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

 

You better buckle down and start to fight because there is no place to run. There is no geographical location you could go to. There is no lie that you could hide behind. There is no physical help for you at all. The war is spiritual; it is in the mind. Now, the only help for you is to get into another mind. It is the only help for you. You have to get into the city of refuge, you see, because we are all murderers. We are all murderers. We are all the spiritual offspring of... whom? Who is the murderer?

 

COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]

 

PASTOR VITALE: Well, that is true, Satan. That is true. What I had in mind, though, was Cain. Yeah, Cain. But of course, it was Satan in Cain. That is correct, what you said. We are all the spiritual offspring of Cain. We are murderers. We are the kids of the devil. We are liars. We are murderers. And we are all, this whole creation, under the judgment of death.

 

And there is only one hope for us. And that is that, if we make it to the city of refuge, according to the Levitical law, we are allowed to live in that city of refuge until such time as the... does anybody know? Until such time as the avenger of blood has died.

 

What does that mean? The person who is looking to kill you because you have committed a murder. Someone has a legitimate right to kill you because you are a murderer. And who has the legitimate right to kill you because you are a murderer? Who?

 

COMMENT: Christ in us?

 

PASTOR VITALE: Well, he is not the avenger of blood in this world system. Satan is after you, and that is how come everybody dies, because you all deserve to die. Me, too. You know, if we did not deserve to die, Satan could not kill us. See, we are all sinners. That is why we need a savior.

 

And the city of refuge is another mind, and you cannot be safe in my mind. I might be able to lend some strength to you while God is raising you up. But the day comes, brethren, when the Lord says, You are on your own, man. You had better start flying. And until that time, He will send other believers to help you. But that does not mean you will not get knocked around.

 

The only test, the only thing that matters, is that you do not stay down and that you do not get wiped out permanently. This is how I could tell that my God favors me. Anybody? My enemies do not prevail over me. My Bible does not say my enemies cannot touch me. It does not say they cannot hurt me for a season. It does not say they cannot do damage to my life, to my body, to my emotions, to my relationships, to my job. It does not say that. It says the end result of the enemy trying to destroy me is that she shall surely, in the long run, fail.

 

So, you see, do not look at somebody that is down now and say, well, God has abandoned them, because you do not know. You see?

 

COMMENT: That is true.

 

PASTOR VITALE: So you cannot look at someone in the depths of sin, at any given moment, and say, I am not going to bother with them because God has abandoned then. You do not know. God may be sending you to get them out of the pit.

 

And if you have a religious spirit in your mind, you are going to be the Pharisee that passes that poor guy lying on the road, bleeding and dying. And if you pass him by, what is going to happen is that right after you is coming the Christian who is in Christ, who is going to pick him up and put him on his own ass and take him and get him a room in the inn and pay for it out of his own pocket. And the Pharisee that had nothing to do with him is going to be locked out when the poor slob that was lying on the road enters into the glory of Christ. So do not be a Pharisee, but be a Son of God.

 

Well, I got my anointing. I could not preach 15 minutes ago. I said, Lord, I cannot preach. So we will see what God is going to do tonight. He cancelled my studies, so I have no prepared message for you. I did think he was giving me a lead as I looked through the Scripture, but I am not speaking about anything that I thought I would be speaking about.

 

So we are just going to flow with the spirit tonight. Some of our best messages come under these circumstances. How is that? Usually, or frequently, when God cancels my message, it turns out that somebody in the service has a particular need. And the message that comes out is specifically tailor-made, directed towards that need. Or there is something that He is just not telling me. There has to be a reason why I do not know what I am supposed to preach tonight.

 

See, sometimes, God tells me what I am supposed to preach. That is funny. I do not even know what I am saying tonight. It is wonderful to be in the service of God. You know, you do not know, from minute to minute, what you are doing or where you are going. Sometimes, I know what I am going to preach, but I do not know what I am going to preach tonight. So I am just rambling until the spirit really starts to move. Well, He is moving, but without direction at this moment. I do not see any direction.

 

So I would say that we had a tremendous victory here tonight with our spiritual warfare. The anointing is with us. It is present. The Sons of God have prevailed over the works of the enemy. And we thank you, Father. And that there was no division amongst the ranks. You know, when these witches' covens pray, they pray division amongst the ranks. We are of one mind and one accord here. And that is why we came out of this so quickly, you see.

 

That is why Jesus says, You want something from me, leave your gift at the altar and go make it right with your brother. There can be no division amongst the brethren because that is when you are going to get killed. When you are busy defending yourself, or beating up on your brother, or worrying that you were taken advantage of or somebody wronged you, you are going to get a knife in your back. You cannot ever take your eyes off the enemy. You have got to know, behind every problem in your life is some form of device of Satan, if you are truly serving God.

 

Now, do not be a fool. I know a man who suffered severely, claimed it was for righteousness' sake. But the truth is he was absolutely a hurtful, malevolent, obnoxious man, and people just hated him. So do not deceive yourself. If you are persecuted for righteousness' sake, then submit yourself to God, brethren, and He will bring you through. But you have to prevail until this spiritual warfare appears in the physical world.

 

The warfare is done in the spirit. As I said, it could take three days. It could take longer, three days average, to appear, for the results of it to appear in the natural. So you pray in faith. You pray the prayer of faith, believing that your word has power, that Jesus is with you. And then you bite the bullet, and you do not lay in a puddle of tears. You do not go around boo-hooing. But you get up, and you do what you have to do, and you see the victory of Christ come into your life, as fast as it comes.

 

You have to keep on going, brethren. And you keep on doing what is right. And you do not do right because you feel good; you do not do right because you feel bad. You do what you do because Jesus said to do it. It has nothing to do with being happy, with being sad, with feeling good, with liking someone, with hating someone. You get a revelation of what Jesus wants you to do, and you do it. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with your feelings.

 

And this is how you survive, brethren: Do righteousness. What is righteousness? Read your Bible. You still do not know what righteousness is? Get yourself under a teacher of righteousness and learn what righteousness is. You do not know what Jesus expects from you? If you cannot understand the Bible, start sitting under a teacher of righteousness and find out what is expected of you. And if you are too weak to do it, confess that you are too weak to do righteousness, and ask for the strength to do it.

 

And after that, there is nothing more you can do. That is when overdrive kicks in. And the name of the overdrive is Christ. And I want to tell you something, brethren. He does not kick in until you do all you can do. He is not enabling you. Christ is not an enabler. He is not enabling you. I tell you the truth. Neither can you fool Him; He knows how much you can do. And He is not kicking in until you are doing all you can do.

 

He is no sugar daddy to you; He is no Cadillac-giver. He is the God of Hosts, and He is here to get you out of hell. And the way He is getting you out is by arming you and equipping you and training you to wage war so that you can get yourself out, because Christ is a self-help program. Welfare does not work. He will baby you only so long as it takes you to get strong. He gives you the weapons. He gives you the armor. He gives you the know-how. And you cut the head off of Goliath. You do it.

 

There is this wicked doctrine in the Church today. There is nothing for me to do. Let Satan and Jesus belt it out. Oh, really? He who is not with me is against me.

 

Well, I see it is going to be one of those nights. I will certainly try any move of the spirit coming from anybody in the room. I just ask that, before you open your mouth, please just say to the Lord, If it is not your spirit, close my mouth. So we will just see where he is going to take us tonight.

 

COMMENT: I have a question.

 

PASTOR VITALE: OK.

 

COMMENT: Something keeps telling me to ask when I am around you, or call you up and ask, what does the term "overcoming Jacob's ladder" mean? It has been going on for about a week, but I just never asked. And it just popped up in my head.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Overcoming Jacob's ladder. Well, first of all, Jacob's ladder is the overcoming. So probably, you know, when we hear in the spirit, it is not always in perfect English. Probably what was being said to you was "the overcoming of Jacob's ladder." How is Jacob's ladder an overcoming? That is probably what was being said to you.

 

Jacob's ladder is, first of all, referring to an account in the Book of Genesis. Do you know where it is in the Scripture? In the Book of Genesis. That is interesting. I can really see God giving you that Scripture. Yeah, I really can. Let me give you the whole background of it then.

 

COMMENT: I am sure that I remember reading it at some point.

 

PASTOR VITALE: What chapter is that in? Do you know?

 

COMMENT: Jacob's ladder?

 

PASTOR VITALE: Is it not 32? Why do I think it is chapter 32?

 

COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]

 

PASTOR VITALE: Jacob prepares to meet Esau, Genesis, chapter 32. How interesting. And I am not a letterman. Chapter 32, verse 24.

 

COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]

 

PASTOR VITALE: And we have a whole message on it. I suggest you ask Xxxx or Xxxx for the message before you leave tonight and take it home with you. I do not feel to go word for word. We do have a message on that. I will just give you some background on it.

 

Jacob stole his brother's inheritance. There were two brothers, Jacob and Esau. In Bible days, the older brother inherited everything, inherited all the land, all the money, all the cattle, got the spiritual inheritance. And Esau was the older brother. But we see Jacob, in cahoots with his mother, stole Esau's inheritance and gave it to Jacob. And Jacob ran away, for free of his brother's wrath. He was afraid his brother would kill him. I cannot imagine why. I mean, that was pretty serious. He stole everything the guy had, you know.

 

And when something like that happens to you, I do not know how you feel, but the way I feel is that there is much more involved than the loss of money, than the loss of authority, than the loss of possessions. As far as I am concerned, the worst part of what Jacob did to Esau, as far as Esau was concerned, was the betrayal by his brother. The emotional devastation that must have happened, that Esau must have experienced, knowing that his own brother (and I would imagine, to some degree, he must know that his own mother was involved in his betrayal to an irreversible loss, irreversible loss).

 

We are told that, even though Esau repented with tears, that there was no way that he could get his inheritance back. And why was it necessary for Esau to repent? Because nobody can steal your inheritance unless you agree to let them take it. So the weakness was revealed in Esau that contributed to the weakness in Jacob and the weakness in the mother. And the result of it was that Esau was flattened.

 

This is an interesting point too. The Scripture says Esau, though he repented with tears, he was still the loser. Even though Jacob sinned against him, and the mother sinned against him, Esau, the one who was responsible to hold onto what God gave him, he was the one that God required to repent.

 

And you hear that from me in this ministry all the time. Do not let me hear that woman that you gave me told me to do it. I do not want to hear it. Does anybody not know what I just meant by that? Let me say it another way. If you messed up in something that I perceive or declare to be your responsibility, I do not want to hear you telling me so-and-so told me to do something else, or my shoe was untied, or I forgot my glasses, or whatever other excuse you are going to make up. I really do not want to hear it, and God does not want to hear it.

 

And you are not going to be back on your right path until you repent. If you, in God's way of thinking, had the responsibility, and you do not make yourself look good in God's eyes, or in anybody else's eyes, when you start saying that that guy walking down the street whistled, and he told me not to do it. I do not care who told you not to do it. God told you to do it.

 

So we see that Jacob ran away because he stole his brother's inheritance, his heritage, the whole spiritual authority over Israel. He had a lot of authority. The forefathers of Israel are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It should have been Abraham, Isaac and Esau, technically. Nevertheless, on the other hand, we see that God declares Himself to have the right of election.

 

So this is a great mystery. But we are told, in other places in the Scripture, that it was God's will all along that Jacob would get the inheritance. So did God raise up Jacob to steal Esau's inheritance because it was his will? No, brethren. God just lets the evil in men do their own thing. God does not tempt you to sin, but He will, for His own purposes, let sin, which is already present in you, manifest itself. Is that a great mystery to you? Well, God can do it because God's motives are perfect. And the end of everything He does is good. And the fruit of everything He does, even to the revealing of sin in man, is positive and unto life.

 

So if God lets a sin in you be revealed for His own purpose, because He knows that you are going to sin against your brother, and God lets it happen, He will make good out of it because He is God. But, you see, we as fallen men do not have the power to cause good to come out of evil. Therefore, we are not permitted to do evil. But God is permitted to do evil because, even when He does evil, good comes out of it. God is perfect. It is impossible for anything He does, no matter how evil it looks to the mind of man, to produce evil fruit because, you see, brethren, a good tree cannot produce evil fruit. And an evil tree, no matter how hard it tries, cannot produce good fruit.

 

So this is a great mystery to the carnal mind of man. The carnal mind is an animal mind. It is a beast mind. It cannot understand the ways of God. Do not even try, the Lord says. You are just going to mess up. You are going to stumble. You are going to trip. If you try to understand Me with your carnal mind, you will never understand Me. You will just wind up tripping yourself over and over and over again until I have to rain down judgment on you to correct you. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Just do what God says. Just do it. If you understand it, it is fine. If you do not understand it, do it anyway. Save yourself some aggravation.

 

So we see that this is a great mystery, but God intended the whole time that Jacob should have the inheritance. But in any event, Jacob got his inheritance as a thief.

 

And he ran away, and he ran to the land that his mother had come from, to her family. And he served her brother; was Laban not his uncle? Was Laban not his uncle, Jacob's uncle? His mother's brother, was he not? So Jacob served his mother's brother as a tenderer of his sheep. Most men were shepherds in those days. And Jacob married his cousin, his uncle's daughter. In those days, polygamy was legal. He married two of Laban's daughters, had about 12 kids, and inherited a whole bunch of cattle, and felt it was time to leave his father-in-law's house and go back to the land of his birth.

 

Upon returning to the land of his birth, his brother, Esau, who had also become very great, we are told, in the flesh; you see, Jacob received the spiritual inheritance, even though he was a thief, he was great in the spirit. Esau multiplied and became great in the flesh. He had married. He had become wealthy. He had many children. He had a large household with many armed men. He was militarily powerful. There was no police force like we have today. Every family was militarily self-armed within the family. There was no nuclear family in those days. Everyone traveled in tribes.

 

So Esau came out to meet his brother. And Jacob's heart, we are told, began to fill him with fear. We are told, in another place, it is the wicked that are fearful every day. Brethren, let me tell you something. There is no fear in righteousness. There is no fear in righteousness. But when you know in your heart that you have really done wrong, I want to tell you, fear comes upon you. Fear comes upon you.

 

I have a fear of doing wrong because, where I am in Christ, I have actually experienced, in my spirit and in my emotions, a spiritual weakness. That is the only way I can describe it unto you. When I know that I am in trouble with somebody because I have really done something wrong, I feel a spiritual weakness. And I run to repent so that I can get back into Christ, where I am defensed, where my strength is.

 

And I have a spiritual awareness of it. It is a frightening thing to be confronting another human being in some kind of conflict without your armor on you, which is righteousness. Once you have experienced verbal conflict, which is really spiritual conflict with somebody, with the armor of righteousness being on you, and you find yourself in a conflict, a verbal conflict with somebody, without righteousness behind you, you are naked, you know.

 

And it is a truism, even in the world, that you cannot see the forest for the trees. You have to have something and lose it to be aware that you do not have it. If you have never had it, you are not aware that you do not have it. But when you have been in conflict with the armor of light on you, and you find yourself in a battle and you do not have any armor on, let me tell you, that is a frightening thing. Run to make it right with your adversary, brethren, because you are about to be fed to the birds.

 

I know what I am talking about. When you get this revelation, you fight not to sin. It is a frightening thing to lose your armor. It is a real scary thing. Repent, brethren, quickly, before you are turned over to the judge until you pay everything that you owe. In case you are not familiar, Jesus said that, in case you are not familiar with that Scripture. Quickly, make it right.

 

So Jacob was filled with fear because he had sent his scouts out and his men. You see, Jacob traveled with a whole contingent of people: his wives, his children. He had a couple of concubines. He had two wives and two concubines. A concubine is a woman that you live with as a wife but who is not a legal wife. You are expected to provide for her and care for her, but she has no legal inheritance rights. So he had two wives, two concubines, 12 kids, all kinds of cattle and a house full of servants. And he sent his scouts out. They came back, and they told him, guess what? Your brother, Esau, he has really increased, and he is powerful. He is militarily powerful. He has armed men in his camp.

 

And Jacob was shaking with fear. Why? Because he knew that he messed with his brother really bad. And he knew that, legally, his brother had grounds to kill him. He knew that, if his brother came and tried to kill him and succeeded, they probably would just bury him and go on because it was righteous vengeance. So he was just plain scared.

 

Now, of course, it was too late. He could not go back and take it back. He did it. It was years later. The Scripture says he went off by himself, and he sought his God. And there appeared unto him an angel. And he wrestled with that angel all night. Now, the King James translation really is not accurate over what they were wrestling about. We go into that in our message, "And Jacob Prevailed."

 

Basically, what they were wrestling about was that Christ; the angel was Christ. The spiritual inheritance that Jacob had stolen arose in him and wanted to rule in his mind because fear is never of God. But the natural man Jacob wanted to run his own life. He did not want to submit to the new man which was manifesting in his heart and in his mind. And there was a battle between Jacob the thief, who sinned against his brother, and the new man, Christ, which was his inheritance, which he did not deserve, which he did not do anything to deserve, but actually was even stolen.

 

The Christ in him was stolen. We might say, in the Church world today, that he took the kingdom by violence. We are told the violent are continuously trying to take the kingdom, and they try to take it by force. We see Simon the sorcerer trying to buy the kingdom. Well, Jacob took the kingdom by force. He stole it from his brother.

 

Nevertheless, God let him have it. And now, the kingdom is manifesting itself unto Jacob. And he said, God, I do not want you. I want all the blessings you can give me; I want all the help you can give me; I want all the life you can give me; I want all the money you can give me. But I do not want you to be king of my life. I want to be king of my life, and I want you to be my genie in a bottle. And what do you think Christ said to Jacob? You have got to be kidding.

 

So we see a power play here. This is for a lot of people tonight. Brethren, it is time to lay down your weapons. All of your rebels that have been fighting against Christ for all of these years, I declare unto you tonight that the Angel of God has manifested Himself to you, and He is about to whup you once and for all.

 

COMMENT: [UNINTELLIGIBLE]

 

PASTOR VITALE: That got everybody here except Xxxx. She was defeated 20 years ago.

 

COMMENT: Oh, God.

 

PASTOR VITALE: So we are told that Jacob wrestled with that Angel. Can you imagine wrestling with God? Now is that not stupid? But we have all done it, including me. We all do it. Why? Because the carnal mind is insane. It makes no sense at all, right? It makes absolutely no sense at all to fight with God. Yet every one of us does it because, as I lovingly say, we are in our left mind. No one in their right mind would fight with God and get beat up and go through all the things that we go through.

 

COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]

 

PASTOR VITALE: And then we go, for the season, saying, Satan is after me. Satan is after me. Satan is not after you. The Angel of God is after you.

 

COMMENT: Yes.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Would you please stand still and let him rule your life? Well, Jacob would not stand still. He fought with that Angel, and he struggled with that Angel. And finally, the Angel, whose name is Christ, said, man, this guy is strong. This is just enough already. Whack. And He broke him.

 

The Scripture says, He touched the inside of his thigh. It is a parable, brethren. He touched the inside of his thigh. And when Jacob got up and tried to walk away, he found himself limping. Brethren, the human legs, the legs of our body, they are a type of our spiritual walk. They are a type of our ability to live our own life.

 

Now, have you ever asked yourself, why would an Angel of God cripple a man in the physical? You need a carnal mind to think that God would really cripple you for the rest of your life and be happy about it. God does not deform your body. It was a parable. It is a parable, brethren. The Angel crippled Jacob's carnal mind.

 

I want to tell you that your carnal mind is usually stronger than Christ Jesus who is being formed in you. Why? The carnal mind which you inherited, which is the sum total of all the carnality that has been in this creation from the time of the fall, that is what your inheritance is. And Christ Jesus has only been around for 2,000 years, and He is not full-grown in you.

 

So the Lord Jesus Christ is coming to give him a handicap. He is going to cripple your carnal mind because the chances of Christ Jesus in you standing up and whupping your carnal mind are about as great as David killing Goliath. And if you think that David killed Goliath without some spiritual help, you do not understand the Scripture.

 

So that is why you need the Lord Jesus Christ. He is coming, and He is going to cripple your spiritual legs because you are too strong, because you are so spiritually insane that you are opposing yourself. You are alienated against God in your mind. You have made yourself the enemy of God. You are a spiritual criminal. You do everything that is wrong for you and probably nothing that is right for you. And you keep messing up, and you keep falling down, and that is why you are dying.

 

Did you ever see a prize fight, and the guy is being beaten to a pulp, and he keeps getting up, and the crowd is yelling, Stay down, man! Your face is bloody enough. Would you please stay down? Would you please? Would you please stay down? Just stay down already, or you are going to get permanently hurt. Stay down.

 

That is what the Angel said to Jacob. This is enough junk already. I am the king of your life, and I am going to do whatever I have to do to bring you into submission to me. You have fought against me long enough. I have ignored you. I thought you were cute. I have said coochie-coo. I have laughed at you. I have forgiven you. I have sent people to help you. But you are too old to be playing these games. Now, start acting like a man. And if you do not, we are getting down to some real serious judgment here.

 

And I am going to stop you from doing the wrong thing. I am going to stop you from being self-destructive. I am going to stop you from hurting others, which is reaping cursing into your own life. I am going to stop you, one way or another.

 

So we see that Jacob wrestled with the Angel until the break of day. And I suggest to you it was not a natural day. Would you not like to believe that Jacob wrestled with the Angel the whole time that the sky was dark? No, brethren. Jacob wrestled with the Angel until the light went off in his head, and he saw the light of day. Have you not ever heard that expression before?

 

Brethren, depending on how foolish and stiff-necked you are, you might be struggling with this Angel for years until you see the light of day. And the day breaking is the Christ, the light of Christ breaking in your mind. One day, you wake up, and you say, Do you not get it, man? You have to stop doing that. And when you realize it, and you stop doing it, the day has broken. And you have wrestled with the Angel until the break of day.

 

So we see that the Angel prevailed over Jacob. He crippled him. And Jacob rose up a new man. He had had a conversion experience. Jacob had a spiritual experience with Christ. And he rose up, crippled but, behold, a mystery: crippled, on the one hand, but fearless, on the other hand.

 

We see that, when we stop fighting our own battles, when we submit to Christ and do it His way, one of the benefits we reap is that fear goes because there is no fear in Christ. If you are afraid, you are in your carnal mind. You are in your carnal mind if you are afraid. Christ is fearless.

 

We are told, in the Scripture, that it is this fearlessness, which is in Christ, that makes the enemy tremble. When they see your fearlessness, they will run from you. Brethren, it is a whole different ball game, fighting against a fearless man, who either believes you cannot kill him or does not care whether you kill him or not. That is a dangerous man to be fighting against. You could really get hurt. The Scripture says, "By your fearlessness, they will flee from you."

 

So Jacob rose up without fear and went out to meet his brother. He said, Well, I did it. I stole his inheritance. I messed with my only brother (I do not know if it was his only brother). I messed with him; I did him dirty. I did it; I cannot take it back. God would not grant him repentance. So let me go out and face the music, and if God lets him kill me, I am a dead man.

 

So he went out, and lo and behold, there was Esau. His brother came running to him, welcomed him, embraced him, and told him that all these years had gone by, and all was forgiven. He loved him as a brother. And they reconciled.

 

I skipped past the main point of this message. Before we got to that, while Jacob was wrestling with the Angel, once the Angel touched him and broke him, behold, there appeared a vision, a ladder, the bottom of which was in the earth and the top of which was in the heavens. And there they were: Ascending and descending on the ladder were the angels of God.

 

The term "Jacob's ladder" is referring to a spiritual doorway or a spiritual highway or a spiritual mechanism that connects heaven to earth. Now, of course, this ladder that we read about in Genesis 32 is just a symbol. It is not a physical ladder; it is a spiritual ladder. And it does not look like a physical ladder; it does not sound like a physical ladder; it does not operate like a physical ladder. It has the same function as a ladder. In the earth, it gets us from the spiritual earth to the spiritual heaven. That is the only characteristic of a ladder, of a spiritual ladder, that lines up with a physical ladder. And this spiritual ladder that gets us from heaven to earth is?

 

COMMENT: Christ.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Christ. And you have to get this ladder inside of your mind because only He who came down from heaven is going back up to heaven. The carnal mind was never in heaven, never came down from heaven, is not going back up to heaven. So if you want to get into heaven, you have got to get the mind that came down from heaven for the specific purpose of getting you back up to heaven. You have got to get the mind, and it has to be connected to you.

 

And when that ladder is fully completed and matured, you will ascend. That means you will, at the will of the Lord, either be in heaven with the Father or down in earth ministering to some fallen human being. And you will go up and down on the ladder.

 

We saw an outstanding example of this in Jesus of Nazareth when he ministered to the adulterous woman. When we looked up every one of those words in the Greek. And the Scripture says that Jesus bent down. He did not get down on His physical knees. We found out that it meant that His humanity went down very low, got out of Christ's way, so that the Christ in Him could ascend up to the top of the ladder and go into heaven. And from His high position in heaven, from His position of high priest, He erased the sin from the adulterous woman's heart and imparted power to her to no longer commit adultery.

 

And it was an act for Jesus of Nazareth, who was Christ, to do. It was an act that Jesus of Nazareth, who was Christ, did. And in order for Him to do it, He had to be at the top of the ladder. He had to be in His high place in Christ. It is my understanding of the Scripture that, from His low place in Christ, He did not have the authority to do it.

 

Now, all you Pharisees reading this message, do not get all upset. The Scripture clearly says that Jesus was the Son of God and man. When He was a man, he was a perfected man. But He was the Son of God, and he was a man. Jesus said, "I and the Father are one. Nevertheless, the Father is greater than I." And I say unto you, Jesus was the Son of God and man. Even though the man side of Jesus of Nazareth, who was Christ, was human and sinless, the God aspect or the God side of the man Jesus, who was Christ, was greater than the perfected sinless man side of him. Can you hear that?

 

And in order to perform the miracle of removing the sin from the adulterous woman, Jesus needed to be in the high place of his potential. He needed to be at the top of the ladder. Can you hear that?

 

I came in here tonight, and I said I could not preach. I had no anointing to preach. I am the same person that sat down in this chair, same person, same name, wearing the same clothes, look the same, same strong points, same faults. But I walked in; I sat down in this chair. I said, Lord, I cannot preach. Christ came up in me. I got to the top of the ladder, and I started to preach. That is what Jacob's ladder is. That is what we are talking about.

 

There is a high and a low in full stature. I do not believe that there is a high and low in the Spirit of God, in the pure Spirit of God. Jesus is now glorified, and I do not believe there is a high and a low, or a ladder, in the glorified Christ. But God in the flesh, there is a high and a low. And this is what Jacob's ladder is.

 

So we see that, when the Angel broke the will of Jacob, he became fearless. The Angel changed his name. His name was changed from Jacob to Israel, indicating that he had received a change of nature. And Jacob went forth and fulfilled his heritage.

 

Now, all ye rebels, hear this. You have all got a spiritual heritage, and you have all stolen it. What does that mean? None of you deserve it. None of us deserve our spiritual heritage. Christ is appearing in us, not for anything that we have done. We are not great. We are not better than anybody else. There is nothing special about us except that the Son of Man wants to appear in humanity. And for the time being, He has picked you. And the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. You have not done anything to deserve it. He just needs a body. He needs a body to appear in.

 

So, scripturally speaking, we have stolen. We are thieves. We have stolen our heritage, our inheritance. And it is time for the Angel to take what is His. And what is His? Our bodies, our personalities, our life.

 

And He is manifesting in you right now, and He is wrestling with you, and you shall surely be defeated. And the harder you fight, the harder you are going to fall because He is going to trip you, brethren, and you are going to fall flat on your face. And you are going to stay down until you agree to serve Him when you stand up. And you are going to do it His way. And not only that, but the end of the whole thing is that you are going to actually like doing it His way.

 

It is grievous at the beginning. It is grievous at the beginning. You have been running your whole life, all these years. Your head is all filled with carnal thoughts of what it is like to be a successful person in the world. And Christ is always the exact opposite of what your carnal mind tells you you should be, or what you would like to be, or what you want to do.

 

And I found out, when I was going through this, not that I am completely broken, but I am pretty broken. When I was going through this, when the Lord was first breaking me, I found out that everything that I thought I wanted so badly, I really was not all that happy with it. And everything that God was directing me to do, that I thought that I would hate, when I found myself there anyway, I found that I was actually content and enjoying myself.

 

And I came to the place where I even said to the Lord, I do not even know who I am. I thought I would hate doing this, and here I am loving it. And you keep sending me to do things that I hate, and every time you force me into doing things that I hate, I find out that I am actually happy. So I am so confused, at this point, I do not even know what I want.

 

And the Lord says, Good. Now you will just do what I tell you. I am telling you the truth. He made me do everything I hated, and I found out it was not so bad. Actually, I was enjoying it. I found out I did not know what was good for me. I did not know what was best for me. And I gave up. I just do what He tells me most of the time. Life is much easier.

 

You have been apprehended, brethren. Some people fight harder than others. But we are told that Israel is the goodly horse of the Lord. We are the horse of the Lord. He is going to ride you, brethren. You are a wild, bucking bronco. You have been out in the wilderness all these years, but you have got a rider now.

 

And we are told in the Book of Zechariah, by parable, that at the time of the fall, parabolically speaking, the horse, which is this soul which God made, threw her rider. And we see horses, in the Book of Zechariah, without a rider. Did you ever wonder why there was no rider on those horses? Because we threw our rider, brethren. And we have been riderless horses out in the wilds of this wilderness for generations.

 

But our rider has found us, and He has lassoed us, and he is sitting on our back, and He will stay there until we stop bucking. And not only will He stay there until we stop bucking, but He is a master horse trainer and fully intends to train us in dressage, which is a high form of horse training whereby you never spur the horse; you never whip the horse; you never put a bit in the horse's mouth. The horse is so highly trained that at the slightest nudge of the rider's knees, the horse knows what you want him to do and is able to do it. This is our end. It is not God's desire to hurt us, but it is his intention that we shall come into full submission to his purposes.

 

We are told, in the Book of Romans 11, we do not carry the root. Root is spirit. The root carries us. It looks like we carry the spirit. No, He is invisible, and He is inside of us, but He is directing us. Because we have the legs to walk in this world system, it does not mean that we direct the spirit. The spirit directs us.

 

But, you see, most believers do not have that straight. We have it backwards. We think that we are in charge of the spirit and that He has to meet all of our needs and do for us and be our servant. And for a season, that is even true. When we first come to the Lord, we are infants.

 

Now, look at our natural example. To a carnal mind, does it not appear that the mother is a servant to the infant? He cries, and she picks him up. She changes his mess. She bathes him. She washes his clothes. She feeds him. She meets his every emotional and physical need. So I can see an infant saying, if he could reason, Wow, this is not so bad. I have got myself a maidservant here. She is doing everything for me.

 

And then, one day, when that child reaches close to two years of age, all of a sudden, he goes into complete shock. His mother says to him, I am not washing your diapers anymore. See that thing over there? That is a toilet bowl. You have to get over there, and you have to sit on it, because I am not cleaning your mess anymore. And the party is over, and the child starts to grow up. And it is painful to find out that the love object, one who provided all of your needs, is no longer providing all of your needs.

 

If you follow this parable through, brethren, with our natural example, at the end of the whole thing, when the child is fully grown and a full adult, and the mother gets old, is not the child completely caring for the parent? If it has not happened to you, in principle, anyway, your children are supposed to be caring for you. It is a complete reversal, if you can hear what I am saying.

 

So, spiritually speaking, the young believer in Christ has every attention and every need met by the Lord. And as the child starts to grow up, we find out that the child comes into complete control by the Lord. It is a complete reversal. It is not exactly the same as the natural. But my point is that it is a complete reversal of the situation. He who was the object of affection and had every need met is now completely controlled by the Spirit of God.

 

It is put this way in the Scripture: When you are young, you dress yourself. But when you are older, another will dress you. It is the complete opposite of the natural. Praise the Lord.

 

It is time to come into submission to your spiritual husband, brethren. He wants to walk in you, and He wants to talk in you, and He wants to do in you, and He is tired of the battle. He wants peace. And the way the Lord makes peace with you is to utterly defeat you.

 

See, there is no compromise in Christ. There are no partnerships. He is the boss, and we are the servant. And when we come into submission to Him, after He breaks us and utterly converts us and cleans us up, He joins with us so completely that there is no difference between the Master and the servant. And we therefore inherit everything that He is.

 

So we see that we enter into all the power that we have lusted for through the giving up of all the power that we presently have. When we give up all of the power of our independence, which is, at its very best, inferior to the least power we could hope for in Christ. When we give it up, we begin to enter into unlimited power, which is in Christ.

 

But there is a period of a wilderness experience, where it is uncomfortable. The Scripture likens it unto the labor of childbirth. It is for a season, and it could be more painful or less painful, depending, to some degree, anyway, as to how much you work with the doctor.

 

So, brethren, praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Is someone working that pause button?

 

I just want to glorify the Lord. I am just so blessed at how He defeated the enemy tonight. I tell you, as recently as a few months ago, we would have a problem in this meeting. Once again, there is never any condemnation in anything I say. Brethren, the truth is going to set you free. You have to know that we all have carnal minds.

 

And sometimes, someone comes in here to these meetings with their carnal mind fully manifested. Sometimes, they come in here really mad at me. Sometimes, they come in mad at somebody else. Sometimes, they come in depressed. And we had a situation in these meetings where somebody would come in with a fully manifested carnal mind, trying to not admit it because they do not want to consciously mess up the meeting. So they would be quiet, but their carnal mind would be shutting down the anointing, and I could not preach.

 

And I went before the Lord, and I said, Lord, this just is not right. It is just not right that one carnal mind should come in here (and it is not even their intention to shut down the meeting. They are just coming in, and they are upset for some reason, and they shut me down). This just is not right. It should not be. And I cried out to God for a season, and he gave me an increase. And I know the night that God witnessed to me that He had given me the increase. And no one's carnal mind has shut me down since.

 

And I was wondering if tonight was not going to be the first night in all these months that the carnal mind, wherever it was coming from, was going to be able to shut me down. But it could not shut me down. Christ arose, and He scattered my enemies, and He rose up in great strength, and He overcame that carnal mind, wherever it was coming from, and He has given us a glorious anointing here tonight. And it is really thick and heavy, and people are getting slain in the spirit. They are passing out. The anointing here is so strong, I do not even have to lay hands on you. You get slain in the spirit without me even touching you.

 

Now, I am just giving glory to God because He answers every righteous prayer. And that was a righteous prayer, you see. It was not coming out of my pride. I was saying, Lord, I do not really care whether I preach or not. The point is that all these people are sitting here. You have gathered them together; you have called them. They have come to be fed. The preacher is here. Everything is ready. And I cannot defeat this carnal mind. This is an insult unto Christ. Why would you gather all these people and not give me the strength to show you?

 

How do I know it was a righteous prayer? He answered it. That is how I know it was a righteous prayer. I just am giving Him public glory tonight, and He wants me to clarify that. I want to say another comment on that. You see, when I cried out to Him, and this is very important: it was not pride in me saying I am embarrassed that I am sitting here, and I cannot preach. Because if my motive was pride and embarrassment, He would never have given me the increase. And you need to know that everything in this hour, as far as God is concerned, is motive. God is concerned with your motive.

 

And when He first raised up this ministry, I was tried severely on this point. I came in, on several occasions, and I had no message. And I sat here at the instruction of the Lord and boldly declared that, if the Lord did not give me a message, I would just go home. I was not preaching out of my carnal mind, no matter what men said about me, no matter how embarrassed I felt, or no matter what the negative result may have been of me not being able to preach. And every time I took that stand that I was not saying a word until the anointing hit me, the anointing hit me with great strength. The Lord never left me without a message for people that have come to hear what he has to say.

 

And then, several years later, after I had taken an absolute victory in that area, because I believe it with all my heart. I will just pack up and go home. Of course, this is my home, but I do not always preach in my own home. I will shut down the meeting if it is not the Lord speaking through me. And the Lord must know that that is true because, a couple of years later when this Christ is manifested, and I prayed that prayer, and I said, Lord, it is not for my own pride that I am asking for a spiritual increase but that this is not right. Is it not your ministry? Is it not your people? Is it not your service? Do you not want to be glorified? It is not righteous that an enemy mind should be able to shut me down. And he gave me the increase.

 

And I hope you can hear the difference because there is a world of difference in the two circumstances. Pride is the enemy of the spiritual man. It needs to be dealt with. How do you deal with pride? You must confess it as sin. You must confess her as sin. Pride is sin. Wherever she is manifesting, pride is sin. Pride kills Christ. Pride is your spiritual strong enemy. Pride is subtle. Pride has many hidden manifestations. Pride will kill your spiritual life, the whole time telling you she is God, the whole time telling you that you are justified in every ungodly thought that she is thinking through you.

 

If you are deceived, you are deceived by the pride of your own mind. Pride will blind you. Pride will deafen you. Pride will lie to you. Pride will give you instructions and say that it is God. Pride will justify your sin. Pride will kill your brother. Pride will draw your innocent brother's blood so that you can look righteous in your own eyes.

 

God hates pride. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. God loves you, but every son that he receives, He will chasten. And He will whup you until you are blue because it is a question of life or death. He will whup you to save your life. And if He is not whupping you, you are not a son, but you are surely a bastard.

 

So therefore, brethren, despise not the chastening of the Lord, for in due season, it shall reap the peaceable fruit of righteousness, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, your personal savior dwelling inside of your own heart that nothing can separate you from.

 

COMMENT: [UNINTELLIGIBLE] I know it is somewhere. I do not know what verse in the Bible. It is "Zion is calling you to a higher place in God."

 

PASTOR VITALE: Who is calling you?

 

COMMENT: Zion.

 

PASTOR VITALE: "Zion is calling you to a high place in God." And have you been hearing that Scripture in your head?

 

COMMENT: Yes.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Yes, OK.

 

COMMENT: One day, almost the whole day, I heard. And I was singing it, and it kept going around in my brain.

 

PASTOR VITALE: Well, Zion is a symbol of Christ in you. So the Lord is saying that Christ is calling you to a high place in God. The high place in God is Christ. Christ is higher than the Holy Spirit. This is something that is not commonly preached in the Church, but you may have read the Scripture that says, Christ must be formed in you, and that we are hoping to eventually find ourselves in the fullness of the stature of the Lord Jesus Christ. So what the Lord is saying to you is that He is calling you to go on with God.

 

We are told in another place, in the Book of Hebrews, If the Lord permits, let us go on to perfection. So there is a growth in God that the Lord never intended for us to receive the Holy Spirit and just stay in that place until we die. Just as there is a natural growth, when you are born as a human baby, and you continue to grow all of your life; even when you are physically mature, you continue to mature emotionally and in your personality. There is a growth in God that we do not hear much about in the Church today.

 

And I believe what the Lord is saying to you is that He is calling you on to perfection. He is calling you up to the next step or the next grade in school, if you will. And that is a spiritual experience which is the Christ being formed in you.

 

When you receive the Holy Spirit, He pretty much stays the same. You could have the Holy Spirit for 20 years, and the Holy Spirit does not increase in you. But when Christ begins to be formed in you, He increases in you. And the Scripture says, We grow in wisdom, and we grow in grace, and we grow in spirituality. And we now have within us the ability to go up where Jesus was because that ability is in Christ.

 

So I believe the Lord is telling you that He is calling you to the next step of maturation in God. And that is very exciting because, in this hour; well, eventually, it will be for everybody. God is not a respecter of persons. But He does not do everybody at once, just like with the Holy Spirit.

 

When the Holy Spirit first started appearing in this country, it was just a handful of people. And people were flying in from all over the world to get the Holy Spirit, to California. And now it has expanded. You can go into almost any city and find a church with the gifts and receive the Holy Ghost.

 

Well, the next stage of the Lord's development has started. But in this hour, there is only a very few that are called to it because it is starting slowly and expanding slowly. So He is calling you right now at the beginning. This is very early for the new move of God. He is calling you to have Christ formed in you, to go on from your experience with the Holy Spirit and grow and mature. And that is a great blessing. Praise the Lord.

 

COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]

 

PASTOR VITALE: That is wonderful.

 

And unfortunately, though, when we receive a call like that on our life, it comes with great travail. The Scripture likens the event to childbirth. In the morning, you have a man child in your arms, and you forget everything that you went through, but the labor is very painful.

 

So I see you have some tears in your eyes tonight, and you look like you have been suffering a little bit. It is just the signs of your labor. So I am sorry for your pain, whatever it is, but it is really a good sign. Praise the Lord.

 

Transcribed by VerbalFusion, 9/12/22\

1st Edit, rh, 9/13/22