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PROPHECY
Yea, saith God, and even as Jonah fled from me, saith the Lord, and was swallowed up and found himself in the belly of the whale, even thou who fleest from me, saith God, shall find himself in the same condition. Yea, saith the Lord, thou shalt go where I send thee, saith God, for thou fleest, indeed thou shalt go down, saith the Lord, in accordance with the book of Jonah, and thou shalt find thyself in the sea of the living soul, saith God. Yea, even controlled by thy unconscious mind, which is Satan, saith God, and indeed thou shalt find thyself swallowed up by a great fish, saith the Lord. Yes, you shall be the vessel that manifest Satan himself, saith the Lord God, indeed, and thou shalt die saith God, for separation from me, indeed, is death, saith the Lord. And what for, saith God, for indeed the day shall come, saith God, that I shall bring thee to repentance anyway? Why waste all this time, saith God, why flee from me, why experience the pain, saith the Lord? Repent, saith God, and I shall anchor thee where I would have thee, saith the Lord. Yea, saith the Lord, the entire living soul flees from me in this hour, saith God. They call me witchcraft, and they call me mind control, and they call me bondage, and they recognize me not, because they know me not, saith God. But I shall apprehend them, saith the Lord, and I shall consummate our marriage, saith God, and they, indeed, shall conceive, and when my Life is in them, saith God, they shall know me, saith the Lord, for when I am in them, they shall know me.
MESSAGE
Thank you Jesus! Thank you Lord! Hallelujah, glory to God! He changed my whole message tonight. I guess we are going to do the book of Jonah. "Now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying; Arise, go to Nineveh that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before me."
"God said to Jonah, Go to that living soul, and, in particular, that manifestation of the living soul that is in your own heart, and resist it, cry against it, for the wickedness of that soul is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa, and he found a ship going to Tarshish." He paid the fare, which means that he paid the price, brethren. When you run from God, you pay the price. It is not free! You have to pay the price, it is not free, and you got to pay your wages, brethren. He paid the fare to get him away from God. He went down into the ship, and he went to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord. Glory to God!
"But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken."
Brethren, there is no place that you can run where you could get away from God, because He is going to follow you with a big wind. Some people call it the demons, some people call it witchcraft, and some people have all kinds of names for it but, brethren, if you are not going in the direction that the Lord has pointed you in, there is a big wind coming after you. You better believe that it is not witchcraft power. It is Almighty God Himself coming after you. His intention is to turn you around to start moving in the direction that He is sending you into. Glory to God!
Verse 5, "Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his God, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship unto the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship." He was so low down that even in the ship he was not on the top, he was in the bottom of the ship. He was not even on the top of the ship. That is how low down he was, and he lay fast asleep.
"So the shipmaster came to him and said unto him, "What meanest thou, oh sleeper? Arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we will shall perish not." Glory to God, Hallelujah! "And they said everyone to his fellow, "Come and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots and the lots fell upon Jonah."
Brethren, if you run away from God, I declare to you that whoever you run to, whatever society you run into, you are bringing the curse of God upon you with you into this other society. The point is, you will not be accepted. You will not be accepted! You will not be accepted any place except the place that God has for you. If you are suffering from rejection, and if you are suffering from loneliness, because God has not given you the kind of satisfying fellowship that you desire, and possibly need, where you are in God right now, I declare to you, you are not going to get it by running in another direction. There is only one thing for you to do, and that is to dig in, serve God as faithfully as you can, where you are now, and wait for the deliverance of his Spirit, which will bring the fellowship that your soul desires.
I have lived this, brethren. I have gone through terribly lonely periods where there was no one that I could talk to about the things of God that could understand what I was talking about. God would always give me a dream that I was trying to do things in the carnal way. I would either have a dream of riding a bicycle on the sand of the ocean. In other words, I am in the water now. I am in the realm of the spirit, and I am using a carnal means to get things done. Once, I had a dream of trying to drive a car through the ocean. One night I got so rebellious, and I was so angry because I did not have the kind of friendship that I wanted, that I called up an old friend that was living in California, I had not seen her in years. She happens to be a very reprobate woman, a highly demonized woman. We reminisced over old times, and it was so good to have somebody glad to hear my voice. Everybody hated me! She promised to call me, and I hung up the phone and renewed the relationship. The Lord rebuked me. He told me that I cannot go back to my old friends, even if they wanted me and even if they loved me. He said that sometimes it is lonely in God, but if you trust the Lord, and you endure, He will make it easier.
I have more friends and more rewarding relationships than I have ever had in my life right now. Although it is certainly not ideal, but it is much better than it was at the time that I called this woman. You know, she never called me. I do not believe for a second that she lied to me. The Lord must have just destroyed the piece of paper with my phone number on it. At that time, I was not listed. I tried to do it again a few months ago. I had a really bad moment that I went through, and I called another old friend that I have not seen. She was there when my daughter was born. I have not seen her in eighteen years. I was a friend of hers twenty years ago. We talked about old times and we reminisced. It was so good because she accepted me, and she promised to call me. This woman is not a liar, but she has not called me, and I know that it is God.
Brethren, if you are lonely in the Lord, just be as faithful as you could possibly be, because you cannot get your fellowship from an area that God does not want you to have it from. Sometimes He deals with us through loneliness, it turns us towards Him. You cannot run away, you cannot run away, you are going to bring the curse that is on you to wherever you go, the people will recognize it, they will reject you, and they will turn on you. Glory to God! Hallelujah, thank you Jesus!
Verse 9, "And he said to them, I am a Hebrew, and fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land. Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him, Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them."
Fleeing from the presence of the Lord will bring nothing but destruction upon yourself, upon the surrounding area, and upon the people that you flee to. Glory to God, I am going to skip over the next few verses now.
They wanted to cast Jonah into the sea. They wanted to get him out of their presence. Brethren, if you think you are being persecuted by the church, wait until you get into the world, and they find out that you are bringing a curse upon them. They are going to be willing to kill you, brethren. When they are willing to kill you, you are not going to have the protection of the Lord that would have when you are being persecuted for righteousness sake. Glory to God!
They took up Jonah, Verse 15, "And they cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased from her raging."
Glory to God! This sea is typifying the living soul that died. Jonah was fully cast back into the living soul that died to become a natural man. He was totally returned to the fallen adamic soulish realm. Glory to God!
"And then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice unto the Lord, and made vows."
Now, these are heathens. They feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice unto the Lord and made vows. Do you hear this, brethren?
There are people out there that know God is real. They fear Him, and they sacrifice to Him, which means that when God ordains it, they will submit to Him. There is a whole world of people out there that are God's people, brethren. As we go on, I do not know how far I am going to get with this message tonight, it was a last minute thing, but we are going to find out that the reason Jonah was running away from God is that God had told him to go preach to the heathen, to the Gentiles.
Jonah was a Hebrew, and he thought that the word of God was only for a few select chosen people. Does that sound familiar to you, brethren? God said to Jonah, "I want this gospel preached to the whole world because they are all my people, and they are all made out of the substance of my spiritual life." Jonah said, "Not me Lord, I would rather become a carnal natural man than go preach to those dirty filthy heathens." He ran away. He went down, was returned back unto the sea. He became a natural man.
Verse 17, "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." Brethren, in the midst of the living soul that died God still had control over Jonah, and He put him in the animal that He wanted him to be in. Do you hear this, brethren? Jonah was a spiritual man. He ran away from God, and he wound up living inside an animal, brethren. Glory to God! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Lord, I know what is in my heart, but I do not know how to say it. I am going to go on.
Chapter 2. Do you know that you are living inside an animal body right now, brethren? Do you know that you are inside an animal body? We are all inside of an animal body. God put us here. He is in complete control. No matter how far away somebody is from God, they are in the belly of a big fish. We are going to find out that when they repent, that fish is going to spit them out, and he is going to be restored to life. Jonah was resurrected out from among the dead, brethren. Hallelujah! Glory to God! Let us go on.
Verse 1 of Chapter 2; "Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord, his God, out of the fishes' belly."
Brethren, there are billions of people walking around on this earth that are swimming around in the water of this soul realm. They are all in the bellies of big fishes, and some of them pray to God out of the belly of the fish. "And then he said, By reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and He heard me. Out of the belly of hell cried I..."
Brethren, if you are down here in this sea of the living soul that died, you are in the belly of a big fish. You might think it is a human body, but God, from the realm of the spirit, calls it a big fish. This man is repenting. He said, "I cried out of the belly of hell, and you heard my voice O God". Verse 3, "For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the sea, and floods compassed me about, all thy billows and thy waves passed over me." Judgment: "Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight, yet I will look again toward thy holy temple."
"The waters of the living soul that died compass me about, even to my soul, the depths closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains..." He went down to the lowest place of lack, "the earth with her bars was about me forever, yet thou hast brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God." Glory to God!
Verse 7, "When my soul fainted within me from the judgment, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came into thee into thy holy temple."
We are going to skip a few verses. Verse 9, "But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that I have vowed, salvation is of the Lord." Jonah, in the flesh in this hell of this soul realm, repented. Glory to God!
Chapter 3:1, "And the word came unto Jonah the second time saying, "Arise, go to Nineveh that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee." Brethren, when he repented, God told him to do what he did not want to do that first caused him to go down into judgment.
Do you hear this? If you run away from God, and you go through judgment, when He brings you to repentance, He is going to tell you to do what He told you five years or ten years ago, or whenever it was that you ran away from Him. He is going to speak the same word into your mind, "Go do what I told you to do." Glory to God! "Go preach the preaching that I bid thee."
Verse 3, "So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days journey." Nineveh was the capital of a great heathen nation. We are told here that God told Jonah to go preach the preaching that He told him to preach.
We are going to find out later on that God brought a message to Nineveh that apparently brought repentance! Glory to God! Verse 5, "So the people of Nineveh believed God and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them, even to the least of them." Now, what did Jonah tell these people that they believed God? It does not even say here that they repented. It says, "they believed God." Now do you think that what they believed was they were going to hell, and they put on sackcloth? No brethren, I declare to you that Jonah went to Nineveh, and that he preached the glory of God, that he preached that all men were made out of the substance of Almighty God, that he preached about the son of God becoming poor that we might become rich, and that he preached that the spiritual son of God was lowered into the earth so that we could be formed.
I declare to you that he preached unto them that all men shall be saved, and that they looked at Almighty God. They looked upon themselves, and said, "Oh Lord, we are men of unclean lips," and they put on sackcloth, and they repented because they saw the glory and the mercy, and the love, and the royalty of Almighty God.
I declare to you that threatening people with hellfire is not what is going to bring them into repentance. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Glory to God!
Verse 6, "For the word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him and covered him with sackcloth." Now, the king of Nineveh, which is Satan, that is Satan, he is the king. Amen? "And he covered him with sackcloth and he sat in ashes." He caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles saying, "Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock taste anything, let them not feed nor drink water." Now, I heard a preacher preach once. He said, "Is that not something?" They even put their animals on a fast." Brethren, we are spirit, soul, and body. Our animals are our bodies! The animals are our bodies. Glory to God!
Let us take it again, Verse 7, "And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king, and his nobles saying..." Now this is the king of the natural man, "neither let man..." that is soul, "...nor beast", that is body, "herd..." that is the whole group of beasts, "nor flock..." I did not study this. I am preaching it off the top of my head. I do not know what the subtleties are, but I am telling you that it is "the separation of." Now, there is no spirit here. See, this is the natural man, "...let neither man, nor beast, herd, nor flock taste anything." The spirit is not included. "...Let them not feed, nor drink water." The soul man, and the flesh man went on a fast.
Verse 8, "But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God." Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not. They feared God, brethren. They heard the Gospel of the Kingdom and they repented. I remind you that in the New Testament, the Pharisees heard the gospel of the kingdom and they repented not.
They repented not, brethren. The heathen is more likely to repent than the Pharisee in the church. I declare to you that God is going to a poverty, pain-filled world that is going to believe His word when He comes to them with the Gospel of the Kingdom, and they are going to repent. They are going to be saved, large, large numbers of them, brethren, but the Pharisee in the church whose heart was filled, or shall be filled with envy and pride, they shall go into damnation for this lifetime, yet their spiritual substance shall be saved. They shall lose the soul and body of this lifetime, it shall be lost, they shall suffer loss, but their spiritual substance, nevertheless, shall be saved. Glory to God!
Verse 10 of Chapter 3, "And God saw their works that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil, he was going to destroy them; and that he had said that he would do unto them, and he did it not." What is the evil that God has said He is going to do to the whole living soul that died?
He said He is going to wipe us out completely. The whole living soul that died is under a curse of death, and if the spirit of Almighty God does not intercede by reproducing His image in our human spirit, the whole living soul that died, every last human being on the face of the earth shall be utterly wiped out, but they repented, brethren. They turned from their evil way. God saw their works, and He repented and decided to save them alive.
Chapter 4, "But it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was very angry." How dare these heathens be saved? These uneducated people, these people that do not come in with fancy clothes. I am telling you, brethren, I do not know what I look like to you, but when I go into a church, these preachers, they are just so fancy. I do not know what I look like to you, but they just wear these... I mean, I do believe that you should be clean, and you should be neat, so maybe it is something spiritual on them, but they are just so perfect. They are like a Fifth Avenue businessman in a good suit, and their hair is styled. If they are females, they have perfect makeup on, and they just look perfect. I do not even know what I am saying is coming from my spirit. I hope when I preach to you, I am clean and I am neat, but can anybody comment on that? Does anybody see anything different on me than these other preachers?
Only if you see it, it is in my heart. I just cannot seem to put my finger on it. Do you want to say something? I cannot put my finger on what the difference is, because I should be clean and neat when I preach to you.
COMMENT: I notice that a lot of them are perfect like a movie star or a celebrity; everything is perfect, you know, like a celebrity.
PASTOR VITALE: How would you describe me?
COMMENT: I see you to be like an ordinary person, you know what I mean?
PASTOR VITALE: It is not really being clean and neat, it is something spiritual, would you say amen to that?
COMMENT: I mean, like what you are is in your spirit. It is not in the way that you dress, you know what I am saying? I know what you are from your spirit. You know, what God has shown me. It is not from how you dress. To me, it is like on the outside. There is nothing wrong with a person dressing like that, but to me they are empty in their spirit, you know, they have more on the outside.
PASTOR VITALE: Maybe that is the answer. Maybe you just put your finger right on it. It is all a shell. It is all the shell. It is not really... I know there is nothing wrong with being clean and neat, I just could not... I mean, it is nice to be clean and neat, you should be, but I just could not put my finger on it. They are all clean and neat, and sprayed up and buffed up, and Christ is not coming forth. That is what the problem is, Christ is not coming forth.
I agree with you! They look like movie stars, but they are empty shells. That is what they are. They are just empty shells. Glory to God!
Let me find my place, how did I get on that? What verse are we up to? Does anybody know? Oh yes, Jonah was angry. He was very angry that God was saving these people that did not go to the beauty parlor and were not all fancy and fixed up. God was saving these people lying on the bowery, these people that were drug addicts, these people that were never taught manners, that were brought up in families that were so devastated that they were never taught manners. They were never taught manners.
I have been in a church in Manhattan. We went out to eat afterwards in a coffee shop. It was not a ritzy restaurant, and there was a man with us that was a member of this church. He happened to be a very spiritual man, and, for whatever reason, he had no manners. We all had salad. He picked up the salad and was eating with his hands. The pastor of this church was mortified. I saw it on his face. He was really embarrassed. This brother just did not know he was supposed to use a fork. He just picked up the lettuce and stuffed it in his mouth. He did not take a knife and cut it and use a fork or anything.
There is going to be a lot of people that are going to be saved, brethren, and they are not going to be polite, some of them are going to smell, they are not going to be articulate, and they are not going to know how to communicate. They are not going to have the graces, you know, and not only are they going to be saved, but God is going to raise up preachers out of them. We all better get ready including me, including me, okay. We all better get ready for the man that starts preaching that is not neat and clean, that does not have the good graces, that does not have the manners.
You better get ready to receive the word of the Lord from wherever it comes. You better get ready, and I better get ready. Glory to God!
I remember, I was at a deliverance meeting once, and there was a woman sitting there. It was a tent meeting so there was dirt on the ground. She was getting a pretty earthy kind of deliverance. She was spitting up, and she just took a piece of paper towel and laid down on the earth. She was just spitting into the paper towel. She was making all kinds of noises which were not pleasant. I have found that when I was in this deliverance ministry, when I saw people vomiting up demons four times a week, I just got so used to it that it did not offend me, but when I got out of this ministry, I am still in deliverance, but I am not in a ministry where I see these kind of manifestations four times a week, that now when I see it, it is really offensive to the natural man. You know, your pride rises up, and you think it is bad manners. That is what your carnal mind tells you.
Well, someone in that church went over to that woman and rebuked her and told her to use a bucket. I am not saying that she was wrong. The woman should have been using a bucket, but what I am telling you is that when we go out to these people that are really needy, and they really start vomiting up all of these demons it is ugly and it smells. Sometimes the vomit has a horrendous odor, and sometimes the people are so desperate that they cannot even say, "excuse me." They just have no self-respect. They are just so desperate to get delivered. I have been told that it could be much worse than I have seen it, with emissions coming from all sorts of places in your body, people losing control of their bowels and their urinary movements. I have never seen that, but I have read about it. It can really be filthy.
I have seen people vomit on the church rug. I have seen that, so we better get ready. Jonah was angry. It displeased him exceedingly, and he prayed to the Lord and said, "I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country?" He thinks he is different than the others, you see. "Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish, for I knew that thou are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and repentance thee of the evil. Therefore, now O Lord, take I beseech thee, my life from me, for it better for me to die to live with those animals. That they should have your salvation as much as I should, I would rather die then live". Pride... the pride of the Pharisees. Glory to God!
Verse 4, "Then said the Lord, "Doest thou well to be angry? So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side, and there made him a booth and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city." God said to Jonah, "Do not be angry, this is of me." Jonah pouted like a child, he went out of the city, he went out of the move of God.
He did not like where God's move was. He did not like the city that it was in, so he went out from it. Glory to God! He made himself something to sit under, and he sat under it in the shadow, the shadow of death, brethren. He came out from under the anointing of God, and he wanted to see what would become of the city.
Verse 6, "And the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah that it might be a shadow over his head to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd." Glory to God! God made a relief for Jonah. All that I could tell you is that God manifested something. It must typify something spiritual. God offered relief to Jonah.
Verse 7, "But God prepared a worm, when the morning rose the next day and it smote the gourd that it withered."
Now let us go back to Verse 6, let us take this. The Lord prepared some kind of covering for Jonah that it might be a shadow over his head. I suggest to you this is the imputed anointing to deliver him from his grief. Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd. He had the spirit of God, he sang and danced in the spirit, he prophesied, he spoke in tongues, and he was very happy.
Verse 7, "but God prepared a worm..." Remember, we studied that worms typified the infant Christ. We are worms! We are worms! We have several tapes on this that God calls us worms. Verse 7, "But God prepared a worm, when the morning rose the next day." The day is the time period in which Christ appears, and it smote the gourd that it withered. I am suggesting to you that when the imparted anointing arises during the day, the imputed anointing will be smitten. Glory to God!
Verse 8, "And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, when Christ appeared, that God prepared a vehement east wind, and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah." Christ appeared in him. It was beating upon his head, deliverance, brethren. Pride, I rebuke you. Hallelujah! It beat upon the head of Jonah, so that he fainted.
You think you are going to dance through this deliverance, brethren? You are not going to dance through this deliverance. If you know that you are doing everything right, and your heart is before God, and it is coming forth more slowly than you would like it to, brethren, you better count your blessings. This stuff is painful. It is like having an operation. Maybe you cannot take it any faster than God's giving it to you, because when the son appears in you, it is going to beat upon your head, so that you might faint. Jonah wished himself to die. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live." So powerful are the judgments of Almighty God upon the sin in the hearts of the natural man.
I am going to level with you, brethren. I, much too frequently, have these thoughts. I just had it today, "It is just too hard to go on. I should die," but God has brought me to the place where when these thoughts manifests in my mind, I am so aware that it is ungodly that I laugh at it and I rebuke it. I lived for years under severe chastening of the Lord which brought forth mighty deliverance in my life, that my life was just a torment. I did not have the revelation that the pain was bringing forth Christ in me. You are not going to dance through this deliverance, brethren. I assure you.
I was in a church meeting once, and this man had been coming into the meetings for a couple of nights. He did not really mix with anybody. He just sat in the back, and he went up to the front to this preacher who had a lot of power. He said to him, "I want you to pray that God utterly break me." The preacher said to him, "Are you sure you want me to pray that brother?" I knew the preacher, so I am laughing. He was respectful to the man, but I saw the look on his face. The preacher realized what this man was asking, but the man did not realize what he was asking for. Then the preacher said, "Brother, do you know what you are asking me to pray?" The man said, "Yeah, yeah, I want to pray," and he prayed it.
The man never came back to the church again. I do not know what happened to him. I never saw him anywhere again, but I am sure that God answered his prayer. There is not a doubt in my mind. Hallelujah! Do not think it is ungodly to ask God to break you, because it is not, but do not be deceived, you are not going to dance through this thing. I remember once, Win Worley came in for a meeting to our church, and he gave his testimony about the alabaster box. Do you remember that? What I am going to tell you about now is that he gave a testimony about an alabaster box. An alabaster box, it is in the Scriptures, apparently it is some form of shell, and it is very fragile. I think he said that it comes from a seashell, so it could not only be broken into little pieces, but it could be ground into powder.
It was a good word, but I could not get it out of my mind. I could not get it out of my mind. God was pressing on me, and He was pressing on me, and He was saying, "Ask me to crush you like the alabaster box," and I was saying, "No Lord, I am not going to ask you to crush me like any alabaster box. It is been tough enough right up to this point." I told God that. That is what I said to Him, and He would not let go of me.
The Son of Almighty God was beating on my head, and He said, "Pray it, pray it, pray it." One day I prayed it, and as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I said, "Oh my God, I said it." I am telling you, I am not lying to you, it is been horrendous, but I am still alive! My mind has been delivered from severe affliction. My body has received great deliverance, but the most important thing is that Christ is appearing in me. Christ is appearing in me! Christ is appearing in me, and there is no other way. You have to be crushed; there is no other way, and when the Son arises in your heart...
See, everyone wants God! They want God, they want God, and they dance and they sing like in the church that we came out of, for example. There was a lot of ministry and frequent calls to be anointed with ministry. Everyone went running up to the front of the church. The pastor was anointing for ministry. Everybody wanted him to lay hands on them, and they danced... and they sang... and some of them went out in the spirit. I remember when we were anointed for tabernacles, I went running up, and I was jumping up and down, and I was saying, "Lord take me." Well, He took me and I thank God for it but, brethren, I do not know that I would have prayed that prayer if I knew what would have happened after the dancing and the singing.
Now, I do not want to scare you! I am telling you the truth. It is going to get you through. You see, if you think it is going to be a snap, but rather it gets tough, you will turn away! You will turn away! This is warfare, brethren. You have to dig in and fight, you have to fight! Now, I am not trying to scare you. If you are afraid, you should come up for deliverance when this message is over.
I am telling you the truth. If this message can get engrafted in your heart, it is going to prevent you from running when things get tough. The reason is because when you run, you are going to wind up in the belly of the whale, dead and losing your anointing until you repent, and when you repent, what is it going to happen to you? You are going to be right back where you were before you ran!
You can go the easy way, or you can go the hard way. I am telling you, this is not what they are preaching. I will never forget the day that God asked me to do something, and I was very scared. I cannot remember what it was that God asked me to do, but I was very scared! I cannot remember. I did not want to do it, whatever it was, I was upset.
It was not so much rebellion, although it was rebellion, but it was not that I just did not want to obey God, it was just too hard for me. It was the first time I ever heard the Lord rebuke in such a harsh voice. He spoke in an audible voice to me, and he said, "Fight or I will leave you for carrion on the banks of the Jordan." I said, "What did you say?" He said, "Fight or I will leave you for carrion on the banks of the Jordan." I said, "Lord, I cannot believe you said that to me," and He said, "You better fight!" I got up and I fought. He scared me! There is no turning back with God. This baby stuff is over, brethren. We cannot turn back. You cannot turn back. You are just going to find yourself in the belly of a whale and however long it is going to take you to repent, when you repent, you are going to be right back where you were when you first ran.
Why run? Dig in, brethren, dig in! Pick up your weapons and fight, and you will not be destroyed! God has shown me, and He has talked to me a lot over these recent years about what it is like to be a man. We have lost so much in this society today of a Godly way for a human being to live just a natural man. We have lost so much of it that God talks to me a lot about people and about a Godly way of life. One of the things that He has shown me is that not too long ago, maybe fifty or one hundred years ago, it was very acceptable for men to brawl and to fight. It was a sign of manhood, you know. If someone insulted somebody, you punched him in the nose. That is what you were supposed to do. If you go back one hundred years, you were supposed to pack a gun and know how to shoot. That is what made you a man!
Now, in this hour, we teach our sons not to do that. Well, it is illegal too... well, it is not illegal under all circumstances, but who wants to pack a gun? Would you teach your sons to pack a gun? You do not pack a gun! We teach our sons in this hour, "Well, you do not go out there and go punching people in the nose. We are civilized! We are civilized! Try not to fight anymore." Nations have peace negotiations. Nations sit down with their ambassadors, "We are trying not to fight. Do not fight! Do not fight!" Now, I am not saying that everybody should go out and fight. What I am saying is that man is never going to get it right until Christ appears in him. That is what I am saying.
It was not ideal for men to be out shooting one another or brawling on the streets punching each other's face in. That was not okay, but I have news for you, brethren, if you are not aware of this, that this other way that we are teaching our sons, it is not working out. They are not brawlers, and they are not fighters, and they are gentle, and in many areas, their masculinity is being stolen from them. The whole society is rising up to steal the masculinity from the men.
I am not saying that if you go out and get into a fist-fight, that makes you a man. I am saying that is a sign of what is happening to the men in this society. There is confusion. They do not know how to be a man. They are told not to pack a gun, they are told not to fight, they are told they are not supposed to be dominating their women anymore. They do not know how to be men.
One of the things that the Lord showed me is that in the past, honor was a great thing. Men were willing to die for honor, to the point that they would have a dual. Now, believe me, I am not advocating duals, but at least men had honor. They knew what they believed in. They felt like a man. They had self-respect, and they had a whole code of things that they had to do that would make them feel like a man. Unfortunately, some of them died because of it. As I said, that is not ideal, but what I am saying is, the only answer is in Christ.
What we see happening today is men that do not know how to have honor. They do not know how to have honor. They do not pack a gun. They do not fight. They do not dual. They cannot even go out in many instances and aggressively pursue a woman. It is not acceptable in this society. There are no more clear-cut guidelines as to how you treat a woman. They do not know how to have honor, and what has happened is that they completely turned in the other direction. You can see it in the movies, and you can see it on the TV that they capitulate, and they give up.
I was a real Star Trek fan. Captain Kirk was a hero. He was a hero! He would die for righteousness. He would say to those aliens, "You cannot have my crew. I will not yield to you," and he backed them down. They have this new Star Trek program on now. You watch with spiritual eyes, and you listen to what they are saying on the new Star Trek program. The first program that I watched, the ship was threatened. The captain said, "Alright, we give up," and he turns around to his crew. He says, "What else could I do? They were going to destroy the ship." Captain Kirk would have said, "You cannot threaten me. I will fight to the death for righteousness," but the new Captain on the new Star Trek, he says, "Well I might as well give up. They are stronger than me." It is all through the moral fiber of the society, brethren. Glory to God! I am being attacked in my mind again. Glory to God!
The Lord has shown me that we have to live with honor. Now please, I do not want anyone twisting my words. I am just trying to give some examples to make a point that we have to live with honor, even if it means our death. We must have honor. I went through a stage in my life where I was beaten so bad from the chastening with the Lord that I was living without honor. God said to me, "You have to stand for righteousness, even if you know that you are going to lose." Make your stand and go down in honor if God lets you go down.
He teaches me a lot from movies. I know a lot of people do not believe in movies. I am against these movies with all of this ungodly sex in it, mostly the new movies. I watch a lot of old movies, and God really teaches me. He showed me some war movies, and he showed me a picture of one soldier. He was the only one left from his company. There was no way he could make it alive. He could have been taken prisoner, but if he would fight, there was no way he could have won. He chose to die with honor. He was a Marine, and he went charging out shooting. He took down everyone with him that he could. They killed him, but he would not give up.
God showed me what is happening to the moral fiber of this society. We are not willing to die with honor. We give up because we, mostly the men, have been stripped of our ability to control our own lives in many ways. The men have paid a much heavier price than the women, but it has happened to the woman too. They just bent our minds. They have told us we cannot discipline our children. We cannot hit our kids, it is wrong. Almost every rule that society has developed over thousands of years teaching people to live with honor and respect, and make themselves all that they can be, is being ripped out. Men do not know how to be men anymore. Women are having problems, but the men are devastated.
God has said to me, "Sheila, you have to be willing to die. If I let them kill you, then you die. And if I raise you from the dead, then I raise you from the dead, but you have to be willing to die." He said, "You have to fight to the death. I do not care how strong the witchcraft power is. I do not care what it looks like. Get a vision of what I am calling you to do, and be prepared to fight to the death." That is what He said to me. Much more often than I would like to admit, thoughts go through my mind, "It would be much easier to die," but that would be death without honor, and it does not glorify God.
"Giving up," I am going to spiritualize this now. Giving up and turning back is spiritual death. It does not glorify God. You have to be willing to die, and you cannot even say, "I am willing to die, because I know He is going to raise me up." Whatever He does with you, He does with you. You know, whatever happens, your spiritual substance is going to be saved, but stand for righteousness. Do what God calls you to do. Do not be influenced by that witchcraft. If it means the end of a relationship, if it is means the loss of a job, whatever it means, fight to the death so that the righteousness of Almighty God should appear in you. Glory to God! How did I get on that?
Verse 8, Chapter 4, "And the sun beat upon the head of Jonah..." Fright appeared and beat on his head, deliverance, and it was so hard he fainted. He wished himself to die, and he said, "It is better for me to die than live."
Verse 9, "And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd?" Are you mad that you lost your imputed anointing? Are you mad that you lost the dancing, and the singing, and the satisfaction to your soul? We experienced it last night. It felt so good! It is the complete opposite of the judgment that is in a ministry like this. It felt wonderful. "And God said to Jonah, "Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? Jonah said, "I do well to be angry even unto death." I am not going to receive this judgment. I am not going to receive this hard ministry. I am not going to be one of those men with my loins like a woman in travail.
Verse 10, "And then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not labored." The gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. "Neither did you make it grow," neither did you cause it to come forth, "which came up in a night, and perished in a night." The imputed anointing, brethren, it exists in the night of the darkness of your mind. It is the blessing of God that covers your head in the night of the darkness of your mind before Christ is conceived in you.
Verse 11, "And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city wherein are more than six score thousand people that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?" Glory to God!
Back to Verse 10, "Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd for the which thou hast not labored, neither made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night." In other words, you want it, you want it back, okay!
Verse 11, "And should not I spare Nineveh that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?"
What is God saying? He is saying, "All that you could think about is that you want the joy of the imputed anointing back, but you are denying that I have had mercy on you. I have given you the imputed anointing, and I have blessed you. I have called you up higher, but this judgment must fall upon you." What God is saying to him is that, "This judgment must fall upon you, because your heart is wrong. You partook of the blessings of the imputed anointing, but you would deny my mercy to the people of this city. Therefore, the sun has risen upon you, the righteousness of Almighty God, and is raining down judgment upon you, because you had my spirit. You danced, you sang, you prophesied, you cast out demons, and you had one good time, but you had no pity on these persons that could not discern between their right hand and their left hand. They were in sin, and they were reprobate. They were fallen because they could not discern between good and evil. You, who had my spirit and my word, could not find pity in your heart for these heathens. Therefore, I spare the heathens because they repented, and I bring down judgment on you so that you might live." Glory to God!
The people that could not tell right from wrong, when they heard the Gospel of the Kingdom, when they were told that their state of being was sin, and that Christ was going to appear in them, and that they needed to repent, they repented and they said, "Alright Lord, come forth in us."
This Pharisee that thought he had it all because he had the imputed anointing, there was no pity in his heart, but hardness and cold, and the sun of God rose and beat on his head, and rained down judgment upon him. Glory to God! Hallelujah. Does anybody have any questions on this?
COMMENT: In Verse 11, "And he said, the left hand as well as many animals..." Your Bible did not say "animals." It said "cattle." What did he mean by that?
PASTOR VITALE: Let me check out that verse here. Hallelujah! They cannot discern between their right and their left hand, and much cattle. "Should I not spare Nineveh the great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons, and much cattle." The persons would refer to the souls and, for whatever God's reason, He separates the soul from the body. The cattle represent the body. He spared them soul and body, because they could not discern between right and wrong, but when God told them the truth, they believed God and they repented. Jonah had the truth because he preached it, but apparently there was no repentance in his heart. He repented when he found himself in the belly of the whale where he was uncomfortable, but there was no mercy, there was something wrong with his soul. The judgment had to continue until the love of God would appear in him. Hallelujah!
I am sure we have talked about this many times in this ministry. There are many people out there that we would not consider Christians. They are certainly not born again, and the love of God appears in their soul. They are crying, they are patient and loving towards their fellow man. I declare to you that when they hear the Gospel of the Kingdom preached, they shall believe it, and they shall repent. I declare to you that severe judgment will not be necessary for these people. Some judgment will be necessary, but severe judgment will not be necessary for these people. I do not believe the sun is going to have to beat on their head. When God shows them error in their heart, they are going to repent, and Christ is going to come right forth. Glory to God! Is there anybody else with a question?
COMMENT: When you were talking about years ago, people had guns and they fought for righteousness, I was thinking about how so many people have guns now. You know, there is a lot of fighting and killing, and what was the difference? The difference seems to be that they are not fighting for righteousness. It is the unlawful people that have the guns.
PASTOR VITALE: Amen! The Lord has shown me that the whole society is in a spiritual condition of homosexuality. What is homosexuality? It is the reversal of the norm. Let me repeat it: It is the reversal of the norm! It is very obvious when you see men with men and women with women, but the whole society is role reversed. Not only do we see it in homosexuals, in actual homosexual behavior, it is also throughout the whole land that you see a heterosexual marriage, a man and a woman, but the roles are reversed in the heterosexual marriage.
That is very common. I am not saying it is everybody, but it is very common across the land. We see that righteousness and unrighteousness is in a condition of role reversal. The Lord has shown me that the whole nation, I do not know about the world, but the whole nation is laboring under a homosexual spirit. Everything is backwards. Everything is reversed, abnormal. We are in an utter condition of abnormality. He is going to have to restore us because we are just completely "out of whack." We cannot do it without Him, you see. We have gone to the complete opposite extreme.
The whole point is that man thought that he had the authority to clean up all of these duals and gunfights, brawls, and all that, but I declare to you that someone is going to get a hold of this and twist my words. I know it, but I am going to go for it anyway. I am telling you that we will only find true peace when Christ appears in every man. We only find true peace when Christ appears in every man.
Until that happens, so long as there are people in the world, as far as I am concerned, men you are much better off brawling in the streets, fighting for righteousness than being in the condition that you are in now. Now, that is my opinion and I hope nobody here misunderstands what I am saying. It is a spiritual principle I am talking about. I am not telling you to go out and fight. What I am telling you is to stand for righteousness. Be a man! Stand up! Women, be women! I am pressing in on the men because it is attacking the men much more than the women.
I hope I made myself clear. I am not telling you to go out and fight with people and have fist-fights with people. I am not telling you to do that. I am talking about the condition of your mind. Stand for righteousness! Respect other people! Expect them to respect you. Do not be afraid to say something. Do not be afraid to do what is right. Do you know that the Bible says that we are supposed to rise when an older person walks into the room? I watch all those old movies, and men stand up when a lady comes in the room and you say, "Oh how old fashioned." Well, I do not know about a lady, but the Bible says that we are supposed to rise when someone who is our elder comes into the room. I personally find it a glorious way to live, because I find that when I respect other people that I have more respect for myself.
We are having a big problem in this country today with people that do not respect themselves. Their self-image is devastated. I declare to you that if you are one of those people, and if you are in some kind of reconstruction program, whether it is of God or whether it is of the natural man, to reconstruct your self-esteem, if you want to really move that reconstruction along, I suggest that you start respecting other people. I suggest that you start honoring them. If you are on a train and there is a lady, I suggest that you men get up and give her a seat. Get up and give her a seat! Do not say nobody does it anymore. If you want to feel good about yourself, get up and give the lady a seat. Things have gotten so bad that men do not even give pregnant ladies seats. Women with big bellies, nine months, and all these men lined up and no one will budge.
How could you look at yourself in the mirror? How could you do it? How could you have a good self-image when you do not respect anybody else? How could you have a good self-image when you do not respect your parents in the house, or when you do not respect your brothers and sisters in the house? When you are cheating and lying and stealing, you do not think anything wrong about lying about somebody. How could you have a good self-image? Do you want a good self-image? Start acting like a decent human being. Say, "thank you!" Say, "please!" If you are wrong, say that you are sorry! It is "in" to say you are sorry today.
Do what is right! If you do not know what is right read the Bible. Read the Proverbs! The Proverbs will teach you what is right. Read the Proverbs! Can you just imagine...not even that many people wear hats today! Can you imagine a man wearing a hat in the wintertime? They are coming back a little bit. Can you imagine a man actually taking his hat off when a lady comes into the room? Well, why not? Why can you not do it? Why can you not do it? Who is going to laugh at you? Let me tell you something, if you want to build your self-esteem read the Proverbs, and find out how you are supposed to act in relation to other human beings and start doing it! Do not worry about yourself. Do not worry about you. Start acting right, and you are going to build your self-esteem. Do you want to see your self-esteem come back? It is going to come back so fast that it is going to make your head spin.
I was walking down the street once in an area where there were a lot of people that were not American born, and a tissue went blowing out of my pocket book. This young man came running down the street. He did not know what I lost. He was going to get it for me, but when he picked it up and he saw it was a tissue, he was a little embarrassed. I thanked him, and it just blessed me. Do you know that in Europe men will pick up something that is dropped, even for a man? It is not just for a lady! If two men are standing there, and one man drops something, they are so polite.
Well, there used to be anyway in Europe, that the man will bend down and pick it up for the other man. Do you also know that in Europe, or it used to be in this country, if there are two men walking through a door, if a man is trying to be polite, he will let the other guy go in first. We use to have comedy situations where one man was saying, "No, you first," and the other man "No you first," and they made a comedy situation out of it on the TV.
Brethren, there is nothing wrong with holding the doors for ladies, or for other gentleman. Ladies, if you are just with women, if you are with your mother, I always open the door for my mother. I always open the door for her. I always let her walk ahead of me. When I pick her up to spend the day with her, I put her in the car, and I walk around to her. My mother is not this much of an invalid. I walk around and I open the car door for her. I see that her legs are all in safely, then I lock the door and I close it on her. When I pull up, I run around and I open the door for her and I help her out. It makes you feel good, brethren!
We have countries with at least fifty percent of the population on drugs. I do not know in details the statistics of people on drugs and why they are on drugs. It might be because they do not feel good, or because there is so much pain in their souls that they cannot stand it, and they think that drugs are the answer. Who knows? Brethren, there is a lot of things that you can do to make you feel good. This might sound stupid to you, but you can try it. Try opening the door for somebody. It does not have to be your girlfriend. It could be your mother, your sister, your father, or it could be your employer.
There is nothing wrong with doing it for another man. Ladies, there is nothing wrong with doing it for even another woman. Well, unless your father is old and decrepit, but you can hold it for your mother, or your elderly aunt, or anybody, or just another woman that you are walking with. Just show her respect! We have destroyed everything we learned. We have been rebellious children. We thought how smart we were, and we have destroyed ourselves.
If you go out to a restaurant and the waitress waits on you, tell her, "thank you." Tell her, "thank you!" Is it any skin off of your nose to say thank you? Tell her, "thank you." Glory to God! If somebody drops something, pick it up. You know, I have seen pregnant ladies drop things, and no one will bend down. No one will do it. They look at it, they look at it lying on the floor, and they watch you bend down to get it. That is what they do! The Lord has shown me that in this country in this hour, it is pitiful the condition of the young people, that they do not know what to do.
It is no longer a condition of, "I am in rebellion and I refuse to do it" because the people that are in their forties right now are not doing it anymore. The kids that are in their twenties, and they are not kids when they are in their twenties, the young adults in their twenties are not doing it because they simply were not taught.
I meet a lot of young men in their twenties. They just do not know what to do. I have someone particular in mind. They just stand there with their arms at their side, and well I guess this is younger, twenty or eighteen years old, and they do not know how to act around a girl, and they are just nervous, you know.
Years ago, a young man was raised up knowing how to conduct themselves in front of a lady. His father taught him that when you come in contact with a young lady, you bow and you say, "Nice to meet you." Do you think that is corny? Is it any better to stand like this going duh, duh, not knowing how to talk to a girl? You think they feel good about themselves because they meet the girl, and they do not know what to say? They do not feel good about themselves. They feel good about themselves when they grew up where their father said, "When you meet a young lady, you bow and you tell her that it is a pleasure to meet her."
Do you know that they used to teach their children these things? Do you know that young men and young women had to learn to dance? Do you know how many men today do not know how to dance? It is a blessing. Well, I do not know if you believe in dancing here. I do not know how many people here are religious, but I believe that some dancing is Godly.
I do not believe in sexual lustful dancing, but the dances that they did years ago, they did not even touch bodies. They held each other like this, you know, they did not even touch bodies, but did the waltz, they did the polka, they did the fox trot, nothing lustful or sensual about it. It is a way for the young men and women to pass the time and to communicate. You do not get hung up in the back seat of cars.
Do something that is Godly and that is fun. I am sorry, but I am not religious. I am not against dancing to music that is not sensual. I am not against group dancing or circle dancing. I am not against the bunny hop, or any of that. Well, maybe the bunny hop makes you wiggle, and I am against that, but I know that there are a lot of dances that they do at weddings.
There is the Hebrew dance, and some of the Greek dances, and the circle dances. They are just delightful! There is nothing wrong with that. Oh God, the whole Christian church is down on me now, but I do not care. There is nothing wrong with it.
Years ago, young men and young women, part of their upbringing, these kids were taught from their parents that this is how you act when you meet an adult. This is how you act when you meet a young lady. This is what you do. It is cut and dry, and they went forth with self-confidence, knowing that this is how they act. I see all these kids out there today that they were never taught anything. They do not know what to do. They insult the girls and the girls hate them. They feel bad because they do not know why the girls hate them.
Going back to the dance subject. These dances are delightful! You stand in a big circle, there could be as many as twenty people in the whole circle, and you hold hands. There is no body contact, and the Hebrew music is delightful, it is all foot movements, and you go around in a circle. It is fun!
Not only is it fun, but also it does not segregate into age groups. You got the senior citizens, you got your mother, you got the young married people, you got the teenagers, and you got the ten-year-old children. They are all in the same circle doing the foot movement. It is just a simple dance going to the beat and going around in a circle. It is delightful! Good healthy fun.
Someone just said, "What is the fox trot?" The fox trot is a simple three step dance. If the music is not seductive, in my opinion, and the men and women would stand with their hands holding their hands out like this, there was no body contact. There was at least a hands breadth between them, and they would do the three steps, and they were good. They had to take lessons. The man had his hand around her waist, but there was no frontal bodily contact. Nothing like that at all! It was considered very respectful.
Then of course, going back even further into the eighteen hundreds or the seventeen hundreds, they had the dancers of Virginia reel, or in Europe, I cannot remember the names, but they had women all lined up on this side, and the men lined up on that side, and you faced each other. You had two lines, and the men and women faced each other, and the music started. They went forward, and the ladies bent curtsey, and the men bowed, right? It was to the music, right? Maybe they put their arms through each other and turned around. Then the couple at the end held hands and went marching down between the two lines. There is nothing ungodly about this. This is good clean fun that uses up your energy and helps you to control sexual appetite. I am sorry, physical activity helps to diminish sexual appetite. Get out there and dance Godly dances. Do it! Work hard.
This society is sick from the A to the Z. The prophet Isaiah said, "From the top of their heads to the sole of their foot, the society is sick." A lot of the sickness is in the church too. Glory to God! I am telling you, this society is sick because if anything is going to cause you a problem controlling your sexuality before you are married, it is because you are not getting enough physical activity. Knock yourself out.
COMMENT: The children that were dancing last night in circles, they were doing kind of like that type of dancing.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, that was very nice. We saw some children dancing in church, and that was very nice. I am not against it at all, but...
COMMENT: When they were dancing, I mean just alone, that is fun but is it....
PASTOR VITALE: It is not a social activity, okay. I love dancing in church, and we see a lot of people dancing in the spirit, okay. That is fine! What I am saying to you is that as human beings we have human needs. We have human needs! We have social needs. Women have needs to interact with men, and men have needs to interact with women. After thousands of years of humanity, in Europe anyway, they developed a series of rules and regulations on how to live that satisfied people's needs in a socially acceptable way. We know that we have marriage. Men and women desire each other sexually, it is normal. Well, there is a way, there is a place in which it is acceptable. Sex is acceptable in marriage, sex and children is acceptable in marriage.
Well, men and women have a need to interact with one another, to be together, and if you do not have any activity that is going to be directing your passions in a Godly, in a Godly direction, if you are young people, you are much more likely to get into trouble then if you do have some activities that will let you interact with one another in a Godly manner.
COMMENT: What about rolling skating and ice-skating?
PASTOR VITALE: All that is good except that it is not "in" anymore. We have a roller skating rink over here. I hear it is all taken over by the Northport witches' coven.
I used to roller skate. Yes, Long Island, by witches' coven. I hear they rule the place. Any organized place, it is either taken over by the drug dealers, or by the witches' covens.
COMMENT: We use to have a night that it was a Christian night, and the whole rolling skating rink knew it. The Christians would go there on Monday night. We used to go roller-skating, and that is how I learned how to roller-skate. We had Godly music on and everything. It was great!
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, when I was a kid, we used to go roller-skating. If you knew how to do it, you could roller skate together. You had to learn how to synchronize your feet so you did not trip each other up. Girls and boys would roller skate holding hands. Sometimes they would dance on skates. There were all kinds of activities that society over thousands of years has developed, polite society, on how to interact between different people, and how to direct your energies in a Godly way, so that at least it diminishes the problem.
I am not saying the problem will go away. Young people will always have sexual desires that are screaming to be satisfied. They could be dealt with so that they could be brought to a point where you can control them. You are not supposed to walk around in torment.
If you are a young adult and you are not married, you are not supposed to walk around sexually tormented. That is not Godly. It may be a demon! It may be a demon of lust, but it may not. It may be a normal sexuality that is not being tempered because, for whatever reason, you are not getting enough physical activity.
COMMENT: It is very socially accepted to do a lot of petting, and I find that this causes a lot of the sexual problems, you know.
PASTOR VITALE: Well, I think I made it very clear how I feel about that in this ministry.
COMMENT: I am hearing what you are saying that even physical activity can release that feeling. I believe that, yes.
PASTOR VITALE: Definitely, no question about it.
COMMENT: It is a need for your own body for physical activity, yes.
PASTOR VITALE: I was talking about this, about the criminals in the jail last week, you know.
COMMENT: The Lord just told me that lately, so you are just confirming it.
PASTOR VITALE: I know I said to the Lord, when I start hearing about all of this homosexual rape in the prisons, I never had much contact with prisons, but I said to the Lord, "Was it happening all the time and I just did not hear about it?" You know, I never heard about that, homosexual rape or all of this homosexual activity. I guess there was some homosexual activity, but from what I hear, it is overrunning the prisons. This is what the Lord said to me, "That the convicts used to have to work, and tempered it, especially in the states where they put them on rock piles. It brought it down to a point where the men could control it." These men are just hanging out all day watching color TV. I am told.
I just saw that on TV the other night that they have color TV in jail. They are just hanging out sitting around all day, and they have no release for their tensions. They do weight lifting if they want to do it, right? There is no swimming in jail? We are talking about jail, right? The night time comes, and they are going crazy, and the homosexuality is greater than it has ever been to the point that they are attacking young men that do not even want to do it. Well, they have too much energy. They have too much energy. Put them on a rock pile.
The same thing is true among people that are not in jail. We are now living in a society that, in many instances, we are not required to labor. Do you realize that years ago the labor that was involved, to cook dinner, you had to go to a pump and pump the water. You had to put the water over the coal in the fireplace. Do you know what was involved in your every day life?
You had to bake the bread. The men were all doing physical work, right? You worked from sunup to sundown, and the young people worked from sunup to sundown. They were not, well I guess once in while they wound up in the hay stack, but by and large, what I am telling you is that this is not a guarantee, but I am telling you that physical activity and, in particular, enjoyable physical activity in which you can interact with the opposite sex, is a deterrent to going beyond the point that your conscience would draw for you, that goes beyond the line that your own conscience would draw for you, and the society does not encourage it anymore.
When I was in my twenties, and I was out looking for a young man, the big place to go was the churches and the synagogues. These places had dances, and they did not sell alcoholic beverages. They sold punch or soda, and the girls stood on one side, and the boys stood on the other side. You waited for a boy to come and ask you to dance. I was all into Latin dancing. I use to get up there and do the "pachanga" until I fainted. I am talking about the world now, if you want to meet a man, well it is sort of stopping now, but for a while there, maybe five or ten years ago, the only place to go was to one of these bars. You just sat there and you drank, and the spirits of lust and sexuality, and adultery just hung over the bar, and that was the only place to go meet a man. How demonic! How ungodly! How wicked! The whole society is just utterly corrupt. Let us get this on the tape.
COMMENT: Like when we were dancing before the Lord, and when we were dancing with the music last night...
PASTOR VITALE: I know what you were going to say. I am going to answer your question, okay. I think it is good when individuals dance before the Lord in the church, and that meets a need of the soul, okay. That meets...
COMMENT: Did you feel that, that was just to feel good, or that it was really profitable? Or I do not know if you call it profitable, but you know what I am saying?
PASTOR VITALE: I believe that it was dancing before the Lord. I believe that God blesses it. There is nothing wrong with it. If He ever brings it forth here I would welcome it, okay, but it is a soulish realm that is satisfying the needs of the soul. Now, when I first came to the Lord, I was emotionally devastated, that I danced like a wild woman in the spirit for almost four years, every service. I danced and I jumped, and I went out in the spirit. It met a very real need! It met a need! It brought healing in my soul. It is good; there is nothing wrong with it, but when God calls you to a ministry that is developing your spirit, in my opinion, you have to go with the mature ministry.
Nothing would make me happier than God bringing the double portion in here, ministry to the soul, and ministry to the spirit. We had that in that other church for almost five years. He would get out there for almost an hour, move in the word of knowledge, then he preached for an hour and a half, anointed gospel of the kingdom message, and then we had deliverance, for five years.
Nothing would make me happier than seeing Him do that here, but, I do not know any church anywhere in the world that God is pouring out that kind of an anointing in this hour. Either it is a church where He is pouring out an anointing that is satisfying your soul, like we found last night, or it is a church like here, where He is bringing forth the development of your spirit, where His son is appearing in you. I personally do not know anywhere where He is doing both.
Nothing would make me happier than to have both here. I am not against it, but what I am saying is that when you have to choose, when God puts you in a situation where you have to choose between a ministry that is going to satisfy, not develop your soul, but satisfy your soul needs, and a ministry that is going to develop Christ in your spirit, if God has called you to a ministry where He is bringing forth Christ in your spirit, we must choose the mature way. Do you understand what I said to you? It is really important.
COMMENT: The dances that are the learned dances and all those named dances, do those not satisfy the soul needs? You said the social needs, well is that not a soul need?
PASTOR VITALE: Well it is, but I have two comments on that. First of all, I do not know where you could go to do all these dances today. Second of all, it is very special when you do it under the anointing. There was healing in that anointing last night, there was emotional healing in that anointing last night.
COMMENT: You were saying there is really no place to go and do those dances.
PASTOR VITALE: Well not that I know of. I am told that if you want to get into something like square dancing, you know there are clubs that you could join, but maybe you do not want to make such an extensive commitment. I see it is a blessing to dance before the Lord, but what I am saying is, if it could be taken one step further, if it could be set up where men and women can interact with one another, and not only men and women, I saw the children dancing in the circles, but it is my opinion that even the children would have been more satisfied if they saw their parents and members of other age groups participating with them. Why the segregation of the age groups? It is not Godly! No other society in the world does it. They segregate into age groups. It separates! It separates!
I hope I answered your question. It was perfectly Godly what I saw last night, but there is one element further that would be very satisfying to interact with people in the dance.
COMMENT: It should be free, right? I mean it should be within the, well like last night it was, it was interaction, the children interacted, but it was not any set learned. They probably did not know a learned thing.
PASTOR VITALE: There is no learned thing. I do not know where this came from, but I hope you enjoyed my exhortation.
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