons and Satan and all of that stuff is out there in the atmosphere. You will hear some ministers pray, We bind all the free-floating spirits in the atmosphere. We bind the strong man over Long Island, or whatever. That is what they think because this whole world is a mirror image.

 

This is the soul realm. There is a spirit world. This is the soul world. And the soul world is a reflection of the spirit world. Just like when a man looks into a pond or a lake, the soul world is typified by water. So when the spirit man looks into this, the water of the soul world, we are the image. And everything is backwards. It is just as if you would hold this book up to the mirror; you would see the print backwards.

 

And the name of our soulish mind is the carnal mind. And the name of our spirit mind is the mind of Christ. And if you have both (some people have both the carnal mind and the mind of Christ). But if you are thinking with your soul mind, you are going to see spiritual truth backwards. It is just like you are trying to read the book in the mirror.

 

So the soul man, which is the average man out there, he thinks that Satan and the demons and all of that junk is outside of him on Mars or flying around in the sky. And we do not really have any Scripture that says where he is, but we see Jesus. The Bible says, We do not know what we are going to be, but we see Jesus. And Jesus said that the kingdom of God is where?

 

COMMENT: Within us.

 

Luke 17:21

²¹ Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.   KJV

 

PASTOR VITALE: It is within us. And Jesus said, I and the Father are one. What he was saying was the Father is within me.

 

John 10:30-36

³⁰ I and my Father are one.   KJV

 

So we have a problem then. Either you are going to believe that all of the good things of the Spirit of God are within you, and all of the bad things of the kingdom of darkness are outside of you, which does not make any sense at all, or you are going to face the truth that both good and bad is within us because all of this humanity is typified by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. So all good and all evil is within us. And specifically in our mind.

 

So we have a lot of very well-meaning people that think the good is inside and the evil is outside. But if you believe that, I would like to give you something to think about. If all the evil was locked outside of you, and only good was inside of you, then you would be a perfect man. And if you were a perfect man, there would be no reason for the judgment of God to kill you because everyone that is a sinner is under the judgment of death. It is a corporate judgment upon all of humanity. The soul that sins, God says, it has to die. And the Scripture cannot be broken. But God being as great as He is, he always makes a way of escape. And the way of escape from the death penalty, which has been pronounced upon mankind, is the forgiveness of sins through the birth of the perfect, righteous Son of God right within the midst of our sin-filled, reprobate, hopelessly wicked heart. And when the righteous Son of God is born, when He is born within us, truly, fully born, He will swallow up our wretchedness. And we who were sinners, red as crimson, shall be white as snow.

 

Isaiah 1:18

¹⁸ Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.   KJV

 

So we have a lot of people who are trying to find the truth. They are walking in whatever level of it they have, and they are out there, you know, binding and loosing demons floating in the sky. But I do not believe demons are floating in the sky. I believe demons are thoughts, and thoughts come out of mind. And therefore, every demon must come out of and have roots in somebody's mind. I believe that spirit is not restricted to remain inside the walls of this flesh. That spirit, just like air and sunshine, light, has the power to vibrate out of our minds. Spirit will come out through our words. It will go out through our eyes, or vibrate out of our body.

 

But spirit is a spiritual plant. Our soul is made out of the dust of the earth. Anybody have a problem with that? And God formed the man out of the dust of the earth. And Jesus said that we are the planting of the Lord. He said He is the vine of the earth. He said He is the Tree of Life. He said He is the vine, and we are the branches. He is talking about a planting in the Scripture. And the prophet Isaiah likens the church to a vineyard that the Lord has planted. We see, in the Book of Revelation, the harvesting of the grapes, the fruit of the Spirit of God.

 

John 15:5

⁵ I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.   KJV

 

Isaiah 61:3

³ To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.   KJV

 

Revelation 14:18

¹⁸ And another angel came out from the altar, which had power over fire; and cried with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.   KJV

 

So there are many indications that the Lord is referring to his people as a spiritual plant, which has been planted in and, Lord willing, is growing in the earth of your soul. And whether that spiritual existence is the carnal mind, or whether it is the mind of Christ, it is a plant growing in the earth of your soul.

 

Now, the Scripture says that the carnal mind is a weed. Jesus gave parables whereby the workers of the garden came to the husbandmen and said, There are tares in the garden. Should we rip them up? And the Lord Jesus said, No, do not rip them up. Why? Because if you rip the weeds out before the cultivated plant is mature enough, you rip out the cultivated plant also. And the cultivated plant is Christ. Amen.

 

Matthew 13:29-30

²⁹ But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
³⁰ Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.    KJV

 

So therefore, brethren, we find ourselves in a condition of double-mindedness. We are both good and evil, and there is righteousness growing within us in the form of the man Christ Jesus, the only mediator between God and man.

 

1 Timothy 2:5

⁵ For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;   KJV

 

So we see a lot of well-meaning people fighting this war against the devil in hell. A lot of people see spirits, and they see apparitions, and they see spirits out there. And they draw the conclusion that the world of darkness is outside of us. But I suggest to you that spirits vibrate out from the minds of men, and their roots remain in the earth of men's souls. But they vibrate out, and just like light, and they appear in front of us.

 

If you have had an experience seeing apparitions, they may come from your mind. They can vibrate out from you and appear. Or they could be sent from somebody else's mind. There is no time or space in the realm of the spirit. If something appears in front of you, it could come from the other side of the world. There is no time or space in the realm of the spirit. But unless you are a very delivered person, unless you have had a lot of deliverance, or even if you have had a lot of deliverance, you should be open to the Lord witnessing to you that this apparition has come from your mind, because the chances are excellent it has come from your own mind.

 

Do not join into this super seduction that the whole world is under, that we are clean and everything unclean is coming from the guy next to you, because the chances are excellent that it is coming out of your own mind. If it is coming out of your own mind, there is no condemnation in it. What good is your denial or your self-deception? There is no help in it. If it is coming out of your mind, it has to be dealt with. It has to be killed. So what is the point of denying it? You are only defeating your own purpose.

 

I know there was one very well-meaning deliverance preacher once who gave a testimony about going out into the woods with his group of deliverance workers. And they heard all of these voices from the demons, and the demons began to appear in the woods. And I do not remember the whole testimony, but it was obvious to me that the demons were coming out of their own minds. And they did not seem to realize it.

 

Then you have some very well-meaning preachers that will bind the strong man over a particular area, for example, in Fire Island, in an area which is known for homosexuality. They will bind the strong man of homosexuality over this area of Fire Island, thinking that they are going to deliver the area from homosexuality. But actually, they are viewing the situation backwards. Again, they are looking in the mirror. They are seeing it backwards.

 

The truth of the situation is that, for whatever reason (well, maybe I will go into that in a minute), many homosexuals have been drawn to this one geographical area. The corporate spirit, which is produced from 500 homosexuals, their spirits have linked up and vibrated out of their mind and formed almost a mushroom cloud, if you will. A mushroom cloud, like you see after an atomic explosion. And that spirit is exalting itself over the area.

 

The way a spirit exalts itself is that it gathers together many human beings of like spirit. If you want to relate it to chemistry, if you can, you might say all those atoms are linking up to make one supermolecule. And this spirit gathers great strength. It takes whatever energy it can from each human being and vibrates out of each human being and exalts itself by expressing itself openly.

 

What does that mean? Some people who are spiritually sensitive, you can walk down the street and just feel it. It does not have to be homosexuality. It could be any group or corporate manifestation of any particular kind of spirit. We see this same manifestation with the Spirit of Christ. If you come into a room where most of the people, if not all of the people, have Christ in them, and He has linked together; He has touched everybody. Christ in every individual has vibrated out and is touching each other, and there is a corporate manifestation or a corporate mushroom cloud of this spirit.

 

What do you see in Christ? People who are spiritually sensitive can perceive that there is a formation of (the expression we use) the bones of Christ, or the person of Christ, in the room. You can feel it. If you have the ability to do it, you can feel it. You can taste it. You can move in it. You can be blessed by it. You can be healed by it. You can be delivered by it. You can have all kinds of manifestations. Some people go to sleep because of it. It is called being slain in the spirit. Different people have different reactions to it.

 

That is a clean spirit. The Spirit of Christ, it is a clean spirit, and it affects you when you are in a room full of people that have that clean spirit. And the Spirit of Christ exalts Himself and vibrates out from the people and visibly, if not spiritually, visibly shows Himself, exalts Himself. There are all kinds of blessings in sitting in the presence of that cloud.

 

And in the same manner, if you enter into a location; it does not have to be homosexuality. It could be some local bar. It could be a bar. It could be a crack house. If you enter in, and that spirit is exalting itself, and there is anything in you at all that has a weakness that it could be touched off by that spirit, you could find yourself partaking of something that you would have never chosen to partake of. But a corporate manifestation of a spirit influences an individual. We are influenced by corporate manifestations of spirit.

 

That is why the Bible says, pick your friends carefully, because you will be influenced. And it is a great mystery, brethren, but evil is stronger than good. If you have one young man that has been raised in the church and he is spiritually as clean as a whistle, and he starts hanging out with a bunch of guys who are into drugs or into stealing or into delinquency, whatever it is, and that young man thinks he can stand, he is deceived because he will not stand. He will go the way of that delinquent group. The weaker young man will be influenced sooner, and the stronger young man will be influenced later. But if you keep hanging out with them, you are going to go their way. You will never stand against a group manifestation of evil.

 

What has been imparted to you in the church world, because your mother took you to church every Sunday, or your father took you to church every Sunday, will never stand against the evil influence. Good will bring you down.

 

There was a serial killer. He was convicted of murder; if not, he committed some horrendous crime. He had a conversion while he was on death row and submitted to an interview. His testimony was that he had been taken to church for his whole youth by his parents. As a young adult, he started looking at pornography. And for a season, he had an awareness of the battle in his mind, the battle that was going on, from what was imparted to him as a young man to what was happening to him from a habitual, continuous viewing of this pornography.

 

Either he did not understand what was happening, or he could not stop looking at it. I do not remember the details. He did not stop looking at it. And sooner or later, everything that had been imparted to him in his childhood was completely overpowered by the forces which had been imparted to him by the pornography. He granted this testimony before he was executed. And I believe it bears out what the Scripture says.

 

And so of course, the whole world says, Well, how could this be? What about the power of Christ? How could it be so weak? How could evil be so strong? There is no God. God died. God hates us. God is punishing us.

 

Brethren, God is righteous. He is righteous, and He loves us. And any mind or any person that says anything other than that is in error. I do not care what it looks like. Either you are subject to an illusion, or you are subject to your fallen mind, which does not understand God. God loves us, and God is righteous.

 

And He tells us, in His Word, that His thoughts are not our thoughts. We are not capable of thinking as God thinks. He says His thoughts towards us are for good, not for evil, but He is different than we are. He is not a man. He is a spirit. And He is high and lofty and exalted and great and righteous. And we are fallen, and we are evil.

 

Now, not evil meaning that you are going out murdering people. You do not have to be doing that. There are three Greek words that are translated evil. And the word evil, the Greek word evil that applies to mankind, is a word that means fall from grace. We were good, and we fell down, and we became the opposite of good. But simply by virtue of the fact that we were good once means that there is a possibility of restoration back up to that goodness.

 

So therefore, confess your sins that, in relationship to Jesus Christ, you are evil. Because every man, when measured up against the standard of the righteous one, must be found to be evil. Confess your deficiency, and receive the power to be restored unto righteousness, says the Lord.

 

So we see that, down here in hell, we are all manifestations of good and evil. And in this condition, the evil is stronger than the good. But what most people do not know is that there is something beyond good. It is called; I just said it. Does anybody know? What is greater than good? It is righteousness. It is righteousness, you see. Righteousness, sinlessness. There is power in sinlessness.

 

So down here in hell, evil is stronger than good. Why? Because the authorities, the powers and principalities which rule over this world system, are evil. It is like saying the Democrats are in charge of the Congress. They have the power. The Republicans are limited as to what they can do because the rulers of the Congress are Democrats.

 

The rulers, the spiritual powers and principalities which rule over this world system, are evil. The name of the chief prince is the Devil. And Satan and the carnal mind are under him. They are evil, and they are entrenched in their position of authority. So that which is good in this world is in a weakened condition.

 

But, glory be to God, there is more than that which is good in this world. There is righteousness in this world, in the form of Jesus Christ. And if you do not see much manifestation of righteousness in this world, it is because the Holy One of Israel is in the process of changing the guard. He is changing the ruling authorities of this world system. He is bringing the Devil down, and he is establishing Christ Jesus as the new authority here. And the unseating of the evil powers and principalities has not yet been completed. It is in the process.

 

Does anybody know the first step of God's plan to bring down the ungodly government of this world system? What was God's first step in the plan? It was the impartation of the Ten Commandments to humanity.

 

You see, God is a legalist. He will never condemn you if you have not had an opportunity to at least hear what righteousness is. God is always giving you a choice. Even if He knows that you do not have the power to choose righteousness, He will still give you the choice. Why? To prove that He is a righteous judge when He executes judgment upon you. He will tell you, This is right, and this is wrong. Choose. You choose the error; you shall reap what you sow, and hopefully learn from that experience.

 

So when God gave the Ten Commandments to humanity, He said to the world, you no longer have any excuse for doing unrighteousness because I have told you. Here is righteousness. Thou shalt not. Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt keep the Sabbath day holy. Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt not covet. So now, when you do it, you know that you are doing sin.

 

Now, nobody can keep the spiritual law of God. Nobody can do it. Why? Because we are fallen men. And even if we do succeed in controlling our mouth, our heart is desperately wicked. We are sinners. That is why we need a savior, because we cannot save ourselves.

 

We cannot forgive our own sins. We cannot cover our own sins. We cannot stop from sinning. We sin continuously. Our heart is continuously thinking evil, even when we sleep, and we are reaping what we sow. So when we continuously think evil, evil is continuously coming back upon us. And Jesus said, If you hate your brother in your heart, you have murdered him. So we are continuously thinking murder, and death is continuously coming back upon us until, eventually, our body dies.

 

1 John 3:15

¹⁵ Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.   KJV

 

But when Christ comes into our life, brethren, He covers our sins. He gives us the ability to do righteousness. He gives us the power to stop sinning continuously. And when He purifies our thoughts, and we stop thinking evil continuously and start thinking righteousness continuously, we shall reap what we sow.

 

PASTOR VITALE: What is another word for righteousness? Somebody?

 

COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]

 

PASTOR VITALE: What?

 

COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]

 

PASTOR VITALE: No. If evil is death, righteousness is...

 

COMMENT: Life.

 

PASTOR VITALE: ...life. As we continue to think life towards people, life will come back upon us. And it is just a matter of time until we reap what we sow. And when we think life all the time, we are going to stop dying because only life is going to come back upon us. And our mind will be healed, and our body will be healed, and our soul will be healed. And our life will remain with us.

 

This is a process. The purification process is a long one. But ever since Jesus of Nazareth, who was the Christ, gave up His soul life for us and permitted Himself to be crucified (because he clearly said, No man takes my life. I lay it down.) Ever since He gave up His soul life for us, the purification process of humanity has been working. Do not be deceived because men keep on dying. It has been happening behind the scenes in the realm of God's Spirit. And very shortly, this purification process is going to start to reap what it has been sowing. And we are going to see men begin to enter into life.

 

John 10:18

¹⁸ No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.   KJV

 

Let me tell you of a truth. I was amazed to find out how long you have to sow good before you start reaping it. Of course, it depends a lot on how much evil you were sowing when you came to the Lord. But I want to tell you that I was amazed at how many years I had to be sowing good, getting nothing but evil back, until I started reaping good. It was years. It was years that I was doing good, doing good, doing good, and still getting killed because I was still reaping all of the evil that had come from me and that had come from my ancestors and that had come from my family line. It took quite a few years before my life turned around. I think, if I had known it, either I would not have believed it, or I may not even have had the stamina to go through.

 

You see, this salvation that is offered to us by the Lord Jesus Christ, it is not a quick fix. It is not a quick fix. You have to work at it. You have to change. It is very hard, and it takes time to turn around spiritual forces that are destroying your life. First, you have to slow them down. Then, you have to bring them... what am I talking about? Destructive spiritual forces that are destroying your life.

 

First, by exercising the power of God, you have to slow them down. Then, you have to bring them to a halt. Then, you have to kill them and bury them and get them out of the way so that the power of God can start bringing blessings into your life. And then, when the blessings start coming into your life, it is just a little bit to start with. And you are fighting, and you are struggling the whole time.

 

The Devil is mad as a hornet at you, going after you like a bunch of hornets, trying to get you to do all your old sins, saying, You think you are changed? You are not changed. Look, I will show you. Buzz, buzz. And you are out there doing something that you have not done, something that you hate doing, something that is ruining your life. Buzz. She is exercising her authority over you.

 

You have to get up and brush yourself off and start all over again. Jesus says that, If your brother sins against you seven times, seventy, you are to forgive him each and every time because he is going to fall, and he is going to fall, and he is going to fall, and he is going to fall. And every time he gets up, Jesus is there waiting to brush him off. It is a very hard, long, arduous process to break out of the cycle of destruction which is destroying you down here in hell.

 

Luke 17:4

⁴ And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.   KJV

 

So we were speaking about strong men and spirits. I got off my point. So therefore, all these well-meaning deliverance preachers observe areas, and they see this is a high crime area, or this is a high drug area, and they bind the strong man over that area. Their ministry is inside out.

 

Now, that does not mean the Lord is not going to honor it. You see, the Lord honors it. If that is the best you know, if that is where your knowledge is at the moment, the Lord honors it. So do not get into an argument over anybody that you are right because the Lord is honoring your faith. It does not mean that you are right because it is working for you. And that which you are doing will work for you only so long as the Lord honors it. The Lord very well might stop honoring it. When He says to you, Come up higher, I want you to mature, and I want you to start doing things differently, you might find out that what you were doing last week is not working for you this week.

 

And I have told you many times. Those of you who come here, you have heard me tell you. I was raised up in a church where there was an incredible amount of power. And we all had so much pride. Our head was spinning on our shoulders. Come on, sit down on the chair. I will cast it out of you. And every time we said, Out in the name of Jesus, guess what? It came out. We thought it was us until, one day, we started saying, sit down, out in the name of Jesus, and it was not coming out.

 

And we found out that it was not us. We found out that it was Daddy the whole time, saying, Is my son not cute? Does he not cast that demon out real nice? And it was Daddy coming in with the power, healing that disease and casting that demon out. And the Lord was saying, Well, Son, it is time for you to know that it is not your power, that it is my power, and you can only do it when I say OK.

 

So the fact that the Lord honors your prayers does not mean anything other than the Lord is honoring your prayers. It does not mean that the power is coming from within you. It does not mean that the power that you are generating, or exercising, is a result of your state of being because there is only one state of being that imparts power.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Does anybody know what that state of being is, where power is coming forth from within you?

 

COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]

 

PASTOR VITALE: Someone just said it.

 

COMMENT: Righteousness.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Righteousness. Righteousness. So you cannot be up there in the pulpit, dancing around, casting out demons, and go back into your house and cheat the local greengrocer because, if you are doing that, you should know for sure it is not your power. It is power that has been loaned to you by the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because you are special? No, because He loves His people, and He wants them healed, and He wants them delivered. And everybody is a mess, so he picked a few people, and He gave them power, and He said, Go out and heal the people.

 

But, brethren, once the righteousness of Christ Jesus begins to appear in you, once the life of Christ begins to be formed in you, and it begins to swallow up your fallen nature and becomes your nature, it is present. It is ever-ready.

 

Did you ever see, well, these days, they make receivers, or any certain kind of electronic equipment, where it is ever-ready. Usually, in a piece of equipment, where it would normally take a few minutes to warm up, you will see that, that unit, if you keep it plugged in, it has a little red ready light on, which means, the second you hit the switch, it starts up instantly because what is really happening is that the unit is ready. You have just got to turn the switch that will let it channel into your home.

 

That is the difference between the imputed anointing, or the loaned authority of God, and the authority of God that originates in you because righteousness is dwelling within you and is becoming a part of your very nature. It is the difference between having to warm up for five minutes and being ever-ready, instant in season and out of season, a ready dynamo of the power of God, rooted in righteousness, ready to rise up and respond against sin wherever it is appearing.

 

You see, they say that most of the animals in the jungle, they have a natural enemy. Most of the animals. I hear the elephant does not have a natural enemy. Christ has a natural enemy. Wherever He goes, there is a beast which is trying to kill Him. And whenever that beast arises... And where is this beast? In the minds of men. Absolutely. It is the mind of fallen man. He is the natural enemy of Christ. He does not even have to think about it. It bypasses his conscious understanding. But he is immediately attacking Christ wherever He is appearing.

 

Some people will say, I cannot stand that person. I do not know why. I do not even know them, never talked to them, never laid eyes on them before. If you are a reasonable person, you might say to yourself, they never did anything to hurt me. I know that I do not like green eyes, or their nose is crooked, and that bothers me. Or it depends on how much you are in touch with your own emotions.

 

Do you know that there are people in this world that are in such a low realm of hell that they are so manipulated by their unconscious thoughts and emotions that they actually believe they can hate somebody because their nose is crooked, or because their ears stand out from their end, or because their voice is squeaky? You do not hate somebody for a reason like that, brethren. If you hate somebody at first sight, what has happened to you is that the spirit in you has conflicted with the spirit in that person. You just are under an illusion. You think you do not like twisted noses.

 

But we are talking about spirit here, and spirit is energy. You have come up against an energy source that is opposed to the energy source, which is ruling in you, a natural enemy. We are talking about a reflexive action. Do you know what a reflexive action is? Did your doctor ever tell you to cross your legs and hit your knee with a hammer, and your knee jerks up? That is a reflex action.

 

There are animals in the jungle that live by reflex actions. They do not think. They do not think when they mate. They do not think when they fight. They do not think when they run because they discern a fire is coming. They are all programmed. The animals in the jungle, or outside of the jungle, animals are programmed to do everything that they do.

 

And human beings have many programmed responses. They do things that they do not know why they do it, and they are just about always destructive things. Why did you do that? Do not know. People can spend 20 years in therapy trying to find out why they do that ungodly, destructive behavior. How come? Do not know.

 

But, you see, man has a spirit. We are told, in the Book of Job, There is a spirit in man. It is a spirit that has come out of Christ. It is higher than that area of our being which programs our reactions. You see, all programmed or reflex actions are coming out of the soul realm. But there is a spirit in man that has the potential to increase into the man Christ Jesus, which is a superior man to the other man that is in the world. The name of the other man is the Devil. Christ Jesus is so far superior to the devil that Christ Jesus wins in every conflict with the Devil.

 

So if you have been subjected, in your lifetime, to reflex actions which are destructive, which are destroying you, which are ruining your life, which are bringing you into painful relationships, which are losing jobs for you, which are keeping you in poverty, there is a savior available to you who, if you reach out and ask Him, hopefully will come into your heart and begin to grow there and offset and oppose and ultimately defeat the devices of the Devil in your life, which are programmed to destroy you, to keep you in torment, to keep you in pain, to keep you lonely, to keep you sick, to keep you unhappy, to keep you suicidal.

 

There is a higher authority. Did you ever see that advertisement on TV for Hebrew National frankfurters? Nobody has heard it before? It says, The United States government dictates what you must put in a frankfurter. But the Hebrew National answers to a higher authority. They answer to the law of God. That is what they are saying. No one laughed at my joke.

 

There is a higher authority than the reflex programming of your soul. And that higher authority is available to men, in this hour, in the form of the man Christ Jesus. You must lay hold of him. How do you lay hold of Him? Just yell, help. He is right there, waiting for you to yell, Help, Lord Jesus. He wants to come into your heart more than you want Him in there, but He is waiting for the proper time.

 

It is not that you have power to receive Him or reject Him, but He will bring you into a particular condition of, what we call repentance, where you recognize that you need Him. He will bring you to a place where you acknowledge that you need Him before He comes in. Why? Because everything the Lord does is righteous. It is in order. It is legalistic in a godly way. You must be in right order to have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And the right order is that He is on top, and you are underneath.

 

We have a lot of people in this world that want to be on top, and they want the Lord Jesus underneath. But you cannot have Him that way. If you want the blessings that the Lord Jesus has for you, you must humble yourself and say please. This may sound strange to you, but I personally have met many people that have aggressively said to me, Well, if He wants to be my God, He is going to have to prove Himself to me. Well, you will die waiting, Mister. You will die waiting for that day. He has to prove Himself to you?

 

The Lord, He is the rewarder of those you diligently seek Him. So He just lets you go your own way, lets your life get worse and worse and worse until, one day, you look up and say, Jesus, if you are real, please reveal yourself to me because life is just too painful. I just really need help. And He is right there. He has been waiting for you to come to that place where you realize how much you need Him.

 

Because everything He does is righteous, and you have to be in right relationship to Him to get the benefits He has for you. And you have to be in right relationship to His ministers to get the benefits that they have for you, just like you have to be in right relationship to your father and your mother to get the benefits that they have for you. You have to be in right relationship to your teacher. You have to be in right relationship to the police. Everyone that has authority over you to help you, you have to be in right relationship to them to receive or partake of what they have for you. It is just a fact of life.

 

So if you are filled with rebellion, which means you have wrong relationship to just about everybody, you have got some problems in your life. And most likely, you think it is everybody else's fault, but it is not everybody else's fault. It is your fault, and you are the one that has to change.

 

A lot of people come to the Lord. A lot of people go to psychiatrists. A lot of people go for counseling. And they think that that authority figure is going to wave a magic wand and make their life easy or relieve or alleviate their painful symptoms. But it does not work like that. If you have pain in your life, it means that there is a necessity for you to change. And if you come to a minister or a psychiatrist, they are there to direct you, to counsel you, to show you the way, to give you information to help you. They are a guide. But you have got to work the work. Nobody can change you but yourself.

 

And Lord willing, we will lay hold of the power of Christ Jesus and change by His power. You see, this is a very fine line. You cannot change yourself by your own willpower, any more than a man who is crippled can get up and walk out of his wheelchair by his own willpower, any more than a cancer patient can heal themselves with their own willpower. Christ gives you the power. You pick up the power, and you work the work with His power.

 

Boy, it was hard for me to get that revelation. I struggled with it. It was painful. I could not understand it. Every time I heard a preacher preach it, I got frustrated. I could not understand it. One Scripture is saying, Stand still and see the salvation of God. The other Scripture is saying, Faith without works is dead. And another Scripture is saying, You are not saved by works; you are saved by grace. You are walking around, pulling your hair out of your head, saying, Oh, that Scripture, it had to be written by some guy that was drunk. He cannot even make up his own mind.

 

Exodus 14:13

¹³ And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.   KJV

 

James 2:26

²⁶ For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.   KJV

 

Ephesians 2:8-9

⁸ For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

⁹ Not of works, lest any man should boast.   KJV

 

No, brethren, you are carnal. You do not understand the Scripture. Every Scripture is not written for every man at the same point of growth, at the same time. Everybody that reads this Bible is not in the same condition. They are not in the same place of maturity. They are not in the same place of understanding. You just do not understand it. You have to ask the Lord for understanding. We are saved by grace, not works. And grace is in the person of Christ Jesus, the savior, the Son of God in the midst of us, He is growing out of our own heart. He is the grace which is given to us. We are not saved by works, brethren. We are not saved by reading this Bible. We are not saved by attending church every Sunday. We are not saved by giving money. Although all of these are good things, there is no salvation in any of these things. Our salvation is through union with the grace which has been imparted unto us, the man Christ Jesus, the Son of God in the midst of us. When He joins with our spirit, and we become one spirit with Him, we receive salvation.

 

But how do we reach that point? Well, it is good to read your Bible. It is good to come to church. It is good to put money in the offering if you have it. It is good to do that. But the actual salvation is not by the works alone. It is by the spiritual work of grace working in you.

 

But faith without works is dead. What does that mean? Well, grace gives you faith. Well, by grace, through faith; our faith is Christ. You cannot just sit, a bump on the log, and say, I am saved, and I am not going to move off of this couch until the rapture comes, because you are going to die on that couch. You have to do something. You have to read your Bible. You have to listen to messages. You have to go to church. You have to have Christ built in you.

 

So what is the Scripture talking about? You are saved by grace and not by works. You are not saved by carnal works of the flesh. You are not saved by giving out tracts. You are not saved by memorizing Scriptures. But you are saved by laying hold of the grace which is within you and letting it take over your life and doing the instructions of that Christ in you. If Christ says to you, Go to this church, you go. It is very hard to even explain, but you are not saved by carnal works. You are not saved by works which are dictated by your carnal mind, but you are saved by the works which are an automatic outgrowth of Christ maturing in you.

 

I think that is a good way to put it. You are not saved by the works which are directed by your carnal mind, but you are saved by grace through faith. And faith without the works which are a direct outgrowth of Christ being in you; those works are necessary. If Christ is in you, and He directs you to a particular church, that is one of the works that makes faith alive. Christ has instructed you to do it. If your carnal mind has instructed you to do it, it is a dead work.

 

And one of the first things we instruct in the church is repentance from dead works. I am sorry if I am offending anybody, brethren. But if you are sitting there saying the Hail Mary five times a day, it is a dead work. Why? Because Christ Jesus is not telling you to do that. It is not going to build the savior in you. It might comfort you. It might make you feel good. It might make you feel holy. But the truth is that sitting there with your crucifix saying the Hail Mary is not building the savior in you.

 

The savior is spirit. God is spirit. He must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Lighting a candle is not building the savior in you. But yielding, confessing your sins and yielding to the unction of the Holy Ghost, letting Him direct you, letting Him convict you of your sins, letting Him show you where He wants you to go and what relationships you should have, those are the works which are of faith.

 

So there is definitely something for you to do. The question is, what are you to do that will save you from this hell that we are all existing in? That which will save us from hell are the works which we are directed towards by Christ Jesus, who is abiding in us, and we can understand his direction when He joins himself to our spirit. We begin to hear, sometimes on a conscious level, sometimes on an unconscious level. But we begin to perceive His direction for our life. It is called walking in faith.

 

So I got way off of demon spirits. Well, I guess that was what the Lord wanted to say. I am just trying to perceive which direction the Lord wants me to go in at this time. Does anybody have a question on anything? You have a question?

 

COMMENT: On this demon you were talking about, that it goes from the thought; it goes out. Does it base itself within that person and goes back and forth, goes out and returns?

 

PASTOR VITALE: Yes. You can think of it as on a rubber band or one of those horsey reins that you see that they put on children. It can go so far, and then it just bounces back.

 

COMMENT: Yes.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Yes?

 

COMMENT: So what you were saying was evil spirits and demons are not the same. Right?

 

PASTOR VITALE: Sometimes the Lord calls them evil spirits. But in that Scripture that you quoted...

 

COMMENT: Right.

 

PASTOR VITALE: ...it was talking about the corporate spirit of man.

 

COMMENT: And man is not capable of controlling either one of them without the express will of the Father. Right?

 

PASTOR VITALE: Controlling either one of what?

 

COMMENT: Well, if you have a demon in me, and I want to take control over it, and I know I cannot, I do not cry out. It is not his will. Well, if it is not his will, then it is..

 

PASTOR VITALE: I see what you are saying.

 

COMMENT: You know what I am trying to get at?

 

PASTOR VITALE: Yes. Well, it depends on whether or not you have Christ. That is the whole point of the warfare that, once Christ takes up residence in you, you have received power over these demons. The Scripture says, When the Holy Ghost comes upon you, you shall receive power. It is a question of what you do with that power. You have to be taught how to use it.

 

And I used have rages which rooted in pride. And I remember the first time I ever was victorious over it. It was really a very great day. I was at work, and I knew, if I did not get a miracle, I would have sounded off and lost that job. And the rage was just rising up in me. And I went running into the back room. And I implemented everything I knew. I started saying, I rebuke you, you foul, wicked spirit of pride. I curse you, and I chop you up. And I just was saying everything I knew how to say. And the rage was just rising up in me. And just as it rose up in me, I perceived that it was starting to subside. And I had my first miracle along those lines.

 

COMMENT: And you spoke about the double mind, but you might have touched on this before. I do not recall. I know I have a double mind because sometimes I am not manifesting Christ like I should. But did Christ ever have a double mind at any time in the Scriptures that you know of?

 

PASTOR VITALE: You are speaking about the Lord Jesus, right?

 

COMMENT: Right.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Yes, I believe he did. I believe he did.

 

COMMENT: Do you know any Scriptures that might help?

 

PASTOR VITALE: Well, one Scripture says He was made perfect through... Anybody?

 

COMMENT: Suffering.

 

Hebrews 2:10

¹⁰ For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.   KJV

 

PASTOR VITALE: Through sufferings. So that means He was subject to the carnal mind to some degree, and He was made perfect through suffering. He learned to overcome it. And we are told also, in the Book of Hebrews, that He is appearing the second time without sin, which indicates by reference inference that He must have appeared the first time with sin, sin being the carnal mind. And we are also told that He grew in wisdom and grace, which means there was a maturation process. And there are a few others.

 

Hebrews 9:28

²⁸ So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.   KJV

 

Well, we know that he gave His mother grief when He did not tell her that He was leaving to study at the synagogue. So He was inconsiderate, which is a sign of imperfection. And there are a few others; they are just not coming to me right now. I probably have them written down. I have them in the computer. But those are two good ones.

 

PASTOR VITALE: OK. Anybody else?

 

I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was born. He was born of an imperfect woman. And I suggest to you that, with that physical body, he was born with a carnal mind. Why? Because the physical body is an expression of the carnal mind. Our appearance is an expression, a visible expression, of the mind which is within us.

 

So He received a body and a carnal mind. We are told, in the Book of Romans, that He brought that carnal mind in submission to the spirit of holiness, which means every urge to sin which impulsed out of his carnal mind was utterly cast out and crushed. Paul tells us to cast down imaginations. It was utterly cast down by the Christ which was in His mind. And He purified himself by the spirit of holiness. And that purification process was completed at the time of the baptism, when he became perfect.

 

Romans 8:6-13

⁶ For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

⁷ Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

⁸ So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹ But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

¹⁰ And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

¹¹ But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

¹² Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

¹³ For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.   KJV

 

But from His birth up until His water baptism, He had two minds. He was double-minded. He was born with the mind of Christ, which He received from His heavenly Father, and He was born with a carnal mind, which He received from His parents. And that holy thing which the Scripture speaks about, most people believe that the whole man was that holy thing. But I declare to you, the Scripture clearly states that He was born in a fallen body. He was made like unto sin for us. He was born in a sinful form. This human form that we are in now is the form that fallen man inhabits.

 

So that holy thing that the Scripture speaks about was within the baby that was born in a sinful form, which was inherited from His parents. That which was of His heavenly Father, which was sinless, was in the midst of that which came from His parents, which was sinful. And at birth, the two were separate, just as the pit of a peach is within the peach but separate from the flesh of the peach.

 

And in the same manner, those of us who have received the Holy Ghost today, that Holy Ghost is in the midst of us but separate from us. How do I know that? Because the Holy Ghost is perfect and righteous, and we are imperfect and unrighteous. Yet we see manifestations of righteousness coming forth from us. Well, He is in the midst of us, but He is not interwoven with us. And in that same manner, that holy thing was in the midst of the man Jesus.

 

Now, the phrase that holy child Jesus appears in the Book of Acts. Thy holy child Jesus. This phrase is used in the Scripture after the resurrection.

 

Acts 4:30

³⁰ By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.   KJV

 

And what did the resurrection do? The resurrection combined or mingled the spirit, the soul and the flesh body of the man Jesus so completely that a new creature was formed. Just as if you take eggs and butter and milk and flour and you blend them so completely that you wind up with a cake batter and you bake it, you can no longer identify or separate out the eggs, the milk, the butter or the sugar.

 

So Jesus is only called that holy child Jesus after the mingling of all of the aspects of his person. Prior to that mingling, which occurred after the crucifixion, that holy thing was within a vile, fallen human body. And there was also present a vile, fallen human mind, which was completely controlled by the Christ.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Did I answer your question? Anybody else? Jesus.

 

COMMENT: You said that He was under control of the Christ. After He was baptized, He was fully under the control of the Christ. Right?

 

PASTOR VITALE: The man Jesus, you mean?

 

COMMENT: Yes, the man Jesus.

 

PASTOR VITALE: After the baptism, was under the control of the Christ? Yes. That is true.

 

COMMENT: And then I would like to know if you have any information at all as to how the Christ begins to… Jesus died and rose from the dead. But in us, what is going to happen? I know we will go into full stature. You know, there is information about that. But do you have any understanding about that?

 

PASTOR VITALE: What is going to happen to this body?

 

COMMENT: Yes. How is it going to be forced into the image of the mind of Christ? It will not be through death and resurrection if we go into full stature. The only way is to go into full stature. Right?

 

PASTOR VITALE: I really do not know how it is going to happen. We are not up to that yet. Once we go into full stature, we will stop dying. So I think it is going to be quite a while. We are not up to that step yet. I think I have some ideas on it, but I would rather not put it on this message because I really do not know if it is correct. Most of the information that I have has to do with the first stage of the resurrection, which is what we are waiting for.  That is where most of my information is.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Do you have a question?

 

COMMENT: So He stopped being double-minded was after the baptism. Is that right?

 

PASTOR VITALE: Yes. The two minds were made one mind at the baptism. And the two minds, when they are made into one mind with Christ ruling, the name of that mind is the kingdom of heaven.  

 

After His victory in the temptation. After the baptism, Satan arose to dispute His authority. And we have a conflict between the two minds, the Kingdom of God, the mind of Christ, and the carnal mind. It was not until Jesus took authority over that carnal mind, in which Satan resides, and brought it under Him, that His mind was converted to the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

COMMENT: OK. So then it transferred from the Kingdom of God to the Kingdom of Heaven then.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Right.

 

COMMENT: So when He preached, did He preach to the people and tell them the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, or the Kingdom of God is at hand?

 

PASTOR VITALE: He spoke about both. He spoke about both the Kingdom...

 

COMMENT: Why would he speak about both? Do you know?

 

PASTOR VITALE: Well, because they are not the same thing.

 

COMMENT: So He was saying they are both available then.

 

PASTOR VITALE: They are both available. But the kingdom of God was available, you know, right at the moment. The kingdom of God is available first.

 

The Kingdom of God is the mind of Christ. So you can be double-minded and have the Kingdom of God within you and still have your carnal mind functioning.

 

And the Kingdom of God increases to the Kingdom of Heaven when it brings that carnal mind into submission and brings it to a point where it can no longer sin.

 

Then the Kingdom of God converts to the Kingdom of Heaven. That is the difference between the two.

 

Transcribed by VerbalFusion, 04/13/22

1st Edit, sp, 04/14/22

2nd Edit, rh, 04/23/22