Part 2 of 4 Parts

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

 

I have had a request to explain how Satan can be spirit on the realm of the soul and also be the spiritual skeleton. Is that the question? Yes, We will go over that.

 

Let me see one of those sets, and I will tell you what diagrams you could look at if you want to follow me with it. It is the last page of the diagrams that go with Message #12, is it not? From Message #38, part 12.

 

What we have is a spiritual life that dwells in this area that I am drawing as a circle, just so that we can understand it. This is the realm of the spirit that is within a human being. And the life of natural man runs from left to right on the plane of the earth. He keeps going around and around in the circle of the earth. He cannot go up, or he cannot get into the realm of the spirit.

 

So what we have here: This is the corporate body of Adam, and we have a multitude of people; I do not know if that is the right word, but I am not going to get technical. I just want to convey this idea to you. We have all of these people that are the many members of the corporate body of Adam, and they are all running horizontally from left to right across the realm of the spirit.

 

And then we have: Christ comes, and he comes from the totally opposite direction. Actually, He comes from within, but that is very hard to understand. So if you cannot understand that He comes from a deeper place in the spirit, then you think of it that He comes from top to bottom. He comes from top to bottom. He is coming from a completely different direction. And every time He intersects with a cell that is a member of the body of Adam, He forms this right triangle with Him. He forms a right triangle.

 

So we have a corporate creation. It is the combination of the natural man, the creation of the soul, that is indwelt by Christ. And they become one. And what Christ is doing is He is weaving a garment. And that garment is to be lain over the Father, which is Spirit, who is invisible because the Father wants to be seen.

 

And if you remember our teachings on the creation, the way the invisible man was seen was that he wrapped bandages around his head. The bandages did not have any form. What they did was they clung to the substance of the invisible spirit and revealed him.

 

So this garment that is being woven that is made up of the natural man, which is -- the spirit of which is Satan, and Christ; it is covering over the Father. Is everybody with me? So the Father is in here. He is in here, under the garment.

 

PASTOR VITALE: And does anybody know where the Father dwells?

 

COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]

 

PASTOR VITALE: In His Christ. He is in His Christ. At this stage of the creation, the Father cannot dwell in natural man. He would kill us. But Christ can dwell in the natural man because Christ is part man and part spirit. So if you are looking for the Father, He is in Christ. And if you are looking for Christ, you have to find a man in which He is manifesting.

 

So this is the corporate creation, when the garment is finished. I should not have written that over there. Now, what happens is that the Father, who is deep within this spiritual construction; or, if it is easier for you to understand, He is underneath this garment. He is spirit, and He starts vibrating forth.

 

Remember our teaching on the rainbow? It is one of the first few diagrams in your packet. He starts vibrating forth. When we had the rainbow, we had the sun. And the sun went through the red circles. What we have over here: The Father, He vibrates through His spiritual garment, which is water because soul is 96 percent water. And instead of a rainbow, which is half a circle, He gets a whole circle.

 

So when He vibrates forth through (I do not know what the exact order is). The closest thing to the Father is Christ. So when He vibrates forth through Christ, He gets an image, which is a circle, which is likened to the rainbow. But this image is appearing in the soul realm. This image is appearing in the soul realm. The Father is pure spirit, and as He vibrates forth through His Christ, a circle appears, just like the rainbow appeared.

 

And He vibrates forth through Adam. Now, all of these names are a part of this garment. As He vibrates forth through Adam, He gets another circle, which is the redeemed soul. That is Adam. He is still vibrating forth, and He is passing through all these elements that are right there in the center.

 

Now, Satan is there also. Satan is right there. He is part of the garment also. Remember, we talked about the woof and the warp. Satan is a part of the garment. So the Father, as He vibrates through, He passes through Satan also. So we get another ring over here. And Satan, in this realm, becomes the human body because he pierced through the soul, and he became hard. And when he became hard, the human body formed.

 

What I am suggesting to you is that whatever we see out here is a reflection of what is in here. The spiritual substance of the soul is within, and it is also the human body. The human body is the reflection of the spiritual life within us. Did I make that clear? It is the reflection of the spiritual life in us. The human body is the spiritual skeleton. It becomes the spiritual skeleton when the last ring is put on the creation, which is the glorified body.

 

When our house from heaven comes down upon us and joins to the body that we already have, this body will then become the spiritual skeleton because there is going to be another layer on top of us. But the body is still a reflection of the Satanic life in the garment that is covering the Father. And all of these rings are reflections of the energy source covered by the garment of the soul. Did I make that clear?

 

What you are looking at, when you see the glorified man, if there was one standing here right now, what you would be seeing is an image of the spiritual life of the Father, as typified by the Son, as it passes through the water of the soul life, which is Satan; it is Adam, and it is Christ. Now, of course, this goes one step further. This is a spiritual diagram of what we look like. But we know that this realm is a mirror image of the spiritual realm. This is what we are going to look like in the realm of the spirit. But we know that the natural realm is a mirror image of the realm of the soul. And what you get over here is a man.

 

Now, this is a great mystery because, when we hold up a mirror, and we look in the mirror (I look in the mirror; it looks just like me). It looks just like me. And I do not have any more information for you on this in this hour. In the realm of spiritual life, when that mirror is held up, the image is different than the spiritual life. And what it comes down to is that the spiritual life is energy. It really has no form or shape.

 

And when it wants to take on a form or shape, this is how the Father did it. He covered Himself with a garment that was made of His Son and the living soul, of which Satan is a part. He wove a garment, and He vibrated the rays of His energy through the garment. And in the realm of the soul, which there is some visibility of the spirit; have you ever heard of apparitions? Some people see demons, and sometimes they say they see ghosts. We do not have all the information. But sometimes, these spiritual entities do appear. So there are images in the realm of the soul.

 

And my whole point of telling you that is that there is a difference between the realm of the [AUDIO SKIPS] and the spiritual [AUDIO SKIPS] There is a difference. Can you understand that? The soul has a measure of form to it. But to get this hard substance of this body, you have to be the mirror image of what is in the soul realm.

 

You see, the soul realm is the reflection of the life of the spirit. And the human body is the reflection of the life of the soul. Did I help you any?

 

COMMENT: You helped.

 

PASTOR VITALE: OK. Well, you just keep praying about it. It is hard.

 

COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]

 

PASTOR VITALE: It is very hard. Well, that is all that matters, is that it is coming. Nothing else matters. As far as I am concerned, nothing else matters. It is just really tough. So I am just going to repeat that.

 

We are dealing with three realms. Pure spirit, which is typified by vapor, steam or gas, you cannot see it at all. Then we are talking about the spiritual realm of the soul, which has some form or shape, typified by water. Now, water is clear, and it is formless, but you can see it. You look out on the ocean, and you can see it. Vapor, you cannot necessarily see at all. But water, you can see. It still has no form, and it still has no shape, but it is visible. Water in a pool, a lake, a river, water in a cup, you can see it. And then the third stage is when that spiritual life passes through the water and becomes hard, and it takes on a body like we have now.

 

And this is still happening. It is happening every day of our life, that the spiritual life within our mind is passing through the soul of our personality and becoming hard. Does anybody remember how that happens? Once our body is formed, and this process still continues, as the spiritual life in our mind pierces through our soul and into the realm of appearance and becomes hard, what is happening in our everyday life? Does anybody remember?

 

It manifests as our behavior. If there is an ungodly man, and he has a spirit of alcoholism, and that spirit rises up and pierces through his soul so that it enters into the realm of appearance, he drinks until he becomes drunk. That is how it becomes hard. It becomes behavior.

 

If someone has a spirit of perversion, he can walk around with that spirit of perversion for a long time, and it may not pierce through his soul because of Christian teaching or moral teaching. But once it pierces his soul (and I remind you that the piercing of the soul is likened to intercourse with a woman). And the Scripture tells us that, when a man has sex with a woman, he humbles her. It is in the Scripture. She is humbled. She comes into submission to him.

 

There are a lot of women today that would like that to be the other way around, but I have a flash for any of you that might, by some way, on chance, be reading this message. If you are a woman, and you are aggressively seeking sexual activity, and you are pursuing men and bringing them into submission to you, spiritually, you are a man, because that type of behavior is male. I do not care what your body is. Can you understand what I am saying? Spiritually, you are a male. This is role reversal. It is spiritual transvestitism. There is no such thing as a woman that does something like that. Something perverse has happened to your spiritual life. You are acting like a man if that is what you are doing.

 

I have heard some really gross things (I would not even want to repeat it on this message) of what women in this condition do. They do not think that they are lesbians. Well, maybe they are not. I guess they are not lesbians. They are spiritual transvestites. Although, in the natural, I believe the psychiatric definition of transvestite is that it is a man or a woman that just likes to wear the clothing of the other sex. But there is a spiritual reality to it that is manifesting in this nation today.

 

If it ever manifested 50 years ago, I have never heard of it, women going around and raping men. Have you ever heard of that? It has been in the newspapers. Women have raped men. They rape men. And you say, how could a woman rape a man? Well, they take an object, and they rape him. It is not normal sex. This is not female behavior. I do not care what your body is like. If you are reading this message, and you even fantasize that kind of activity, sister, you have a severe spiritual problem. You need to repent and throw yourself on the mercy of the living God. This is very serious.

 

So I hope I answered your question. The soul expresses the spirit, and the body expresses the soul. And the spiritual life piercing through into the realm of appearance means we do it because all of this teaching is wonderful, but we have to, at some point, apply it to our life. What good is knowing all of these wonderful abstract things if it is not going to help us in our life? It is supposed to be helping us in our life. This is an anatomy of how we sin.

 

Well, right here, this is a picture of the Spirit of God. But if you are still a natural man, and that spiritual life of Satan is operating in your mind, what he is trying to do (and he never sleeps, and he never rests) is that he is trying to vibrate forth from the bottomless pit with every form of wickedness you can imagine and every form of wickedness that you cannot imagine. And he is trying to penetrate your soul with it.

 

And the defenses that you have in your soul is your Christian and your moral upbringing. And some people have a Christian and a moral upbringing, but because of curses in their life or because of devastation or damage to their soul because of trauma, rape, loss of parents, whatever, they cannot defeat this.

 

And if that is your condition, and you are reading this message, you need the protection of the Lord Jesus Christ. You need him to join with your soul and strengthen you so that you are not pierced by the invading, raping spiritual power that dwells in the depths of your unconscious mind. This is the practical application of what we have been learning.

 

Does everybody understand what I just said? This is how we sin. It does not come out of the blue. The bottomless pit is in your mind with every form of depravity. And he is breaking through into our society left and right.

 

I watched the news tonight. Did anybody hear? There is a new, unusually potent form of heroin on the streets, 99 percent pure. It is outdoing the crack. It is worse than the crack. It is coming from South America, 99 percent pure. People are dying from it because they do not realize how strong it is, and they are shooting it up. It is so strong, they can sniff it; they do not even have to shoot it. Pure heroin.

 

And they were interviewing the pushers. They are 10-year-old kids. They make $2,000 to $3,000 a night pushing this stuff. They do not go to school. And the interviewer said, "Do you not go to school? Why not?" They said, "No. What would we want to go to school for? We want to make money, man."

 

It is an international cartel that is bringing this stuff into the country. They say that this latest heroin is coming from Asia, as I recall, China, coming through Laos, Cambodia. And they showed the map. It is coming through China, but it is being passed through those free states. And it is also coming from South America.

 

And they say that the kingpin in South America that is ruling this empire, that is selling all of these drugs, is so powerful that the government of his own nation is afraid of him, that they were so afraid of him because, as long as he stays in South America, he can only go to jail if his country will extradite him.

 

And his country is so afraid of him that they have, I believe the word is abrogated. They have revoked the extradition treaty with America, which says, if America has a South American that is wanted in South America (I do not remember which country it was, and I do not want to make a mistake by putting it on the message). If X country in Latin America has a criminal hiding out in America, America will turn it over to X country. And if there is an American that is wanted, or if there is someone that is wanted in America, that country will turn this criminal over to America.

 

Well, they have rescinded the treaty because they are so afraid of this czar that is ruling. They showed pictures. He just murders anybody that gets in his way. They know who he is. Everybody knows who he is. They say the drugs are all over Wall Street. They are all over big business. They are all over big business. This is really incredible.

 

So Satan is piercing through the souls of the many-membered body of Adam, and he is becoming hard. The behavior of his wickedness, which was originally conceived as a thought in the unconscious mind of man, had appeared in the realm of appearance, and psychology says it is being acted out. And the way the Bible puts it is that it becomes hard. It takes form. It takes form. And it uses your body to take form because, if there is a spirit in the unconscious mind of the living soul, which is in all of us, that desires to murder, it needs a body to murder. It is going to use somebody.

 

I know there is all kinds of occult movies where spirits kill you, and all that. And I do not know whether it is true or not, and I really do not care. But by and large, it is going to manifest in a man, and it is going to use his hands. And it is either going to cut your heart out or shoot you or strangle you. That is what happens. That is how it works.

 

So all of this deep teaching that we have been having for weeks, this is the practical application to our lives. This is the anatomy of how we sin. And everybody has to examine himself. And if you have evil thoughts rising up from your unconscious mind, and you are not dealing with them adequately, you have to cry out to Jesus. He has to strengthen your soul, although this is the redeemed soul. He has to strengthen the barriers. He has to strengthen your spiritual walls so that Satan cannot pierce through and act this stuff out because, once he acts it out, you are really in trouble.

 

You are in trouble with the law, but you are also in trouble spiritually because, once you do it, whatever your problem is: if you steal, if you kill, if you fornicate, if you take drugs, if you lie; whatever it is, once you are doing it in the natural, he gets a stronghold on you because he has pierced you. He has humbled you. He has brought you into submission. You are his. And it is much harder to stop doing this behavior. You are his captive, and he can do this behavior through you. He can perform this behavior through you at his will, in most instances, at will, once he has pierced you. Any psychiatrist will tell you. Once you perform it, you are really in trouble.

 

They used to teach it years ago. I do not know if they still do, but the condition of the young women in this society is not too well. But I know, when I was raised, I was taught, stay a virgin until you get married because, once you taste it, you have really got a problem saying no. And if you have not tasted it, you can say no with much more strength than once you have tasted it. Once you have tasted it, you are vulnerable because your body wants it. Your soul wants it.

 

That is true with every ungodly thing that we do, and; I want to correct that. That is true with every form of behavior. It is also true with godly behavior. Once you have tasted it, you want it. Once you have cast out a demon, and you have tasted the glory, you want to do it again.

 

I do not know about you, but I am ruined. There is nothing that I want but to move in the power of God. I want to see the glory of God. I want to see it come down. I want to see people healed. I want to see demons cast out. I want to see the dead raised. I want to see people saved, whether they choose or whether they refuse. Like that testimony that I gave you earlier, the man was so ossified, he could not even say yes, and God did it anyway. That is what I want to see. I am ruined. Nothing makes me happy. There is nothing I want to do except move in the power of God.

 

I am utterly ruined. I am a social ruin. I so try and socialize outside of the Church, and I am a wallflower. I just sit there. I do not talk. I have nothing to say. I am dull. I do not drink; I do not smoke; I do not commit adultery; I do not make coarse jokes; I do not laugh at their silly little things. A lot of people do not like me. I am a loser. Well, I am ruined. I do not want any of that stuff. I am not interested in it.

 

Glory to God. I hope I answered your question.

 

We are going to go on with our study. We are on Message #39. This is The Sealed Book of Revelation, and that is chapter 5, and we are doing verse 8 today. This is Part Two of The Sealed Book.

 

I am going to recap Revelation 5:1-7: "And I saw the glorified man sitting on his redeemed Adamic soul and possessing and giving gifts and blessings to the pitiable, contemptible, unredeemed members of the living soul, which express the existence of Satan in their personalities and also in their behavior. And each of them was marked with the mark of God, the promise of full redemption, even the appearance of Christ in them."

 

"And I saw a mature believer, who had birthed the Christ. He was preaching with a loud voice about the one who was qualified to make the living soul responsive, operative and ready to fulfill the purposes for which she was created, and who was able to fulfill the promise of the Holy Spirit that she would express the image of God and receive eternal life."

 

"And nothing in the spiritual realm of the soul, nor in the realm of appearance, neither in the Satanic realm of the unconscious mind, was able to make the living soul operative and able to fulfill her purpose, even to produce an incorruptible soul and body, nor was there anything or anyone able to understand the mystery of how this was to be accomplished."

 

"And I wailed out loud for the masses of mankind because no one was found qualified to enable the living soul to produce an incorruptible soul and body, even though the one who was qualified to do so was being preached about." (He was being preached about, but no one could find a manifestation of him in the earth.) "Nor was anyone found who could acknowledge that the members of the living soul had lived in the realm of God's Spirit before they entered into the earth. Neither was there anyone who understood the mystery of how incorruptibility and eternal life would be bestowed upon them."

 

"And one of the spiritually mature men said to me, 'Do not mourn. Look, the Spirit of God manifested in the flesh. Even Christ, the spiritual substance which dwelled in David, has overcome the military power of the living soul, rendered it relatively unguarded and made it accessible to bring forth Christ, thus making the promise that Christ shall appear in all men available to the many members of the living soul.'"

 

"And I looked, and I saw, in the middle of the soul that the glorified man was sitting upon, and of the man raised to a higher spiritual power, and in the middle of the mature spiritual man in whom the fullness of God's government was operating, a lamb, which appeared to have been sacrificed. I saw him stand up in spiritual power with the fullness of spiritual strength having been restored to him and the fullness of both the imputed and imparted anointings sent forth by God into the earth of mankind, even Christ, flowing in and through him."

 

"And the lamb, the offspring of Jesus Christ, even Christ Jesus, the 42nd generation, came and took the contemptible, many-membered soul out of the protective and blessing hand of the glorified Jesus Christ, who sat upon his redeemed soul. And the judgments, which are designed to bring forth Christ in the many, began to fall."

 

We are talking about the lamb that was slain, and He was redeemed, and He stood up in spiritual strength. And He was taking the book out of the hand of the one that sat on the throne. And when we discussed this two meetings ago, we said that the one on the throne was the glorified Jesus Christ, who was in spirit form at the right hand of the Father, and that the lamb, who was slain, was the 42nd generation, Christ Jesus, the Sons of God that are appearing on the earth now, and that Jesus Christ in spirit form was turning over the living soul to the Sons of God in the earth to bring them all unto salvation.

 

Maybe, you know, lots of times, God quickens it to you while I am preaching, and I do not get it until later. But God told me that what that was really happening in that Scripture was that the Spirit of the glorified Jesus Christ, which was sitting on the throne, was being imparted into the lives of the believers, which we are.

 

It was not a question of, let us say, you or me, saying, All right, Jesus, I am ready. You know, Give me the book. Jesus, on the throne, handing the book to the lamb implies the life of Christ being born in the Sons of God. Jesus was going to fulfill his mission in his children. He is going to prolong his days in accordance with Isaiah 53. He is going to prolong His days. He is going to live in His offspring.

 

When I taught that message about living in your offspring, Thy Neighbor's Landmark, I really did not have a really strong Scripture for you. I do not think I did, anyway.

 

But this is the Scripture right here. It is Isaiah 53, and it is in chapter 5 of the Book of Revelation. Jesus Christ is living today in you and me. We are His offspring. I do not think you need a greater witness than that because that teaching is true. He is alive in us. That man, that spirit that was in the man Jesus Christ of Nazareth, that same spirit is in you and me. He is living again in the next generation.

 

So the lamb that was slain, taking the book from the one that sat on the throne, that is a symbol which depicts the Spirit of Christ. Now, remember, Jesus was crucified. He was raised, resurrected from the dead, and He ascended to the right hand of the Father. And He is now in pure spirit form. He is appearing in the flesh again in His offspring. He is appearing in His flesh again in the next generation. It is Him in us doing the works. We are only a Son of God because He is in us.

 

So this concept of the lamb taking the book, what it really means is the life of Christ going from the throne, which is the realm of the spirit, into the lamb, which has form and shape in the natural realm. Amen. Glory to God. We will go on.

 

Verse 8, chapter 5 of the Book of Revelation: "And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and 20 elders fell down before the lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints."

 

Now, you might say, how are we going to have a whole message on one verse? But we have got some really interesting stuff coming out of that short verse, brethren.

 

"And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and 20 elders fell down before the lamb." The words "fell down," that is one Greek word. It is Strong's 4098, and it does not just mean to fall down because you have nothing else to do; it means "to prostrate yourself." It also means "to perish; to come to an end; to disappear and to cease."

 

Matthew 21:44 says, "And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken. But on whomsoever it shall fall" (the stone shall fall) "it will grind him to powder." I am going to take a few minutes to understand this verse, Matthew 21:44. It is going to help us understand Revelation 5.

 

"And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken. But on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder." This word, "broken," is Strong's 4917. And it means "to shatter; to dash together." If you take two things and smash them together, or two pieces of earthenware or ceramic, it shatters. And Webster says that "shatter" means "to break apart; to disintegrate." It also means "to drop off parts."

 

And I am suggesting to you that what is happening to us is that our soul is being shattered, it is being disintegrated, and that it is being dropped off. But in the spirit, things are the opposite of the natural. Now, in the natural, when you have a baby, it passes out from you. When you circumcise a baby boy, the foreskin is disposed of. Well, how many of you have heard that there is going to be a spiritual circumcision? A circumcision of the heart, a circumcision without hands. And when that which is cut off from us is cut off from us, it is dropping off, but it is dropping in. It is dropping in, and it is going to be swallowed up by the life of the spirit.

 

So what I am suggesting to you is this word, "to be broken; to break apart," it is our soul that is being broken and that is being shattered. But you are not going to see it fall on the floor. It is going to stay within, and it is going to be crushed, and it is going to become a part of the new creation, man.

 

The word "grind to powder" is Strong's 3039. And that means "to winnow or to fan." And that is referring to grain. I hope you all here have heard that the grain is made of tares and wheat, and the wheat is edible, and the tares is not. And after the grain is harvested, the tares have to be separated from the wheat. Now, this word, "grind to powder," it means "winnow."

 

And the way they do that, the way they separate the wheat from the tares, is that they blow very strong air on it. Did you ever hear that Scripture, "And Jesus is coming with his fan in his hand"? I have heard it for years. I never knew what it meant. You know, I never knew what it meant is that He is coming, and He is going to blow this strong wind on the wheat and the tares, and what the wheat and the tares are us, when we are both the natural man and the spiritual man. The natural man is the tare, and the spiritual man is the wheat.

 

But when Jesus blows the wind on us, the tares do not go flying off into the sky. What happens to them is that they lose their power. Now, we are talking about the soul man. They come into submission, and they become the spiritual skeleton. They stay within. Everything in the spirit stays within. In the natural, your baby passes away; your body fluids pass away; your waste passes away. But in the spiritual, everything stays within. And God brings it to a place that He could use it. Even the waste matter is used; it gives form to the creation. Hallelujah.

 

I have another witness for you there on the circumcision that is without hands, Romans 2:29: "But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God."

 

So it is our heart that is being circumcised. It is our heart that is being broken, dashed to pieces. And it is our heart that is being dropped off. But because it is in the realm of the spirit, it is not being thrown away. Jesus even uses the garbage. He is so glorious; He even makes use of the garbage.

 

Alternate Translation of Matthew 21:44: "And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken. But on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder."

Alternate Translation: "And Christ shall appear in the one who joins with Christ in the destruction of his own soul. But the Lord will separate the undesirable elements out from the unrepentant man by his spirit through the painful process known as tribulation."

 

"And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken." And the stone is Jesus. "And Christ shall appear in the one who joins with Christ in the destruction of his own soul." If you fall upon Christ, you are joining with him in the destruction of your own soul. And the result of that is that He shall appear in you. Christ shall appear in you. He shall become your righteousness. He shall swallow up all of your ungodliness if you say, I reject the ungodliness, and I join with Christ. He is going to swallow up all your ungodliness. And He shall appear in you.

 

But if He shows something to you, if He shows you your evil heart (and every man alive has an evil heart). I do not care. Do not tell me what one person did and what someone else did. You are all sinners, and there is no good thing in any one of you. Do not hold yourself up against anybody but Jesus.

 

If you do not fall upon His mercy, if you do not join with Him in destroying the wickedness in your own soul, the Scripture says, He is going to fall on you, and He is going to grind you to powder. And what that means is the Lord will separate the undesirable elements out from you anyway, by his Spirit, through the painful process known as tribulation. Nothing is said about Christ appearing in you. Nothing is said about Christ appearing in you.

 

Now, we do not know what happens after He separates out the undesirable elements. But I want Christ to appear in me. I am having a hard enough time being separated when I am falling upon Him. I cannot even imagine him falling upon a human being.

 

So we know that, at least in this hour, if we join with Him in this work of purifying our soul, we can expect to see Him. If we can have this revelation, that if we join in Him, He is going to appear in us, I believe we are going to see it in our lifetime. And if you cannot see this, and you do not join with Him, you are going to get purified anyway. It does not say anything about him appearing in you. I do not know about the rest of it. But at the very least, it is going to take much, much, much, much longer, at the very least.

 

So let us go on with verse 8. Oh, I have a couple of more witnesses for you here.

 

Philippians 2:12: "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye has always obeyed, not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." That is the joining with Christ and looking upon the wickedness of our own soul and saying, Yes, Lord, I hate it as much as you do. Separate me from it. Hallelujah.

 

Matthew 3:12: "Whose fan is in his hand" (talking about Jesus) "and he will thoroughly purge his floor and gather his wheat into the garner, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

 

We went into all that to study this concept of "fall down." That is what it means, to join with Christ in destroying your own soul, so that you are utterly prostrate before the indwelling Christ within you. That is a very deep meaning to this word, "fall down."

 

"And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and 20 elders fell down before the lamb." Now, I remind you that the book that they took was the book that typified the many members of the living soul. And the reason they took it was for the purpose of bringing the many-membered living soul unto salvation.

 

And what I am suggesting to you here is that, in that moment, when Christ says to you, You are part of the company that is going to be sharing in this extreme responsibility of executing judgments upon the saints, He is saying, Your soul had better fall down before Me, because there is no way you are getting that book, and there is no way you are getting that authority over My people, unless you are in submission to Me. There is no way you are judging My people without the love of Christ in your heart.

 

So if somebody comes to you, brethren, and they tell you they have authority over you, and they are not in utter submission to Christ, you had better get on your horse and pack it out of there because you have got yourself a false prophet. Do you understand what I am saying?

 

At the moment that they received authority over the living soul, they died to their soul life, and they became servants to the living Christ. Anyone that is building his own kingdom, anyone that is looking for any kind of glory or gain, has not died to their soul. I am not saying you cannot have things. I am not saying you cannot have money, and I am not saying you cannot have a building. But you had better be submitting to Christ.

 

And, brethren, there is a responsibility at your end too. You have to be able to discern who you are submitting to because, if you submit to the wrong person, you are in trouble. Because Jesus will always save you, but what do you need the grief for? What do you need the grief for, right?

 

They took they book, and they fell down. When the Lord said to them, Now is the time, here is the authority to judge the saints; how are we going to save the world? Judgments are going to be executed against them. You have to become righteous. The judgments have to be executed upon the sin in mankind. Amen.

 

So when the lamb received the book, Jesus was saying, Here is your dispensation to judge the saints. And we mentioned this on an earlier message. As soon as you head into the next chapter, all of the bombs are falling. The hail is falling, and the four horsemen are there. And all of the judgments are falling. That is the whole rest of the Book of Revelation is the judgments. Right after Jesus gives the book to the saints, all the judgments fall.

 

Well, who is doing it? "And another angel came out, and he lit the censer." And an angel came out, and smoke arose. Who are the angels, brethren? We are the angels. When Christ appears in us, we are the angels. We are executing the judgments upon the world, upon the sins of the world, so that Christ can appear in them also. Hallelujah.

 

So in order to do that, the qualification that we must submit to is that our own soul life has to die, and we have to be in utter submission before we can execute the judgments upon another person. You cannot be executing the judgments on somebody because you do not like them, or because they hurt you, or because they stole your husband. or because you do not like the way they talk to you. There is only one valid motive for executing a judgment upon somebody, and that is that the righteousness of God has appeared to you and shown you sin in a particular area, and that [AUDIO SKIPS] in you has executed the judgment upon the sin in the other person because you love the person and you hate the sin.

 

Can you understand that? It has to be the righteousness of God saying, You cannot do that, it is ungodly. You cannot hurt others, and you cannot hurt yourself. And I curse that activity in your lifetime, and I crush it and grind it under my heel. But your motive has to be righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

 

"And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and 20 elders" (which typify the mature spiritual man). The four beasts really mean the squared living creature, he who has been squared in his spirit, he who has received Jesus Christ in a mature measure in His spirit. And the four and 20 elders, the 24 elders; twelve typifies the government of God, and two is the number of witness. So we have two witnesses for each of the 12 tribes of Israel. We are talking about a man that is mature in his spirit and in whom the government of God is operating, the righteousness of God.

 

"And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and 20 elders fell down before the lamb, having every one of them harps." Having every one of them harps; now, this is very interesting. For years, we have seen pictures of little cherubs flying around with wings and strumming their harps. And for years, I have known that that could not be the case. I had some revelation of what it was, but God gave it to me much deeper now, and it is very interesting. Let us go on with this.

 

First of all, the phrase says, "and they fell down before the lamb." So the word "before" means "in the sight of." The word "before" means "in the sight of." They fell down in the sight of the lamb. Their soul lives utterly died, and Christ was seen in them. That is what that means.

 

Now, let us see. I have a note here. When I taught on chapter 4, verses 9 and 10, I failed to convey the idea that the 24 elders falling down before the throne is in the future. It was in the future then, but here in Revelation 5:8, it is in the present. I failed to do that. When I taught on chapter 4, verses 9 and 10, my Alternate Translation was in the present tense. I said, "They fell down before the throne." But I made a mistake. It is in the future tense. Let me read that verse for you.

 

Chapter 4, verse 9 and 10: "And when those beasts give glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth forever and ever, the four and 20 elders fall down" (they shall fall down) "before him that sits on the throne."

 

"And when those beasts" (when those living creature, that is us), and when they "give glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth forever and ever", then the spiritual elder in them is going to fall down before him that sits on the throne.

 

So before your soul can be crushed, before your soul can be prostrated before the living God and receive this authority, you have to give glory and honor and thanks to Him that sat on the throne. You have to be acknowledging the Lord as God of your life, and as the source of everything that keeps you alive and sustains you.

 

I do not care. You could see somebody that could be moving under the anointing; they could be doing healing; they could be casting out demons; they could be doing mighty miracles. But if they are not praising God, brethren, something is wrong. There are a lot of signs that we could look for in a man of God.

 

I have taught here extensively that a man of God can be a great blessing to you and still not be perfect. God only knows I am not perfect. But you have to look for these things as they affect you. We do have people in the earth today saying that they are the manifested Sons of God; they are completed Sons of God. Well, you cannot be a completed Son of God unless you fill all these qualifications. You have to be holy; you have to be perfect; you have to be without sin; you have to be giving glory to God.

 

And there is a whole ministry that I know of that is still on Long Island and elsewhere; they do not give glory to God. They say that they are manifested Sons of God, but they do not give glory to God. They teach that this anointing was in them from birth, they just have to be aware of it. And when they become aware of it, they are the Sons of God. They give no glory to God at all. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

 

So I just wanted to point that out to you, that in chapter 4, verses 9 and 10, the Holy Spirit is saying, When that happens, when they give glory and honor, then the four and 20 elders will be utterly prostrate before him that sits on the throne. And right now, we are in verse 5, chapter 8, and it is happening.

 

"And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and the 20 elders fell down before the lamb." So we know that they gave him glory, and they gave him honor, because they fell down. Amen. They gave him glory and honor and thanks because it happened. They fell down.

 

Alternate Translation, the first third of Revelation 5:8: "And when Christ Jesus, the offspring of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, took possession of the remaining members of the living soul, the living creatures who had been raised to a higher spiritual power, and the spiritual elders in whom the government of God was operating, with the double witness of the Father and the Son, or the Spirit and the Word, they utterly died to their soul lives as the fullness of the life of God appeared in them and joined with them."

 

So I said it a little differently here. I said that the 24 elders represented the government of God. That is what I told you before. And in this Alternate Translation, I said it was the double witness of the Father and the Son. I hope you know that God expresses His life in many ways. So the number 12 is the government of God, and it is multiplied by two, which is the number of witness. But the government of God is also the Father and the Son. It is also the Father and the Son.

 

Let me read that again for you: "And when Christ Jesus, the offspring of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, took possession of the remaining members of the living soul, the living creatures who had been raised to a higher spiritual power, and the spiritual elders in whom the government of God was operating, with the double witness." I told you there were two witnesses; well, the double witness is "the Father and the Son, or the Spirit and the Word. They utterly died to their soul lives as the fullness of the life of God appeared in them and joined with them." Hallelujah.

 

We are going on with "having every one of them harps." Now, this word, "having," is Strong's 2192, and it means "denoting possession." It means "denoting possession."

 

The Greek word for "harps" is Strong's 2788, and there is no information on that. It merely means "harps." In the Hebrew, however, it is Strong's 3658, and it means "a stringed instrument struck by the hand." But Gesenius has a comment. It says, "The original idea of this word appears to be that of a tremulous or a vibrating stridulous sound."

 

Now, I did not know what that meant, so I looked it up. "Stridulate," in Webster, it means "to make a shrill, creaking noise by rubbing together special bodily structures," and it is used especially of male insects such as crickets and grasshoppers. That is a stridulous sound. It is shrill. Have you all heard a cricket? It is not a particularly pleasant sound.

 

Now, they translated this word "harp," but the root of the word is not a pleasant, melodious sound. It is a shrill, shrieking, grating sound. They just did not know what to make out of it, (because it does imply strings), they said it was a harp. Well, let us try and find out what the Lord is saying here.

 

This word, "stridulous," it is from an unused root, and it means "to give forth a creaking and stridulous sound, such as that of a string when struck," and it is used of a whining, mournful sound. So in other words, we are saying, it is not a harp with its beautiful melody, but when a string is struck, and you get a twang, that is what it really means.

 

Well, let us try and get some more information. It means "creaking." I said, "to give forth a creaking sound." Well, Webster says that the word "creak" means "to grate; to squeak," something like that. To grate, that is it. "To creak; to grate; to rasp; to squeak." Nothing pleasant or melodious. The word "creak" is from the word "croak," which means "to make a deep, harsh sound" (like that, a deep, harsh sound) "to speak in a hoarse, throaty voice." It means to predict evil or to grumble.

 

Now, this just does not sound at all like the pictures I have seen of these little cherubs playing their beautiful harps in the heavenlies.

 

Job 38:4 and 7: This is God challenging Job: "Where wast thou, Job, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of god shouted for joy?"

 

Have you all here heard that Scripture before? It is a pretty well-known Scripture in mature circles because it indicates that we existed in the heavenlies with the Father before we ever entered into the flesh.

 

"Where were you when the morning stars" (that is supposed to be us, outside of the flesh, before we entered into the flesh) "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of god shouted for joy?"

 

Well, brethren, I am sorry. It does not mean that at all. It is a very poor translation. So, in trying to find out what harps mean in Revelation 5:8, we are going to do a study in Job 38:7, and try and find out what the Lord is speaking about there.

 

"The morning stars sang together." The word "morning" is Strong's 1242, and it means "dawn or the break of day." It is from a root that means "to plow or to break forth." And I hope that you know that the word "plow" is associated with the plowing of our souls so that the seed of Christ can be planted in it. So it means "to plow or to break forth." And the Lord is plowing our souls. He is getting rid of the roots and the curses and the demons. He is planting the seed of Christ, and the light of Christ is breaking forth from the darkness of the earth of our soul.

 

So the morning refers to being plowed, which those of us that are here know is not too pleasant. Now, the word "stars" is Strong's 3556, and it simply means a star, but it is from other words, two other words, one which means "to heap up"; it means "a rising or an appearing," and it also means "to burn; to brand by burning; to prick or to pierce into." And here we go with the piercing again. We were talking about it earlier. So we are talking about piercing through the darkness of the soul so that the day can shine through. That is what we are talking about. We are just going to go on a little more.

 

Now, "the morning stars sang together." This word, "sang," is Strong's 7442, and it does not mean "sing" at all. It means "to creak or to emit a stridulous sound." It means "to shout aloud." I put one positive translation in because I did not want to be biased. But there were maybe two positive translations to 10 or more negative translations. It does mean "to shout aloud for joy." It can be translated that way, "to cry out or be joyful." But it also means "to creak or emit a stridulous sound," and we just went through all that. "To creak" means sounds of death. Well, what is going on here?

 

"The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of god shouted for joy." Well, the word "sons" is Strong's 1121, and it refers to a builder of the family name: sons, grandsons, nations. It is referring to life in the flesh. So it is the sons of god, referring to the life of God, in the flesh. Amen.

 

Now, this "sons of god." The word "god" is Strong's 432. It is not the word that says "Jehovah." It is the word that means gods in general, and it means "gods or deities in general, whether true or false." And Webster says that a god is "a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require worship." A god is one who controls a particular aspect or part of reality.

 

And I do not know if I ever taught this here, but it is my personal opinion that, in relationship to soul, spiritual life is a god. A lot of people get upset over the Scripture in the Book of Psalms that says, "Ye are gods, but ye shall die like men." They do not understand that the level of life above where you exist, to you, is a god.

 

To the animal level that lives beneath us, the elephants and the tigers and our pet dogs and our pet cats, brethren, we are gods to them. We are gods to them. If we have pet animals in the house, their life depends on us. We feed them; we take care of them; we meet their needs.

 

And on the opposite side, man has destroyed communities of beautiful animals in Africa and in Asia. I hear the elephant is almost extinct. It is horrendous what we have done to the animal population, which is one spiritual realm below us. They are powerless in our sight, brethren. They are powerless. A tiger or a lion might kill one man here or there. But by and large, the living soul is a god to the animals. We have conquered them on every level. We eat their flesh. We take their skins, and we make coats and leather furniture out of it. We are gods to them.

 

Well, spiritual life are gods. Manifestations of spiritual life are gods to people that live on the soul realm. And I will tell you, brethren, it is in the Scripture. We have no power over the life of the spirit. Outside of Christ Jesus, we are utter victims of spiritual life. A lot of people do not like that, but it is what the Scripture teaches. Spiritual life is stronger than us. We are like the animals of the jungle in relation to man. We are the animals in the jungle, in relation to spiritual life. They can do a lot with us. They can kill us. They buy us and sell us. And they do kill us; we die. Have they not succeeded in causing us to fall so that we die?

 

So to say, "Ye are gods," you know, all that that Scripture is saying is that you are more than soul. It means that you are spiritual life. Can you hear that? A lot of people get all upset when they hear that Scripture, "Ye are gods." All it means is that you are spiritual beings, and you are spiritual beings because the life of the Father is in you.

 

This Scripture in Job says, "The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of god shouted for joy." But it does not say the Sons of Jehovah. It says the sons of spiritual life. Well, we have to find out what spiritual life they are the sons of. Let us find out.

 

And the word "shout for joy" is one Hebrew word. It is Strong's 7321, and it means "to mar." Shout for joy? To mar? You know what "to mar" means? If you have a clay pot, and you bash it with your hands, you mar it. Shout for joy? "To mar, especially by breaking; to split the ears with sound; to blow an alarm; to destroy; to make a joyful";  well, I put the one positive there. In almost every Hebrew word, there is a positive and a negative application of it. But the negative applications of this word were much greater than the positive applications. It can be translated to "make a joyful noise." It means "to be evil; to become evil; to be made worse," and it is used to describe warlike clamor. This is singing in the heavens. What is going on here?

 

I am going to give you an Alternate Translation, and we will talk about it some more. This is Job 38:4 and 7: "Where were you, Job, when the spirits, who pierced through into the realm of appearance, were propelled or plowed into the earth, and the living soul that they became part of, even the creation of God, became evil?"

 

Is that not what happened? The sons of god followed the Son of God. Remember, the Son of God was propelled into the earth, and then the sons of god followed him. They were propelled into the earth. And what happened? Did they not become evil after they were buried in the earth? Were they not tempted? And did sin not appear in them? And did we not discuss, in this ministry, that the definition of evil is one who is incomplete? Did they not fall away from the life of God? Were they not separated from God, and did they not become incomplete and evil?

 

And we had a word study on the word "evil." There were several words translated "evil." One of them depicts a fall from grace. You are evil if you fall from a higher realm. Well, these were the sons of god. I am sorry. They were the spiritual life, and they fell down into soul life. They became natural men.

 

I am going to read it again, Alternate Translation, Job 38:4 and 7: "Where were you, Job, when the spirits, who pierced through into the realm of appearance, were propelled or plowed into the earth" (that is us, in case you have not realized what I am saying) "and the living soul that they became part of, even the creation of God, became evil?" Can you hear that?

 

Jeremiah 31:27 says: "'Behold, the days come,' saith the Lord, 'that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and with the seed of beast.'" So there was spiritual life that was plowed into the earth, but it became evil. Glory to God. Hallelujah.

 

So we are working in Revelation 5:8. I am going to read you my Alternate Translation of the second half of that verse, and then we will talk about it some more. We are talking about the harps now. "And each and every one of them had a natural man as part of their spiritual being."

 

So what I am suggesting to you is that the harp is the natural man that became evil, the spiritual life that became evil. That is what I am suggesting to you, that this whole concept of a creaking, croaking, stridulous sound, it typifies evil. And I am suggesting to you that this is the Holy Spirit's way of saying there was a soul, and there was a spirit, and there was Satan present in the glorified man.

 

Let me read this for you out of the Scripture. This is verse 8: "And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and 20 elders fell down before the lamb, and every one of them had a harp, a golden vial full of odors," and -- "which are the prayers of the saints."

 

And we are going to go into those last few words. I am going to tell you what I am saying so that you can follow me. What that is saying is that they became glorified men, and every one of them had a spiritual skeleton, which was a human body. That is what the harp is. It is a hidden, deep way of saying it. They had a stridulous sound. They had a croaking. They had evil within them. It was a part of the glorified man.

 

Let me read you this Alternate Translation: "And each and every one of them had a natural man as part of their spiritual being, whose evil nature had been covered over by Christ, leaving only the shell of the natural man, even the spiritual skeleton which gives form to the body and the personality."

 

That is what the harps are. That is what the harps are. They are that part of the glorified man that makes this harsh, hoarse, gruff, evil sound. Glory to God.

 

Let us talk about the golden vials, and we will go back over it again. They also had "golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints." Now, that word, "vial," is Strong's 5357, and it means "a broad, shallow bowl or a deep saucer." And I know we talked about this in another meeting, but I will go over it.

 

The subsequent paragraphs of the Book of Revelation talk about the judgments that are poured out. They are referred to by many Bible scholars as the seven trumpets and the seven bowls. And there is much speculation going on in the Church world about what these trumpets and these bowls are. And I declare to you, and I suggest to you, that it is very simple, brethren, that the trumpets are the Word, and a bowl holds liquid, and the bowls contain the Spirit. The judgments that are falling upon the natural man are taking two manifestations. They are taking the manifestation of the Word of God and the manifestation of the Spirit of God.

 

So we are saying here that every man had a harp. Every glorified man had a harp. He had a natural man that was part of him, whose evil nature had been neutralized. And he also had a golden vial full of odors. So the vial typifies something that holds the spirit. Did I look up the wrong word here? What I have written down is "incense." I must have looked up "odors"; it must mean "incense." I just wrote it wrong here. It is Strong's 2368, and it is an aromatic substance that is burnt.

 

Philippians 4:18 says, "But I have all and abound. I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things that were sent from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to the soul." The odor is a sacrifice, an acceptable sacrifice, the sweet smell of an odor.

 

Let me read that for you again: And everyone had a harp, which was a natural man, and golden vials." Now, gold typifies deity. So that which is holding the spirit, the bowl that is holding the spirit; what holds the spirit? Does anybody know what holds the spirit? The soul holds the spirit. Amen. And the bowl is golden. So we are talking about the redeemed soul. Everyone had a natural man, which is the spiritual skeleton. And everyone had a redeemed soul. And in it was the spirit, and it was full of odors. It was full of something that was burning.

 

And I declare to you, brethren, that what is burning is our soul. The submission of our soul to the Christ within us is a continual sacrifice that continually burns before God. And if you recall our teaching in Ezekiel 1, of the glorified man, the fire was within him, and it was around him. So the soul is continuously being consumed by the fire of God, but it never disintegrates because this is spirit, and it is a mystery of the life of God. The spirit of God is constantly consuming our soul. It is constantly joining with it. It is constantly having intercourse with it. But the soul is burning, but it is not consumed.

 

And if you recall, Moses looked up, and behold, he saw a burning bush. But the bush was not consumed. The wood of the natural man was encompassed in the flame of almighty God. The flame did not consume the bush; it gave life to the bush.

 

So the fire of God, when it burns within us and without us, it is not going to destroy us. It is going to impart life to us. What is in the spirit is the exact opposite of what is in the natural. In the natural, the bush would burn and be no more. But in the spirit, you not only are not destroyed; the fire gives life to us.

 

So we are still in verse 8, and we are saying that, after the Sons of God receive the fullness of the spirit (I am reluctant to say "glorified" because I really do not know). To me, the word "glorified" means that your body is converted also. And I really do not know if, at this point, their body was glorified. But I do believe that they were caught up to a spiritual place where they were purified totally in their spirits and their souls.

 

So every man that has been raised to a higher spiritual power will express it that way. They had with them harps. They had a natural man that had been neutralized, and they also had souls that had been redeemed and were now golden. And that soul was full of burning incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And that typifies the burning of the soul. And what is burning it? It is the Spirit of God.

 

So they have the Spirit of God, the redeemed soul, and the spiritual skeleton. That is what they are saying. They have the redeemed soul, the spiritual skeleton, and Christ, the Spirit of God. That is what that is saying. Did I make that clear? I hope I made it clear. I feel like I am struggling, for some reason.

 

Let me read you an Alternate Translation, for the balance of Revelation 5:8: "And the souls covered over with the deity of Jesus Christ, which were filled with the spiritual life of God, and they have ascended to a high spiritual state of being because they sacrificed their soul lives unto God."

 

"And the souls covered over with the deity of Jesus Christ" (that is the golden vial) and they were "filled with the spiritual life of God" (that is what is burning the soul) "and they have ascended to a high spiritual state of being because they sacrificed their soul lives unto God."

 

I am going to read you the recap of the whole verse 8 of chapter 5 of the Book of Revelation: "And when Christ Jesus, the offspring of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, had taken possession of the remaining members of the living soul, the living creatures who had been raised to a higher spiritual power, and the spiritual elders in whom the government of God was operating, with the double witness of the Father and the Son, or the Spirit and the Word. They utterly died to their soul lives and joined with the life of Christ within them."

 

"And each and every one of them had a natural man as part of their spiritual beings, whose evil nature had been covered over by Christ, leaving only the shell of the natural man, even the spiritual skeleton, which gives form to the body and personality. And they also had souls covered over with the deity of Jesus, Christ, which" (that is the redeemed souls) "which were filled with the spiritual life of God. And they have ascended to a high spiritual state of being because they sacrificed their soul lives unto God." Hallelujah.

 

Are there any questions on this at all? Glory to God.

 

COMMENT: What does the word "prayers" really mean?

 

PASTOR VITALE: Prayers merely mean communication with the Lord. It merely means communication with the Lord. You do not have to get down on your knees, and you do not have to say big, fancy prayers. If you are just talking to God, that is prayer.

 

So it says, "the vials were full of odors, which are the prayers of the saints." Now, well, I am glad you asked that question because, apparently, I did not put it in here. Now, we said that the vial is filled with odors. That means the fire of God is burning in the soul.

 

And we said that is spiritual sexual intercourse, which is the communication between God and the saints. The true communication between God and the saints is spiritual sexual intercourse. It is not just that we say, Hi, God, how are you? Well, some of us are having intercourse with Him now in some measure. But the ultimate relationship between man and God will be a continuous, unending relationship. The only way we can understand it is by likening it to sexual intercourse. And that is the communication that we shall have with God.

 

And we know, throughout the Scriptures, the expression is used, "And Abraham knew Sarah." He knew her. You get to know someone intimately when you join with them and experience a form of intercourse.

 

Well, right now, we are having some communion with God, but, brethren, it is not little crackers and a little cup of grape juice. No matter where you are in Christ, if you are having any communion with God at all, it is in His Word. It is by studying and meditating upon His Word and really desiring to understanding it, and saying, Lord, I want to know what you say. That is your communion with God. And the wine is the life of his Spirit in you when you are partaking of spiritual things.

 

If you are praising God in spirit, you can do it in a corporate group; you could be singing; or you could just be talking to one of the brethren, and there could be an exchange of the life of God. You could be praying for somebody. That is communion with God. But in our ultimate condition of communion with the Lord, which is prayer, communion with God, we shall be in a condition of continuous intercourse with Him.

 

So that is why it says that. When we get into this condition, where we have a natural man that has been subdued, a soul that has been redeemed and filled with with our soul burning by the power of God, we shall really be praying to God for the first time in the fullness.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Did I answer your question? Anybody else? Yes? OK, let me get over there.

 

COMMENT: You said the odors was fire, right?

 

PASTOR VITALE: Odors mean incense.

 

COMMENT: Oh, that means incense? Oh.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Odors mean incense, and incense was used in the Old Testament as a form of worship. God calls it a sweet-smelling savor. The burning of incense, which is what odors mean, typifies the burning of our soul, the sacrifice of our soul. The burning of our soul is the sweet-smelling savor in the nostrils of the Lord. The total death of our soul life in submission to his spiritual life, that is the sweet-smelling savor of the sacrifice of our soul unto God.

 

And I gave you a testimony earlier. I am being severely persecuted on my job. And the Lord has told me to stand. I have submitted my soul life unto the Lord. Very painful, brethren. It is very painful. It is very nice if you want to raise your hands in church, but, brethren, that is not it. He wants you to stand when He says stand. Jesus went up on the cross, brethren.

 

And as I meet more and more mature believers, I am hearing stories of tremendous sacrifice. I heard one story of a man and his wife, that the Lord required them to move in with a family that were fallen Christians. They had done great damage in the Church world and caused a lot of pain and grief for a lot of people. And this man and his wife moved in with them. They utterly abused them.

 

I am told there was a newborn infant. This man and his wife, which had married children, they were not young people. They were taking care of the baby. They were washing diapers. The man was scrubbing clothes in utter humiliation for a whole year. And they cried out to God and said, Lord, what am I doing here?

 

Now, this man told me this personally. He said, "I am a man. You have got me, you know, washing dirty women's clothes." And he did not say it to me, but I really think he meant menstrual blood. He was washing this woman's clothes, and he was just humiliated. He was a macho man all his life. He had been a real tough guy. And they stayed there for a whole year.

 

And the end of it was that both the man and the woman recommitted their lives to the Lord. The Lord convicted them, and they repented. He came back in their lives in power. And I am told that, in this hour, they have a very spirit-filled Bible study in their homes. So he and his wife sacrificed a year of their life of utter humiliation for these people. And I am telling you, brethren, this is what we are coming into.

 

I was speaking to someone the other day who is a very new Christian. And they go to what sounds like a very spirit-filled church, but compared to where we are, a little on the young side. And she said, this past Sunday, they had a visiting preacher. And he said, It is wonderful to be on the 'God, I want' end, but who wants to enter into the kingdom? And they all went running up for the prayer. But if they only knew what was coming, they might not have run up for the prayer.

 

Because there is great glory when you enter into the kingdom, but the sacrifice that is required; I will tell you, I am just going on by the grace of God. I do not know how I am doing it. It is like I am truly dying because every natural instinct that I would have must be suppressed, or if not suppressed, ignored, if you want to do what God tells you because what He asks you to do is in complete contradistinction to anything that any normal person would do.

 

I have all these people coming to me, saying, How could you do that? You know, How could you let him make a fool out of you like that? What is your problem? Do you not have any pride? There is something wrong with you. And I would just say?, I am standing there because I believe that man is going to be saved. But even if he is not going to be saved, God told me to do it. God told you to do it? God would not tell you to do that. You have to go down to the corner and get your Cadillac from God. He would not tell you to sacrifice for another human being. Would God tell you to be humiliated by a human being? And then the Lord shows me the Scripture that says, "If your employer buffets you without cause, it is a glory unto God." Oh, really? Really.

 

I have six minutes left on the message. I just want to show you something. I have this typewritten on one of those diagrams that I just gave you tonight. I just want to show it to you, sort of solidify it into your mind.

 

We said that this is what the glorified man is going to look like. He is going to have a spirit, and the Father is going to be in that spirit. And the Father is going to be covered with Christ. It is going to be covered with the redeemed soul, which is Adam. And then he is going to be covered by the spiritual skeleton, which used to be the human body.

 

And his last outer layer is going to be the glorified body, which we are told is going to be of crystal. And that crystal is going to be hard and impenetrable. It is going to be our defense. We are told, I believe, in the Book of Ezekiel, that the Lord will be a wall of fire within us and without us. Well, that might sound like a contradiction when I tell you that the glorified body is crystal. But this is a manifestation of the fire of God.

 

Remember, we said Satan is a spirit, and his reflection is the human body. Well, God is a spirit, and His reflection is the glorified body. God is going to become hard. He is going to pierce through all of these layers, and He is going to become hard, and He is going to form a layer around us that the Scripture calls crystal because it is going to be indestructible. Nothing will be able to pierce through it.

 

Now, I hope I have made the point to you that this is a spiritual diagram of the glorified man, and that this realm of appearance is a mirror image. There is a mirror, and there is going to appear on the face of the earth a glorified man. And I am just putting a crown on His head and a scepter in His hand. In this realm of appearance, this diagram is going to appear as a glorified man.

 

Now, when you look at that glorified man, you are going to be able to see every element of this diagram. You are going to see the glorified body because it is going to be shining. It is going to be the glory of God shining on the outside. You are going to be able to see the spiritual skeleton because we are told, in our study in Ezekiel 1, that one of the faces of the living creature was that it looked like a man. When you look at this glorified man, you are going to see the form of a man, but there is going to be glory around Him that is going to appear like flames of fire.

 

You are also going to see the redeemed soul because the soul typifies emotion and personality. So when you talk to a glorified man, you are going to be able to see a personality in him. But it is not going to have the evil characteristics of Satan because Satan will have been neutralized. But you are going to see emotion; you are going to see talent; you are going to see skill. I do not whether we will be drawing or painting or building, but you are going to see expression of emotion and of individual personality.

 

You are also going to see Christ, which is righteousness. You are not going to see Satan in the soul. You are not going to see someone that is trying to con you. You are not going to see someone that is trying to steal from you. You are going to see a true personality, but in that personality, you are going to see Christ. You are going to see the love of God, righteousness, a desire to help you, mercy and compassion.

 

If you recall our study in Ezekiel 1, Satan was utterly castrated, and the righteousness of Christ appeared in the soul. And I was at a loss for words a few minutes back when I was talking about the soul. The soul can manifest talent, emotion and talent and individuality. And you are no longer going to see Satan in there.

 

How many people have seen artwork that is really perverse? Artwork, sculpture, painting that is really perverse? That is an expression of the personality where Satan is ruling. So we are still going to have a personality of expressions, of emotion and talent and all kinds of (I cannot think of any other words, but basically, that is it, emotion and talent). But it is going to be Christ appearing in that personality, so there is not going to be any more perverse art.

 

Everything is going to be beautiful. As a matter of fact, the artwork of the spirit is this whole world. We are not going to have cities with garbage laying around. It is going to be a utopia because Christ is appearing in the personality.

 

Oh, and in the very center of our being, we have the Father. And if you recall, in our study in Ezekiel, the Father is a bright white light who shines down to the depths of our soul and out through the outer reaches of our being. And He is light, and He is life, and He is glory. The living creature, the glorified man, shall have life. And that shall be a reflection of the Father.

 

So I just wanted to point that out to you, that when; you see, when I am a natural man, and I stand here, you may not know who I am. If you do not have discernment, you cannot see what is operating in my soul. You cannot see what is operating in my mind. You do not know whether I am a friend or whether I am an enemy.

 

But when you see the glorified man, you are going to see right down into his heart. And that is what you are going to see. You are going to see the glory, which is the crystal, the form of the human being, the form of emotion and talent, and the righteousness of Christ in it. And you are going to see life. You are going to see everything. Nothing shall be hidden. You are going to see right to the heart of the person. Glory to God.

 

Transcribed by VerbalFusion, 08/19/22

1st Edit, rh, 8/29/22