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We are going to go over 1 Corinthians 11, and try to understand the deep spiritual truth about men and women that Paul was bringing forth. Some of those verses are very mysterious, and I think most of us have known, on some level, there is a depth of spiritual understanding that really hasn't been available to the church until very recently. And maybe someone knew about it, but it hasn't been widespread. I would just like to start with one more comment on natural women that I think perhaps I didn't make clear yesterday. And that is 1 Corinthians 7 where Paul is talking about women and other Scriptures which indicate that women should get married lest they be tempted by Satan.

 

And I just want to say to you that those Scriptures apply to physical women who are also spiritual women. If God has not called you into spiritual manhood, if you are not walking so closely with the Lord that your life is completely fulfilled, I would think a woman should get married. That would be my counsel to your question. You have to seek the Lord for each individual situation. Otherwise, you're putting somebody under the law. If you don't have a personal word from the Lord for an individual and you declare, "You should be married," you have placed that person under the law because there are always exceptions, things that we don't know about, and as we discussed yesterday, someone's personal life is between them and God.  I do want to clarify that point. Physical women who are spiritual women, let them marry. And everything that Paul says is true, that you get into trouble. They can turn after Satan. They can get after God. But all of this is true, but for the physical woman who is a spiritual man, the love of Christ is covering over this weakness in her and sustaining her and raising her to a higher spiritual realm and keeping her safe. So those rules, which are good counsel, do not apply to the woman who is walking in the higher realms of the spirit with the Lord and whom the Lord has brought into some measure of service.

 

We'll start with Verse 3, 1 Corinthians 11 -- well, maybe I'll read the whole -- "But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesyeth with her head uncovered, dishonoreth her head, for that is even all one as if she was shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, for as much as he is in the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. For this cause, ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord. Whereas the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman, in all things of God. Judging yourselves, is it comely that a woman praying to God uncovered? Doth not even nature teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a shame unto him. But if the woman has long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair is given her for a covering. But if any man seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God."

 

Now, [UNINTELLIGIBLE] start by reminding you that the Scripture from Genesis 1:1 until the last word in the book of Revelation is the revealed word of God. There is no inconsistency in the spiritual word of God. There is inconsistency only when the fallen carnal mind of men and sometimes in the translation of, from the original language because that translation was performed by a fallen mind. The Scriptures must be consistent. Every two Scriptures that you can pick out from anywhere in the Bible must reconcile. They must fit into one another as the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. That is why one of the tools that those of us who the Lord has brought into the deep study of the Scripture use frequently is a tool that we call usage. You must look for -- well, not the English word, but the Greek word or the Hebrew word and go for a Strong's Concordance and find out how this word was used. And if you find ten places where it means one thing and one place where it means something else, you have something to pray about. All kinds of usage is very important. And consistency of spiritual principles is very important.

 

You know, in the United States, a lot of people call Paul a woman hater. There's even been some books written. Have you heard that here in Nigeria? They call him a woman hater. Paul was not a woman hater. Paul was an apostle of the living God. Paul was a man who had attained to full stature. Paul was a man who had wisdom and knowledge that I know I don't have yet. He was way beyond me and way beyond the most mature spiritual people I know in this hour. And my Bible says, and Paul wrote it, that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And he also said that in Christ, in the Spirit, there is no male and female. We spent all our meeting on it yesterday. We found out that frequently, Paul speaks in parables. So when he's talking about men and women, brethren, we must make a judgment before we go any further. Is Paul speaking about natural men and women or is he speaking about spiritual men and women? And this is a realistic question in view of his other teachings?

 

Let me give you something else to think about. This whole Bible has to be reconciled now. We also mentioned in one of the last two meetings -- I think it was the first meeting -- that the letter of the law is dying from old age. But that we are to be renewed in the spirit of the word. And we also said that works of the law and works of the flesh can bring some benefit to you if you follow a written law. We will [UNINTELLIGIBLE] that reap what you sow. It can bring good into your life. But spiritual growth is in Christ. [UNINTELLIGIBLE] into heaven is in Christ. So if the Lord permits it, let it go on. And I mentioned to you in that first meeting, anything that you would like to do, if it gives you peace you are free to do it. Ladies, if you want to cover your head, cover your head. It's a cultural thing in Africa for women to cover their heads. Be at peace. Cover your head. If you feel not to wear jewelry or makeup, be at peace. Go without jewelry and makeup. But I declare to you it's something that I told you two days ago. [INAUDIBLE] does not make you holy. Covering your head, taking off your makeup or your jewelry does not make you holy. Now, you might want to know that I went through a period where I covered my head. You might want to know that there was a period in my life where I wore not one speck of makeup for two years. I took off everything from jewelry, actually threw it in the garbage. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. OK. So what I'm trying to tell you, I'm not telling you what to do. What I'm trying to tell you is that there is such a thing as spiritual growth. Do what you feel that to do. I'm not telling you not to do anything. What I'm telling you is these external works do not make you holy. If they give you peace, if they're a manifestation of your culture, praise God. But they do not make you holy.

 

And before we go into this study, I would like to put a question to you. And I'd like to ask you whether or not you really think it's possible that a piece of cloth can protect you from a demon.

 

[INAUDIBLE]

 

If someone did not hear, I'll say it again. Can a piece of cloth, which is natural, protect you from a demon? And if you think it can, how? Brethren, let us begin to think. The Lord God is not raising up a church of robots without [INAUDIBLE]. He is raising up a church of thinking, intelligent, wise people who have understanding. OK? Is there anyone who doesn't understand [INAUDIBLE] I'm telling you to do what I do? Do what gives you peace. But don't be deceived. Know the truth. It doesn't make you holy. It doesn't make you holy. It doesn't protect you against curses or other forms of spiritual [INAUDIBLE]. Praise God. OK? Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. So just to codify what I've been saying to you or what I've been suggesting to you, you can read in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul is speaking about spiritual men and women. Now, if everything that I just told you is true, if cloth cannot protect you against demons or angels, well then what in the world is Paul talking about? And I'm going to suggest to you he is speaking about spiritual men and spiritual women and I'm going to expand on these Scriptures from that point of view. OK?

 

Verse 3, "But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God." So let us review. Spiritual man. The head of every believer in whom Christ is being formed and that the person is living out of that Christ, you know, Christ can be in the process of being formed in you and be trod under foot. Mm-hmm. So to be a spiritual man, Christ must have begun to be formed in you and He must be manifested. He must be flexing His muscles. Signs of His life must be appearing in the way you think, in the way you speak and in the way you respond to human problems and the way you respond to spiritual problems. OK? Now, we spent two hours on that yesterday, so I'm not going to go into that. OK.

 

So the head of every man is Christ. If you are a spiritual woman, you respond to Christ. That means you have an ongoing relationship with Him. He speaks to you. You hear Him and you respond. Now, I don't want anyone to misunderstand me and take this occasion to mean that I'm saying to you that if you are a spiritual woman, you do not have to submit to authority in a group such as this. Now, we have this problem all over the United States. You know, I've -- I think someone told me that you have this somewhat here. We have believers who are listening to messages of mature doctrine, hiding in their individual homes, avoiding groups like this because they think that they're not to submit to anyone except the Christ in their mind. And if they come into a group like this, they will not acknowledge the authority of the leadership in the group. They will not take a correction from anybody unless it's the spiritual Christ. And because they're hiding in their homes, they're not having any interaction with other believers, so the Christ in them is not being tested, if you remember the teaching yesterday. And this teaching is not of God, brethren. Christ is the head of the man, but the spirit is subject to the prophets. When you come into a meeting like this, God has appointed a head -- one man or a series of men. Where one man is, I don't believe in -- I know some people believe in body ministry. You're entitled to your own opinion. My opinion is that while we're in this condition, our mind, while our mind is still in this condition, body ministry fails because we're not spiritual enough. Mm-hmm. In that day, in that day when we're all in full stature, body ministry will work. And it works now to a point. But there has to be a God-ordained head in the meeting to say, at this point, body ministry has failed. I'm taking over. Sit down. That's what your army did, didn't it? That's what your army does with their political government here. Right? Isn't that true?

 

Yes.

 

I'm telling you the truth. Body ministry works. It works. It works. It works. It works. And someone walks into the meeting -- a believer. They love God. But their carnal mind numbs them and says this is God speaking. And they do what he tells them. And when there's no God-ordained head, all of the God-fearing believers sit in their seats, afraid of offending their brother. And the whole meeting collapses and if God doesn't raise up a deliverer, the whole group collapses. Mm-hmm. So the head of the man is Christ, but when you're in somebody's meeting, you submit to the authority that God has given him.

 

If you think the man is off, it's still his meeting. You have two choices. You can leave, or you can ask the Lord what He wants you to do, which is what you should do. You can ask the Lord. First of all, let me exhort you, brethren, to beware of pride. No matter how convinced you are that someone in the leadership is off, for your own good, I exhort you, when you pray about it, say, "Father, just in case I'm the one that's off, please correct the one who's off." You know, if you think the one in charge is off, you know, you could be wrong. Maybe there's something you don't understand. Maybe there's something that God told him that He didn't tell you. Well, why would God tell him and not tell you when you're both spiritual men? Because God said he's the head of the meeting. Why would God tell him and not you when you're more spiritual? Do you know that -- I'm not talking about for the [INAUDIBLE] -- but do you know that it's possible for you to be sitting in a meeting and be more spiritual than the leader -- more spiritual, more wise, more understanding. You could be better than this leader in every point. But I'm sorry. God made him the leader. He had to have a reason to make him the leader.

 

So we have spiritual men. First of all, we have spiritual men in varying degrees of maturity in the natural. You have an 18-year-old man. You have a 25-year-old man. You have a 45-year-old man. It's the same thing in the spirit. But then there's another aspect of it. You have to look for natural appointed authority, such as the leader of a group like this, or a group of men that spiritually could be a female, because there could be nothing that is under the one head. And the reason I believe at this point that body ministry -- I can't tell you that it can't be of God. I can't tell you that. How do I know what God will do? But from what I've seen in this hour, it's not functioning too well. When there's no appointed leader and 15 people or more or less walk in and sit down and try and get this meeting going, it just doesn’t work. You see, if everybody would be completely tuned into God and the Lord would go to one person and move, and the Lord would go --. You see, let me define body ministry for you. Body ministry is when everybody in this room -- well, in this meeting, you're outside this room -- every single one of you would be so attuned to Christ, that He could go to anyone that He wants to. He'll tell you to sing a song. When you finish, He'll tell you to sing a song. When you're finished, He'll you to give an exhortation. And every time you gather, He'll decide who's going to preach and they'll be no argument. Everybody will know that Brother X is preaching tonight. It doesn't work, brethren. We're too far and we're not there, you see. Body ministry in principle is fine. But in our present condition, I don't know -- I haven't heard of any group where it's really working. It turns into confusion.

 

So we have this condition in the church of people who think they're very spiritually mature and maybe they are. But I want to tell you my opinion is that if you're that spiritually mature, that you don't need a group like this, there is so many believers out there that need a faithful undershepherd. They need the ministry of a faithful undershepherd. If you're really that mature, you should be an undershepherd. You see, either you should be in a group like this, or you should be running one. Now, that doesn't discount the possibility that God could bring you out in the world in this for six months or a year, but when that six months or a year is hitting five years and six years and you're sitting home in your corner, then God never told me where He wanted me to go. I want to give you my strong opinion that you have been seduced by your carnal mind telling you that he's God. But your God never told you to isolate yourself, that your God never told you to fail to submit to a God-ordained authority for the purpose of order in a group, and that you're lifted up in pride and that this pride is expressing itself through rebellion. And I'll never condemn you, but I exhort you to impugn to anybody hearing this, if it's for you, if you're hearing the message, I exhort you to repent, because you have not heard from God. And that I'll put myself out on the limb. I'll tell you that right now that that's not God.

 

OK. So what have I said? Let's try and review this. Spiritual men can be in a variety of stages of maturity. Spiritual men can be called by the Lord to submit to a God-appointed head of a physical group such as this for the purposes of order. And if you are 500 percent more anointed than him, God still told you to do it. And if you're having a problem with it, probably the reason God told you to do it is that He's crushing your pride. Spiritual authority and submission in Christ varies from relationship to relationship. We must learn how to flow with God's Spirit. You see, even someone who, like me, who goes around preaching in other places, in other meetings, in other countries, OK, when I come here, I am subject to Brother Hope. I can't do whatever I want here. I couldn't preach here until he invited me. We couldn't take pictures until he gave his permission. Well, I tell you the truth. I tell you the truth. Submission changes depending on the relationship. Now, when Brother Hope comes to the United States, I'll be able to tell him whether or not he could take pictures.

 

Mm-hmm. So we must be very careful not to be bound down, not to let a millstone be laid around our neck, weighing us down to carnal rules and regulations. But God is challenging us. Those of us who are spiritual men, God is challenging us to discern Christ wherever He's manifesting. So when you can do that, now you know who's a spiritual man and who's not a spiritual man. The problem, the next problem that you have is discerning which spiritual man, you or the other guy, has the authority in each specific encounter. Don't let me discourage you. God wants to teach you how to do this. Don't be discouraged. God will take you a step at a time. My job is to let you know [UNINTELLIGIBLE] what he wants to teach you. I'm not here to condemn you because you don't know how to do it. I'm here speaking to you in a human language, laying the groundwork for the Lord to come to you in your personal relationship and teach you by His personal plan for your life.

 

He's not going to do it the same in every individual life. So if He's doing it one way in your brother's life, don't start persecuting your brother because it's different than the way He did it in yours, neither feel condemned or rejected from God because He's not doing it with you. The Lord wants us to get [UNINTELLIGIBLE] everybody except Him. Just say, "Lord, I want it." I want to tell you, brethren, there is no place or reason for anything in God's Kingdom. And I'll tell you why, because God is bottomless. There is nothing that He gives you that He can't give me. There is nothing that He gives me that He cannot give you if He wants to give it to you. Now, I can't promise you that He's going to give you everything that He's given me. That's not my decision. But I can promise you this -- that if you see something that I have or if you see something that your brother has and you want it and you ask for it, He is full well able to give it to you, if He decides to give it to you. But maybe He has something else for you. See, there's no favoritism here. He wants to give you everything. He wants to be fully manifested through you. But everybody's not the same. Everybody doesn't grow at the same rate. Everybody doesn't have the same potential.

 

One of my biggest frustrations is music. I prayed for a couple of years to be able to play an instrument supernaturally or to be able to sing. At least I carry a tune sometimes now, but I never used to even be able to carry a tune. So finally the Lord said to me, "Look, you're a human being. You have human limits. You have physical limits. There are 24 hours in a day. You have other responsibilities. I have called you to study. Would you just please let go of this music thing? You can only do so much." So ask God for everything and be content with what He gives you, you know? You can ask Him. You know, now and then you could say, "Lord, if you really decided not to give me this?" But don't pound at His door. Don't pound at His door. You don't have to convince Him. Either He's not going to do it for some very Godly reason, or you're not ready for it.

 

Yes.

 

He's perfect. He's perfect. There's no reason for you to be envious. His purpose in you, in each of you is to develop you to your fullest potential and bring you all together with a measure of harmony that He likened to a great orchestra. And right now, we're in training. So spiritual men, it has nothing to do with how anointed you are or how smart you are or how gifted you are. When you find yourself in an encounter with another spiritual man, you have to ask the Lord what His purpose is in that encounter. And the fact that you're in the ministry and the other one isn't, or the fact that maybe you really do have more knowledge and the other one doesn't has nothing to do with God's choice as to who He will reveal Himself through in that meeting. So you'll try your pride at every turn. And we never know what He's trying to accomplish. Maybe as accomplished as you are, as intelligent, wise, educated, anointed and whatever your gifts are, maybe that brother, who doesn't have any of these gifts that you have, he has some little thing that you don't have and God wants you to learn from him. For every encounter, we must be continuously thanking the Lord. Paul says, "Pray without ceasing." Lord, what is your purpose in this encounter? Is it a lesson for me? Am I to teach? Am I to learn? Should I be quiet and let the other brother speak? Who do you want to speak? So we ought to be in constant communication with the Lord, asking Him in a very relaxed manner what His purpose is in this apparently harmless fellowship. There's no such thing as a harmless fellowship.

 

God's not wasting a second. He's causing you to rise. He's teaching you. He's testing you. He's trying you. He has no time to waste, because this is a dying world that He wants to save. There's not a second to waste.

 

OK, spiritual men. I call it changing sexual roles, spiritual sexual roles. That's what I call it. One of the principles of the Scripture is that in every relationship there is one who is dominant and one who is submissive. OK? Now, if you have two very dominant men, even with physical men, you have two very dominant men -- how about a wrestling match or a boxing match -- two dominant physical men, one man has to be more dominant than the other man. That's the guy who wins. OK? In spiritual things, in spiritual circumstances, every encounter between -- in every encounter between two believers or more, it could be more, there will be one spiritual male who is dominant with that encounter. And God is challenging every other spiritual male to find out where -- now who is that man -- is where Christ is manifesting. You see, this is the beginning of the training that will end in body ministry that works. It's not working today. So this is practice. Practice for body ministry. We're growing up in Christ.

 

OK, now, spiritual women. You have to know who you are. See, everybody has to know whether you're a spiritual man or a spiritual woman. If you don't know, ask God. He'll tell you. If you can't discern Christ, well you're probably spiritual women. There's nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about. If you're two years old, you're not ashamed. It's a growth process. It has nothing to do with how long you've "been a believer." Has nothing to do with it whatsoever. And if you let your pride hold you back, it's going to hinder the growth process. God wants you all. He wants every single one of you to come into spiritual manhood. That's what He wants for you. And that's what I'm here to encourage you to do. I'm not putting you back or setting you down, by saying you're a spiritual woman and you're a spiritual man, because that may be true today, but it may not be true tomorrow. And all of you spiritual men, I exhort you to not make that mistake, of making a judgment that someone's a spiritual woman and not keeping an open mind because five years could go by and you could really stumble over that person who has grown into spiritual manhood. So the discerning of spirit is from minute to minute, from encounter to encounter. It's a challenge. Don't let it threaten you. When God brings you into this ability, it's glorious. And this is the beginning of a lifestyle which is described by the expression, "his steps are ordered by the Lord." And you start seeing a supernatural move in your life that is so exciting. So exciting. And you start to see the hand of God in every circumstance of your life.

 

I'll give you a testimony. Sister Edith and I were invited -- and Sister June -- were invited out to lunch today and we were supposed to leave the house at 1:30. Sister Edith got delayed at the bank. She came back to the house at least an hour late, if not more. She was a little distressed because we were on a tight schedule. We were supposed to have lunch and I wanted to rest a little and we all wanted to rest before the meeting. Well, we finally got it together an hour and a half late we all loaded into the car and she had a flat tire. Flat. Flat. Completely down to the ground. Like the tire went pshh. Well, we all got out of the car and the Lord sent someone from across the street to help her to fix it. Praise God. We thank Him for that. And right in the midst, someone who was supposed to have arrived earlier but didn't arrive, walked right in and there was a very important reason why we really had to meet with that person today. This is the excitement of having your steps ordered by the Lord. This is the one who lives after the spirit. He's blown about like the wind. God doesn't tell you, you see. He doesn't say to you, "Sit there and wait." He doesn't do that. He gives you a flat tire.

 

It's true.

 

[INAUDIBLE]

 

It's the truth. It's exciting. It's glorious. But there's a training that you have to go through. So the head of the man is Christ. But we just found out that that's not so easy, that having your head is Christ is much more difficult than being a spiritual woman who's head is man, because if you're a spiritual woman, you don't have all these problems. You come to church two or three -- to a comfortable home fellowship two or three times a week. You read your Bible. You go through the whole Bible in a year, whatever you do, whatever your rules and your regulations are. Right? It's very simple. But when you're called to spiritual manhood, like, I don't want to tell you that it's complicated. It's glorious. It's glorious if you don't let it make you nervous. Just take it a step at a time as the Lord teaches you. It's the entranceway into a spiritual walk with God. It's glorious, but it's not easy. It's not easy and as I told you yesterday, it requires responsibility. You'll be receiving knowledge about people and about their lives. And if you take that knowledge and you use it to gossip, or you use it to hurt them, the Lord will chasten you. Because if you're a spiritual man, that means you're a son and He will chasten you, if necessary, severely. So it's not easy being a man. Your rewards are great, but don't think it's easy. But you could do it, because you could do all things in Christ. I'm not trying to discourage you, but I'm trying not to let you either think that this is just an easy thing. You know, when I was a young disciple, everybody that was one of my peers, we all wanted to preach. Well, I guess all young disciples -- everybody wants to preach -- oops, he wouldn't let go of that microphone. [AUDIO CUTS OUT] He wouldn't let go of that microphone. If you came up to give a testimony, he held it for you.

 

He had a fear that he wouldn't get it back. Well, let me tell you something.

 

Preaching is fun. It's glorious. I love it. But there's much more to it than you see.

 

Hallelujah.

 

Much more to it. The warfare is intense. You know, somebody actually said to me, back in the United States before I left, "Have a nice vacation." I couldn't convince them I wasn't on vacation. It's glorious to be in the ministry, but it's not easy. It's not easy. So when you pick up this microphone, you have to know, when you pick up this microphone and it's Christ in you, that you are attack- -- I am attack- -- or the Christ in me is attacking every carnal mind in this place. Anybody and everybody here who is not mature enough to have your carnal mind completely in submission to the Christ in you, if He's in you, is under an assault right now from the Christ in me. And sometimes the carnal mind hits me back. It's a warfare. It's a warfare. And it requires a measure of wisdom that can only come through this training process that I'm telling you about. Brethren, we have a whole world out there that the Lord wants to minister His life to, not by the gifts, but by His very life being played out through you in wisdom and compassion and mercy. You see, many of us wonder why more people aren't converted, because the gifts aren't enough for everybody. But they will respond to the very life of the Son of God.

 

Amen

 

So He's raising up a glorious church. And that's what we're talking about tonight -- spiritual manhood. OK? So your head is Christ. The head of the woman, the head of the spiritual woman is the spiritual man. Well, let me expound on that a little bit. The head of the woman is the man. Now, our -- the Lord Jesus Christ, our glorified Lord Jesus Christ, He is a man, is He not? He's a glorified man. It's not clear in the Scripture, and I can't prove it to you, it's up to you whether you believe it or not -- you pray about it. The man, we- -- I'm going to tell you that sh- -- that her head is the man on two levels. The man that's her head is the glorified Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ in a gift form. In a gift form. He is her head when she prophesies, when she speaks in tongues, when she engages in any of the gifts, for that modeling of the glorified Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ -- we call Him the Holy Spirit -- has covered over her carnal mind and is speaking through her. But we're told that spiritual women are much more subject to deception by the carnal mind than spiritual men. You see, for the time that spiritual men are not in full stature, we too can be deceived, but it's much harder for the carnal mind to deceive us than it is for him to deceive a woman, a spiritual woman. OK. So if were in a meeting like this and someone rises up and prophesies without their head covered, if a spiritual woman rises up and prophesies and it's not the man that's over her, but it's her carnal mind, she's -- I'm getting into the Scripture.

 

OK, I'm just going to go with the spirit. What Paul tells us -- I'll give it to you verse by verse, but I'm just going to go with the spirit right now. Paul tells us that she should be shaven. And to be shaven is a condition of being taken in slavery. If you follow the concept of being shaven back into the first five books of Moses -- I think probably in the book of Deuteronomy, I'm not sure, but it's in there, it's in the first five books, maybe the book of Numbers. If you just look up the word in your Strong's Concordance, and look for the Scriptures, you'll find out that when an army invades a city, or when the Hebrew army invades a city and takes the city and one of the Hebrew soldiers sees a woman that he finds attractive, the law of Moses said you take that woman [UNINTELLIGIBLE] well. She's a spoil of war. [UNINTELLIGIBLE], you shave her head, you give her -- you have mercy on her -- OK, you can't be like the heathen out there, you can't just go and rape her. You've got to take her into your house, give her a time of mourning, give her a time to adjust her emotions and her mentality to the fact that she's your wife, whether she likes it or not and she's yours. This is the spiritual concept behind being shaven.

 

So Paul is saying if this spiritual woman whose head is the man, the glorified spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, but for some reason in this particular prophecy, the Lord Jesus Christ has been tread under foot of her carnal mind, and it's the carnal mind prophesying. It is the job of the spiritual man in a meeting like this, to say, "I love you brother, but that's not God. You've got to sit down." Now, I hear a question in your mind, so I would just like to go back for a minute to remind you of something that I touched on these last two days, that I called the Holy Spirit -- I describe Him as curative and Christ as defensive. We see throughout the Scriptures various expressions of Our Lord. He grows in grace in us. He starts as a seed. We are babies in Christ. And then we arise into the fullness of the stature of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

If you look at the seven spirits of the Lord in Isaiah, the first three spirits describe the Holy -- the works that the Holy Spirit does. The fourth spirit, the spirit of might, is the coming forth of Christ. And the last three spirits are the warlike quality of the Christ. The Holy Spirit is not warlike. He heals. He delivers. He dances. He plays music. He speaks in tongues. He gives gifts. He's not the warrior. OK. I'm not saying God isn't a warrior. OK, is anybody here misunderstanding me? I'm not saying our God is weak. I'm saying our glorious God, when He enters into the mind of a man, at the beginning He's like a mustard seed. He's the least of all the seeds. But there's always the Father in heaven who is great and glorious and undefeatable. I'm not in any way weakening our God. But when He enters into the mind of a man, He takes a weakened form just for a season. The Holy Spirit's not a warrior. Christ is the warrior. We said this yesterday. That's one of the signs of being a spiritual woman. You don't have your weapon yet. Christ is your weapon.

 

OK. So Paul tells us, when you look all these words up in the Greek, this is what he's saying. And when you look up the significance of being shaven, he's saying when there's a member of your congregation -- physical male or physical female, doesn't make any difference -- someone who has the Holy Spirit but does not have Christ -- someone who yesterday during the last meeting prophesied a glorious prophecy by the Holy Spirit but tonight, that Holy Spirit has been tread under foot and the carnal mind has risen up, Paul called him an angel. You see, the covering of the Holy Spirit covers the angel, which is her carnal mind. But that evil angel rose up and tread Christ underfoot and the carnal mind is prophesying. At this point, it's the job of the spiritual man to interfere. And I want to tell you that that happened all over the church.

 

Brethren, we -- I'm looking like this is a school room to learn spiritual principles and how to function in the spirit. There should be no shame. If the leader of the group is offensive to you, well then the Lord will have to deal with him. But if he is ministering the correction to you in love, and you are so ashamed that you have to leave the meeting or that you don't come back to this group any more, your problem is pr- -- you have a problem. And your problem is pride. And you need to improve because we all make mistakes. I make mistakes. We all make mistakes. Only Jesus didn't make mistakes. So if someone is prophesying by the angel that's not covered over by the Holy Spirit, why would that happen? Because that angel arose in their mind and tread Christ underfoot in a warfare maneuver when some spiritual male, the one in charge of the meeting has to say in all the love and kindness that he can muster, "Brother or sister, this is not the Holy Spirit." And let all of the brethren try the spirit. Let us all learn.

 

You know, when I exposed -- I have a sign back in our meetings -- you can ask June -- I have a sign. It says Carnal Mind. And I pick up my sign and I'll bring it right over to your face. We're going to put it on a stick right now. I have to walk over. There's no shame in it. Everyone here must learn to recognize a prophecy that is not of the Holy Spirit. And if you are being seduced, if your carnal mind has the ability to rise up in you and speak through you in a meeting which is glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ, that's a pretty bold thing to do, you know, to rise up at a meeting like this and dare to prophesy. Brother and sister, you need help. You need to be told that your carnal mind is deceiving you. And you give anybody here that condemns anyone who has to go through such a difficult experience, it's not easy. Well, then the Lord will have to deal with you. Where is your mercy and your kindness. Watch out. Next week it's about to happen to you. We're supposed to be loving one another and assisting one another in becoming serious, responsible, mature spiritual people in Christ. And a wrong spirit that dares to flex his muscles in a meeting like this must be expelled. The person must know it so that they can recognize it and [UNINTELLIGIBLE] it and begin their warfare. This could be the beginning of a warfare which will result in you becoming a spiritual man. So Paul says when this happens, when a believer who loves God, has been living for God for 20 years, there's nothing to do with how long you've been in the Lord, if your carnal mind can do this to you, Paul says, it's as if you're a woman, a spiritual woman who's been taken in battle. That carnal mind has come and taken you, for that specific prophecy has taken you out of the hands of the Holy Spirit and has brought you into his tent. I'm telling you the truth.

 

And then Paul goes on to say, well, if the woman is shaven, she might as well be shorn. Well, what does that mean? I know to me, shorn means shaven also. What is this man talking about? Some people would close the book at this time. Don't close the book. I'll tell you what he's talking about. Look up that word shorn in Strong's Concordance. And then look up all the other words that is translated shorn or shaven or anything along that line and look for that same number and look up all the Scriptures and you'll find out that the word translated shorn, the Greek word translated shorn, is a Greek word that specifically refers to the shearing of sheep. And the word shaven is the Greek word that specifically refers either to the shaving of a man's beard or the shaving of one's head for the women taken in battle. One word is the shaving of the human and the other word is the shaving of a sheep. Now, do you remember yesterday we spoke about us being spiritual sheep and that we have fleece. We have something, we have spiritual fleece, something that is valuable in the realm of the spirit, that's it's possible that either Christ or the carnal mind to shave our spiritual fleece and use it without us ceasing to exist. And our spiritual fleece, I remind you, is that part of our total being which is spirit. Because when Christ joins with our human spirit, the result is an expression of the spirit. The male is the spirit when in relationship to spirit or female and when that male succeeds in joining with our human spirit, he is revealed through our thoughts, our behavior and our word. That's why he wants your fleece. The carnal mind wants your fleece and Christ wants your fleece. He wants to think through you. He wants to speak through you and he wants to do through you. And in order to do this, he has to join with your spirit. So Paul said if we are the spiritual woman who has received the Holy Ghost, but the carnal mind is treading that Holy Ghost underfoot, well then she just as well might not have the Holy Ghost. So if she's going to be like a woman taken in battle, if even though she has the Holy Spirit, that Holy Spirit's going to be tread on and the carnal mind's going to have the use of her. Brethren, the Scripture likens it to harlotry. I didn't write the Bible. God wrote it. Does that carnal mind have the use of you? Well, what do you need the Holy Spirit for? Let's shave the fleece off of that believer too. Does anyone not understand what I just said. And then Paul said, but if it's not a good thing for the woman to be shaven and shorn, we're going to let her be covered. Anybody not following me? Yeah, OK. Let's try and find [INAUDIBLE] in Scripture.

 

So now in verse [INAUDIBLE]. So they had a [UNINTELLIGIBLE] man in Christ, and the head of the woman is the man -- oh, let me make one more comment on that. Well, if you are a spiritual woman, and a spiritual man comes to you -- or a leader of a meeting such as this -- comes to you and says, "Sister or brother, that prophecy is not of God," the man is your head. You've got to sit down. OK? You don't argue with a spiritual man. So you have to have some revelation that this man has a spiritual authority, but if you're totally carnal and you can't recognize in any way that the person asking you to sit down has spiritual authority over you, at the very least you have to know that there's a God-appointed head of this meeting and he asked you to sit down, please sit down.

 

Did you ever, well, I don't know. You have a lot of order over here in Nigeria. We have a lot more rebellion in the United States. Did you ever see anybody argue with you when you're asked to sit down? Yeah. I get that all -- not [INAUDIBLE].

 

It's fun. [INAUDIBLE] We have that on one message, don't we? When that guy [INAUDIBLE]. Unbelievable. It was interesting. Thank you. So the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man and the head of Christ is God. That phrase, the head of Christ is God, I pretty much said it. Let me just relate it to the Scripture for you. If you are a spiritual man, and your head is Christ, and your pride gets the best of you, and you find yourself in a power play with another spiritual man, because you know that it's the natural characteristic of males to struggle with one another -- you see that even in the animal kingdom -- there's competition. OK? Especially in young spiritual males struggle with one another. So the Lord is saying to you, remember young spiritual man, whether you are a physical [INAUDIBLE] or a physical man, if you yield to your pride and not to Christ, God is still over you. You are not without authority over your head. You know, sometimes -- I'll tell it to you because it's the truth and you probably all know it -- sometimes God gives people in ministry, a man in ministry and he thinks he doesn't answer to anybody. He thinks that he could do whatever he wants. He thinks that he can deal unrighteously with people. He thinks that if he was [INAUDIBLE], he doesn't have to apologize. He thinks he's so important because what would happen to his ministry with all these thousands of people, or hundreds of people or tens of people, what would happen to him if these people of God took him down? Therefore he feels very important. He doesn't have to follow the Lord's rules of dealing with your brother. But I've got a flash for that man wherever he is. There is a judge in heaven. God may not deal with you today and He may not deal with you tomorrow. But don't be deceived. Because all of your misdealings with the people that He has placed in subjection to you, who have been crying out day and night because of your mistreatment, the recompense for 15 years of abuse of your authority shall fall on you suddenly and you shall be [INAUDIBLE]. So there is such a thing as abuse of power. But those who are -- have been placed in subjection by the Lord, you do not remedy abuse of power. You ask the Lord whether He wants you to stay in the fellowship or whether He wants you to leave. And whether you stay or whether you leave, you bless the one who's abusing his power and you ask God to help him. Because he's still in authority in the church and he's still in authority over you. And the Bible says honor your father and your mother. Honor them. Doesn't say love them. Honor them. So be careful. Because no matter how off the man in the pulpit might be, if you take it upon yourself to bring a correction to him, you are out of order. You are in rebellion. You are operating in a spirit called Jezebel -- I'm not going to use that word here in Nigeria. This is a spirit where someone whose natural or spiritual order is to be in subjection to someone when that person rises up and tries to take authority over the God-ordained authority over them. You call that a manifestation of Jezebel. And God will not deal with that man until you repent. He will not deal with that man in relation to you, until He brings you into order, because the one who is the weaker vessel, the one who is to be in subjection must come into subjection. And this is true of natural husband and wife. If there's a problem with your husband, ladies, the Lord will not speak to him. I'm telling you, the Lord will not correct until you get yourself in proper order. I'm telling you of the truth.

 

Amen.

 

So we have changing spiritual roles. If you're a spiritual woman and you're a spiritual man, the same principle goes. Now, how [INAUDIBLE] that spiritual man and God will not deal with him until those under him come into proper position. God will not correct him. We have to know this because you bringing judgment down on your own head if you think that you have a right to correct someone in pulpit. You don't. You do have a right to petition the Lord. [INAUDIBLE] will be right. And heard. You can express yourself to God but then you must leave the correction to Him. And if He does not want to make that correction right away, you must swallow it. You know what that expression means? [INAUDIBLE] If God does not move to correct that man right away, you have to accept it. And if God doesn't move you out of the church, you have to stay in the church and you have to deal with that [INAUDIBLE] whatever you're doing, you have to deal with it in the God-prescribed manner. You have to take the victory in the position as weaker victim. You do what's right and then God will speak to the authority. Don't do it yourself.

 

Verse 4, "Every man praying or prophesying having his head covered, dishonoreth his head." This word dishonoreth, the Greek word translated dishonor, that means disfigured. Well, first of all, let me talk to you about having your head covered. OK. Men, those spiritual men, the way your head gets covered is that the carnal mind kicks Christ down underneath his feet. The King James expression is, "to tread Christ under your feet." It can happen. It can happen in believers who have two minds, as James said, and are unstable in all their ways because they have a mind of Christ and they have the carnal mind, whereas a continuing battle is going on. The name of it is Armageddon and at any given moment only the carnal mind or Christ can be revealed through you. And because we're all unstable in all our ways, there's a continuous flip-flopping. One minute Christ is tread underfoot, the next minute your carnal mind is tread underfoot. You're supposed to be battling with that thing and say, "You are Christ." From the minute Christ appears in you, it's no longer sin -- it's no longer you, but sin that dwelleth in you. That other side of you, that law that's in your flesh, that law of sin and death that's in your members, it's not you. It's sin that dwelleth in you. You're supposed to be bringing it into submission.

 

And a natural example that I'll give you for this is your children. When you have a 1-year-old baby and he's disobedient or he's having a -- he doesn't want to do what you're telling him and he's jumping up and down, you take him by the hand and you make them do it. And every time you do that to him, every time you force him to what he didn't want to do, under righteous circumstance of course, you are building into that child self-discipline. Because by the time he's 15 years old, you're not likely to be taking him by his hand and dragging him along. And if you are, you've got a problem. He has to learn how to do it by himself. Brethren, we're supposed to be growing up in Christ and our -- if you want to say it, our lower nature, our undisciplined side that we can look for an example to in our children, we must learn to deal with him. He's having temper tantrums that carnal mind. He wants to do things that Our Lord calls sin. And we have to say no, you can't do it. We have to start to exercise authority over him. Try. If he knocks you down, you repent, you try again. We've got to get authority over this thing. [UNINTELLIGIBLE] learn to ride a horse. If you fall off the horse, you get back up on the horse. You keep trying until you bring the beast into submission to the authority of the law of Christ.

 

That's what this is all about with spiritual children and the Lord is saying, "It's time to start to discipline yourself." That's what this is all about. And that's why frequently God's correction to us are st- -- so much less severe than we would expect. Because He -- we're His children. To Him, we're little kids. You see, to us, if our brother sins against us, some of us are looking to see if he's going to have a car accident or if he's going to go into financial disaster -- hmm? Is his wife going to leave him? What terrible thing's going to happen to him? Is he going to lose his life? Because he hurt me. No, none of those things are going to happen to him. That's the difference between the reaping and sowing judgment and the judgment [INAUDIBLE]. What's going to happen to him is that someone's going to do to him what he did to you. When he cries out to God, "So how could this happen to me?" the Lord's going to say to him, "Remember you did it to your brother?" We're small children to the Lord. And what our brother does us that seems so serious to us that we think he deserves to die, God is just giving him the lightest whack on his bottom.

 

OK, what were we -- we were talking about what it means to have -- for a man to have his head covered. What it means for a man to have his head covered is that at that moment, the carnal mind has tread Christ in you underfoot. And it's a shame, men, to have your head covered. This [INAUDIBLE] should not be. It's not a condemnation. It's not a devastation. It's not destruction forever. But it's a shame unto you. And that Greek word translated shame means disfigured. And what the Lord is saying to you, men -- physical men, physical women that are spiritual men -- the Lord is saying to you to be expressing your personality in a condition when your carnal mind has tread Christ underfoot, in God's eyes, makes you disfigured. Makes you a pervert. But just for that moment. The Lord is saying, "Don't do it." It's just like when you raise your children. Whatever social rules you teach them -- you know, when your kids are little, they can run around naked. But when they're 25 years old, they're not supposed to be running around naked. The Lord is saying, "This is a shame. Don't do it." And start to discipline yourself and see to it that it happens less and less. Because your carnal mind is not supposed to be showing when you're a spiritual man and we found Scriptures that indicate that God considers it -- or that God likens it to an adult exposing himself, walking around the street naked. We have at least two or three Scriptures that show references to that. When we looked up all the words in the Greek, that's what was revealed in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. The carnal mind's supposed to be covered over. But when it covers you over, you'll be [UNINTELLIGIBLE] and it's a shame unto you. So let's rise up and get this thing in his right place. And how do you do that? You cry out to the Father. Help. We can joke about it, but this carnal mind is very strong. He's a weapon. The Scripture says he's a weapon. That's how you need a weapon to fight him. Your weapons aren't carnal. You're mighty to the pulling down a stronghold. You need a spiritual weapon. You need a spiritual weapon which is a mind which is righteous to overcome and destroy the unrighteous mind which is killing you. And why is it killing you? Because it's taken you in battle, this whole human race -- when Adam died and we all died in Adam, we were all taken as a woman in battle. And we were shaven and we were brought into the tent of the carnal mind. And we're being kept as a spiritual harlot. And we are getting paid for it. And the pay that we get is that we die [INAUDIBLE]. And in this hour, The Lord Jesus Christ has come to deliver us out of our captor's tent. And the war is on. And He wants you to -- each of us to rise up and rebel and rebel against our [INAUDIBLE] condition, and join with Him. So that's what this chapter's all about. It's not about putting some -- a human woman in bondage. It's much more serious than that. This is serious. You have to know, spiritual men, that it's a shame to let the carnal mind speak through you. And I'm not here to condemn you, but I need to tell you that every time that happens and God quickens it to you, you must repent. It requires repentance. You have to know that because you won't repent if you don't know it.

 

"Every man praying or prophesying having his head covered, dishonoreth his head." And of course, we spoke about prophecy yesterday. Now, Paul does not distinguish between the gift of prophecy or the prophecy of the spiritual man, but he's speaking to spiritual men. Now remember, the prophecy of spiritual men is not obvious. It's not a "thus sayeth the Lord." It comes forth in casual conversation. So it's much more serious for a spiritual man to let the carnal mind be counseling through him. Because that's much harder to discern. May a false prophecy [INAUDIBLE], "thus sayeth the Lord." "You shall die by 10 o'clock tomorrow morning." That's not good. [INAUDIBLE] Not, "thus sayeth the morning." I know that under the old covenant, there were prophets who went to kings and pronounced death upon them. But it wasn't the gift of prophecy, it was an unsure manifestation of the Spirit of God and that man went forth delivering that word, knowing that if it didn't come to pass, that the other prophets of Israel would stone him to death. It was no right thing. But the gift of prophecy does not pronounce death or predict death upon people. And praying, you shouldn't pray with your head covered either. Prayer is communication with the Father. Now brethren, if Christ is underneath the carnal mind, and you're trying to reach the Father, you're [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. You're out of order. It's like saying you're trying to put full damage into [UNINTELLIGIBLE] back. It is with this with the communication. It messes everything up. Now, if you can hear, most people cannot hear from God when the carnal mind -- now what does it mean to have your head covered, to have the carnal mind covering Christ -- what does that mean? Another way to say it is that your carnal mind is fully manifested by possessing your mind, thinking for you, speaking for you -- how are you going to get to the Father? So what some people do is that, some people come in and they sing. Some people read their Bible. Whatever you do that brings you closer to the Lord, whatever activity you engage in that will stir up Christ in you will cause Him to arise and hopefully defeat that carnal mind. It was [INAUDIBLE] knocked him down and tread him underfoot. I know you're communing with the Father, but your head's no longer covered. You have to get that head covering off if you want to hear from God. Otherwise, that head covering's sure to say to you, "This is God speaking. Now, I have instructions for you today. You'll go to the marketplace first. You'll go down that street second and you'll go visit your mother third." God doesn't do that. God doesn't tell you those things. If you want to spend your day that way, you'll get there, but you won't know why. That's a -- we say a spirit guide -- but what should we say familiar spirit also. These kinds of instructions, these letter-of-the-law instructions do not come from God. I mentioned it the other night.

 

We have a whole series called The [UNINTELLIGIBLE] series. Also read some books written by some demon. They dictated through this woman. She'd wait for him at the same time every night, sit there with her typewriter and he would dictate. She'd type and write. God doesn't do that. God doesn't dictate to you. God puts impressions in your heart. He puts thoughts in your mind. And He lets the individual bring those thoughts and those impressions forth from your dominant personality and experience as a creative work. Right? Right. [INAUDIBLE] right. OK. God doesn't dictate through you like you're a robot. God creates through you. He joins with you in a creative expression that when He goes to the next man to do the same thing, it comes out totally different because j- -- while God is joining with you, you have different strong points, and you have different quality. And God is now creating through you. We're told each -- well, you don't have snow here in Nigeria -- but then I said each snowflake is individual, just like every fingerprint is individual. No two snowflakes are alike. That's incredible. A snowflake is like a drop of rain but it's cold and it's become white. And is that incredible that every drop of rain is different? God doesn't dictate through you. Does anyone not know what I just said? OK. You have to know these things.

 

Verse 4, "And if he prophesy or praying having his head covered, dishonoreth his head." He disfigures Christ. For Christ to be underneath the carnal mind, He is disfigured and placed in a perverse position. That's God's explanation.

 

Verse 5, "But every woman who prayeth or prophesyeth with her head uncovered, dishonoreth her head," or dishonoreth the man. "For that is even all one as if she was shaven." For every spiritual woman who's speaking or in communion with the Holy Spirit, or is prophesying openly by the gift of prophecy, when it's not the Holy Spirit covering her head, she dishonoreth her true head. She dishonoreth the Holy Spirit, and I want to suggest something to you. You have studied this in the Greek and the implication, when you read it in the King James the impression that you get is that it's the woman who's dishonored and that the shame is on the woman. And I want to tell you spiritual men, whether you're physical men or physical women, the inner tense in the Greek of this Scripture is that the shame, the respo- -- it's not the woman shaming the man, but the shame is unto the man because he has not stopped that false prophecy. That's the intent in the Greek because that's my understanding after studying it in the Greek, that God is placing the responsibility on the man. There's a false prophecy or a false word of knowledge or ungodly counsel of -- brethren, when you're a spiritual man, you are supposed to be ruling in love over the spiritual women or over the spiritual men who are less mature than he is. Now, it doesn't have to be a fellowship like this. You can be at a social gathering of three people. And if somebody says something ungodly, and you a- -- can honestly believe that it's Christ in you, that it's not a critical spirit, you forget it's Christ in him and that the Lord is telling you that this person has said something that is not true and that if they continue to follow along that path, it can bring destruction into your life. And that God is authorizing you at that moment, not to any gratification for yourself, not because of pride, not because you want to exalt yourself above that person, not because you hate them and are taking this opportunity to dominate them, but if it's Christ in you, and will because of your own reservations do not want to bring a correction, I declare to you, you are as much in sin as if you had corrected this person for any of the other reasons that we just said. Because your refusal to correct because you're afraid of their facing or because you're afraid of their reaction to you or because you're afraid you might lose something that they're giving you, especially if it's your wife or your husband, you don't want to fight -- if you don't bring the correction, if it's truly God, truly God telling you, "Tell this person the truth. It will save your life," and you don't do it, it's sin unto you. And it's the sin of pride. It's the opposite side of the coin of the pride that says, "Well, I'm going to get her now. I know something that she doesn't know and I'm going to straighten her out, and show her who's the spiritual man around here."

 

Both situations are pride, one an aggressive manifestation of it and the other a passive manifestation of it. So the bottom line is, let's do righteousness. Let's be Christ. When God has witnessed to you that you have wisdom in an area and that this brother is thinking thoughts that are not a [UNINTELLIGIBLE] full fear of God and if someone doesn't tell him the truth, he's going to wind up in a ditch. Now, in the United States, we have some people that say, "Oh, no. Don't tell your brother that. Go in your prayer closet and pray." Well, let me tell you something, brethren. When you go in your prayer closet and you pray, as soon as you finish praying, God's going to say, "Go tell him." See, we have a problem called fear of confrontation in the church today. Let's everybody love God. Love; love; love; love; love. Don't tell anybody the truth. Don't have a conflict. Don't ever learn how to have a godly conflict. Don't ever learn how to prevail in the conflict. Don't ever learn how to glorify God in the conflict. And don't ever see the victory of God over them. If it's an honest mistake, if you think it's God telling you to say what you say and it's not, so God will correct you. If you know it isn't wicked, if you're really trying and you make a mistake, you'll learn from your mistake. And don't ever let any ungodly thought in your mind or in anybody else's mind tell you that your mistake has cast that person down to hell forever in an unredeemable condition, because that too is a manifestation of pride. You are not that powerful, brethren. There isn't any mistake that you could make that God cannot fix. We're not all that powerful.

 

Somebody once was praying today, someone was giving me a hard time and I said, "Don't kill him, Lord. Don't kill him. Just stop him." Now, I don't have to tell God not to kill somebody. You know, I'm making a joke out of it, but it's true. You know, we have a pretty well-known ministry in the United States. It's known all over the country [INAUDIBLE]. No, not for a long time. He's done great work for God. He impacted my life. He's a great man but I thought he was a fallen man. He had a friend in ministry and this friend started preaching something that he thought was unscriptural. I'm not so sure that it was unscriptural, but he thought it was unscriptural. And he started binding and loosening and asking God to stop this man from preaching it. And the other man had a ministry too, very valuable ministry. Both men impacted my life tremendously, and a lot of other people too. And the man died. And he died prematurely. He wasn't old enough to die. And this man who was doing the binding and loosening, he was just devastated. He really thought he killed that man. And he thought God killed a man. He thought that he went before the Lord and said, "Well, what my brother's doing is he's hurting God's sheep and Lord, you have to stop him. He's [UNINTELLIGIBLE] because he's a" -- let me [UNINTELLIGIBLE] I want to say -- the preacher who was doing the praying thought that God killed the man who was doing something that was supposedly ungodly, which I'm not convinced was ungodly. So one preacher went to the Lord about the other preacher and complained about him. And the man died. And the preacher who complained thought that God was so much in his pocket that he killed him. I thank God that He's not that much in anybody's pocket. Brethren, that's witchcraft. He's saying that he knew killing it goes [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. God doesn't kill on command. He's got things to [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. This is a minister, international minister. Faithful man of God. Does anyone think I'm saying something against him? I'm not. He's not perfect. That's the only thing I'm saying about him. OK.

 

Verse 5, "But every woman that prayeth that communes with God or prophesies by the Holy Spirit, by the gift of the Holy Spirit," or -- I'm sorry -- "Every spiritual woman who is a spiritual woman because she has the Holy Spirit, who communes with the Lord or prophesies with her head uncovered, but when -- even though she has the Holy Spirit, it's not him, but the carnal mind, she dishonoreth her head. For that is even all one as if she was shaven." And we've spoken about that already. Paul is saying that if the spiritual woman that has the Holy Spirit comes anywhere, not only a spiritual meeting, but she gives a "thus sayeth the Lord," she declares this is the word of the Lord, and it's not, it's the carnal mind, she has been taken to tha- -- oh, by the carnal mind and who is expressing himself through her with full thoughts and [INAUDIBLE]."

 

And then Paul goes on to say, Verse 6, "For if the woman being not covered," if it's not the Holy Spirit that's prophesying through her, by covering over her carnal mind, "let her also be shorn." Let her lose that spiritual fleece which is the Holy Spirit. Let her lose it, because she's not using it. Didn't Jesus say that the one who didn't u- -- the one who didn't use the talent but buried it under the ground, that he was going to lose it? If you don't use it, you're going to lose it. That's what he's saying here. What good is the Holy Spirit if your carnal mind's speaking to you and dishonoring you, that man, that spiritual man, the Holy Spirit. She might as well be shorn. "But if it be a shame," and this shame does not mean a disfigurement. This Greek word translated shame means her dishonor and it implies a lack. The first time, the first two times that we see the word shame, if a man's head is covered it's shame, the word that means disfigured. The implication is that all of the parts of man, but they're in the wrong order, they're disfigured. This Greek word shame means that something is lacking. Something is lacking.

 

Verse 6, "For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it's a shame, for a woman to be shorn or shaven," it's a shame to not even have the Holy Spirit, not a shame as man says a shame, but the whole creation without a manifestation of God in your life is a shame. That's what Paul is saying. It's not a good thing to take this Holy Spirit away. Paul is -- he's saying to all you people who don't understand me, all your carnal minded Corinthians that are thinking that I just told you that I'm prophesying that that spiritual woman should lose the Holy Spirit, that's not what I'm saying. This is what he said to them. He said, that's not my choice for her, because if it's a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, then let her be covered. And this is where the spiritual man comes in. In a meeting like this, in a household, in a fellowship, at work, if the person that's off, that is thinking wrong -- you know, I was going to say to you if they're a believer, but the Lord has just corrected me. Do you know that as ministers of Christ, we have authority everywhere that Christ decides to exercise that authority? So whether the person be a Christian or a non-Christian, the only question you have to ask yourself, is it Christ in you telling you to bring a correction at that specific moment to that specific person. Because, you know, you can know about a situation in somebody's life and it's not at all unkind for the Lord to speak to me and tell me to bring a correction and that I would have to wait a day, a week, a month until He opens the spiritual door, until I recognize that He has set the stage, that the person's heart was open towards me, that they were ready to hear what I had to say and then I would bring the correction. So that's your responsibility, how God told you to bring a correction. If the answer is yes, is this the time? If it's not, then pray for the person. You pray for them. Say, "Father, help them. Look at this thought in their mind. If they keep on going in that direction, they're going to fall in the ditch." And you wait for God to say, "Now." And if you can't hear God saying now, don't get nervous. If you can't hear Him saying now or not now, you do the best you can. Do something, but know that you might be corrected. Walk. You have to walk. You can't just sit in the corner and do nothing. Pray all of your prayers. Say, "Father, I desire to serve You. I desire to move in this ministry. I desire to help my brother. But I can't hear You. So I'm going forward. This is what I'm going to do. If it's the wrong place, if it's the wrong time, if it's the wrong revelation, I'm believing You to stop me from doing it, because I can't hear You, and this is the best I know how to do," and start walking. And if you meet a lion in the way, know that God didn't send you to do it. He'll turn you away. He'll use it for His good.

 

You've got to walk. You can't sit in the corner quivering, afraid of making a mistake. You know, when you become a lawyer, when you graduate law school, you're really not a lawyer until you practice for a couple of years. When you graduate medical school, you're really not a doctor. Well, they call you Doctor, well, you really have to practice for a couple of years. You have to work under an experienced doctor, watch him, watch him make diagnoses, watch him operate, watch him prescribe. It's not the book knowledge, brethren. It's the experience. So you could be here listening to me for the next 60 years. You have to start walking. Just ask the Lord that your heart should [INAUDIBLE] to her, that you're not doing this in self-aggrandizing, that you're not lifting yourself up, that you don't want to be a big man, that you don't want to dominate somebody or seek somebody weak so that you could feel strong. When you have sought the Lord and you are convinced that the Lord is bringing you into this spiritual manhood ministry, walk. But know that He'll correct you and take authority over your pride if your feelings get wounded, because you've been called to something glorious. So if someone says something wrong or thinks something wrong or there is a false prophecy, in any context a false prophecy, something obvious, you correct it right then and there. Just pray before you do it. Say, "Father, let it be in Your Spirit." You know, you know that you can bring a correction in the wrong spirit. And you can break that person's heart. Just ask the Lord to give you the right spirit, and if you don't perceive a right spirit, I do it in a fellowship and the order that's due to man. And you don't perceive a right spirit in your own heart, I want to tell you, God is very faithful. If you perceive it's a wrong spirit, all you have to do is say, "Father, I don't want to bring this correction. I know I'm in the wrong spirit." He will raise -- He will speak to the brother sitting next to you to do it, the brother who doesn't have the authority. And he'll look at you and you'll say, "Yeah, go ahead." He'll do it. He's faithful.

 

Verse 7, "For man indeed ought not to cover his head, for as much as he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man." Now, a lot of people preach that we're already in the image of God. And I want to tell you, brethren, we're not in the image of God, because image is nature. We are being changed into His image because we have a fallen nature. Our carnal mind is the image of Satan. But the spiritual man, Christ, is in the image of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ glorified, He is in the image of God. And when He is your head, when He is your mind, and you're thinking with Him, He's thinking through you, He's doing through you, you are in the image of God. But we're not permanently in the image of God at this moment. But if you have Christ, you're a spiritual man, the image of God is available to you, when the Lord wills it. He's in control of this whole thing. This is not of the -- I tell this to [INAUDIBLE] all the time in the United States, this is now witchcraft. We do not lay hold of the Lord and use Him. He lays hold of us and He uses us. So the man whose head is Christ, his nature is God. So you see, if Christ is truly your head, then your motive for correcting that person is [INAUDIBLE]. Then your motive for correcting that person is to save their life because they've just been taken as a slave by the carnal mind and they don't even know it. You know, people get diseased all the time. Christians get diseased [INAUDIBLE] spirit lays a hold of them and brings them into destruction. And they really believe that it's God. I know a lot of people that this is happening to. It's not at all uncommon. So the man, Christ, His nature is God. And as we discussed yesterday, this is one of the ways to determine whether a believer is a spiritual man or a spiritual woman. The spiritual woman is very gifted, but without the nature of [INAUDIBLE], her nature is carnal. Her natural is carnal. That means, she's likely to have envy. She's likely to have a motive that would want to exalt her over somebody, to make a correction in order to exalt herself. But if it's truly a spiritual man, his nature is God and his motive is love. You've got the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, if you're truly a spiritual man, your motive for making that correction is to save that person's life and therefore you will do it, even if you know that they will attack you, even if you know that they will have unkind things to say to you, even if you know that they'll take their business away from you, even if you know that they'll stop dating you -- if you date here, I don't know whether you date or not -- even if you know that they'll stop being your friend, even if you know that if you do this to them now, they'll never pay you that thousand naira that they owe you. If it's Christ in you, motivating you and God says, "Now," you bring the correction. Because if it's Christ in you, your nature is love, not the love of man, but the love of God that lays down His human life, that gives up any of those benefits that I just mentioned, because God said now's the time to bring the correction. So if you're a spiritual man, your nature is love and also you are the glory of God, which means that God is being expressed through your personality, not just through wisdom and understanding, but through your personality.

 

Verse 7 and 8, [INAUDIBLE], "But the woman is the glory of the man." The woman is the glory of the man. What this means is that the woman, if you look at a spiritual woman or you look at a natural woman, you can tell how the man is treating her. In a natural marriage, if she has a good relationship, if her husband loves her as Christ loves the church, if he's protecting her and doing everything a natural husband is supposed to do, she has peace. She has contentment. She has calm. In a spiritual woman, if the spiritual man, either the head of the fellowship or a spiritual man that God may have put in her life, if he is with love, correcting her missteps, the glory of the man is expressed through her. We see a woman, a spiritual woman who's not falling in the ditch. That's what it means. The glory of the man, that nature of God being expressed through his personality is affecting the spiritual woman's life. She's not falling in the ditch. He loves her too much to let her fall in the ditch. He's risking everything. He's risking her accusing him falsely. He's risking her hating him. He's risking her lying about him. He's risking her doing all kinds of damage to his business and his life and his family, but he's doing it because his head, Christ, said, "[INAUDIBLE] the correction." And let me not leave out that he's doing all this, risking all this knowing that there is a God in heaven, [INAUDIBLE] leaves him in shame, but provided a relief and protection.

 

Verse 8, "For the man is not of the woman, but the woman is of the man." I just want to check my notes on that. This verse is saying -- it's basically speaking about spirit here. Spirit is male and soul is female, although we see an expression of this in our humanity also. He says -- he's saying that -- well, let me give you a new [INAUDIBLE], "For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of man." When I looked those words up in the Greek, what it's really saying is that the woman is the channel through which the man expresses himself. And in our humanity, this is showing why the children [INAUDIBLE], the man expresses himself through you by giving the children, which expresses nature in his life. Spiritually speaking, spirit expresses itself through soul. We are soul. Our personality is soul. And I touched on this earlier when I said to you, when the carnal mind expresses himself through you, he is taking you as a spoil of war and the Scripture likens it to harlotry. So that's what Paul is saying, it's the man, the spirit that expresses itself in the woman. So that means the man is boss and the woman is a means for expression. Everybody OK? It's a -- the basic principle is spiritual.

 

"Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man." No, I'm sorry. What I just told you was verse 9. "Neither is the man created for the woman, or the woman for the man." That was what I just told you.

 

Verse 8, "For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man." When I studied in the Greek, it said the man is complete without the woman. We talked about this yesterday. But the woman is not complete without the man. The man is primary. But as I told you yesterday, ladies, we're complete in Christ. OK, but spiritually speaking, soul is not complete. Spirit is complete, whether it can be expressed through a soul or not, God is complete, whether He's being expressed through man or not. God is complete. We, soul, the living soul in separation from God, we are the one who is incomplete. We need to be completed and that's why Christ is given unto us. So Paul is saying, you have to yield to the manhood, which is Christ. That's what he's saying.

 

Verse 9, "For this cause, ought the woman to have power on her head, because of the angels." Now, this is a mystery. I tell you again, you know, you're free to disagree with me if you want to, but after many years of deep studies in the Scripture, I am of the opinion that there are good angels and there are evil angels and that the good angels is the Christ and that the evil angels are the carnal minds of the people. And if you can have a better explanation of this Scripture, I'd like to hear it, but this is what the Lord has told me, that the spiritual woman has to have authority over her head. She really shouldn't be prophesying by the Holy Spirit in a place where a spiritual man is not present. That's why we had a lot of trouble in the United States. Everything I'm telling you about the United States, you've had it here, so -- we used to call it kitchen prophecy. People that were -- do you have kitchen prophecy here? Did you ever hear that? People that have the gift of prophecy and they're beautiful prophecies in a fellowship when there's an order here, where there's a spiritual man watching over the house. And they get all carried away with themselves and they have their friends over and they sit around the kitchen table and all of a sudden a prophecy comes forth, but there's no spiritual man present. They're all spiritual woman and all of a sudden, you know, they're prophesying about their marriages and their health and that they're getting divorced and the pastor has to go in and break it up. So Paul says a woman shouldn't prophesy without authority over her because of her carnal mind. Because if there's no spiritual man present, when the gift of prophecy comes forth, that carnal mind is going to rise up and deceive the Holy Spirit. That's what he's saying. Now, I keep thinking there's somebody here that's having a problem with that. Well, I could tell you, all I could do is repeat what I said earlier. The Holy Spirit is an immature manifestation of God in men. Christ is the mature manifestation of God in men. And that immature manifestation of Christ, the Holy Spirit, if that's what you have that makes you a spiritual woman, you're not the warrior. And you need someone who has a mature manifestation of Christ to be covering you with their authority. What does that mean? To be present to try the spirit and say to you, this was not of God. Let's pray for you. Everybody OK?

 

[INAUDIBLE]

 

Verse 11, "Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord." And what that's saying is that in Christ, we're all male and female. That's what he's saying. Let me read it to you again. "Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord." In the Lord. He's saying, if you look at it in the Greek, what he's saying is that if God -- if Christ is your head, if the Lord is your head, you're neither male or female. That's what he's saying. If you're a physical man, and it's really Christ that's your head, not the Holy Spirit but the Lord in you, Christ, if He's your head, you're not without the woman. You're male and you're -- neither male nor female, or you could say you're both when Christ is your head. OK? And women, if the Lord is your head and it's not the Holy Spirit, the Lord is your head, you're neither male nor female, or as Brother Hope just said, you can express both male and female. Spirit and soul can be expressed through you when the Lord is your head. But not when the Holy Spirit is your head. You have to have the Lord as your head. There's a difference.

 

Verse 13, "Judge in yourselves, is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?" Now, I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that Paul has just spent all this time convincing us that he's talking about spiritual men and spiritual women and that in the prior verse, he said, if the Lord is your head, you're both soul and spirit and there is no male and female. And now he comes back and he says, well, now I ask you. Is it comely that a woman prophesy uncovered? What's he getting at? Let's take a look at this. "Judging yourselves," he's saying discern the spirit. After everything that I've told you, "is it comely for a spiritual woman to pray unto God uncovered?" And he's saying to you, it's not. And in the following verses -- now, this verse -- I want to tell you, I had a hard time with this verse. I got -- I received from the Lord an understanding of this verse. Once again, you are free to agree or disagree, but I was before the Lord for a long time with this and I believe that I've heard from Him. And this is what He said to me. "Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?" Now, first of all, the Greek word translated long hair, it can be translated long hair, but it really just means hair, a substantial amount of hair, a goodly amount of hair. Second of all, there is a Greek word in the Interlinear that was not translated, and that Greek word completely changes the meaning of the verse. Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair," and this word -- I'll tell you the name of the word, it's Strong's 3303, it's not translated into the English -- and what it means is gives up. And I'm suggesting to you that phrase is saying, doesn't nature itself teach you that if a man gives up hair -- or if a man is bald, that's what it's saying, if a man is bald -- does not even nature itself teach you -- that Greek word translated nature, it's talking about a plant, the way it increases through expansion, and what this phrase is saying is, brethren, doesn't the fact that we have hair on our head, doesn't even this convince you that because nature put hair on your head, that your head should be covered? That's what he's saying. I meditated on this for several hours. In the Greek, it's not clear but this is what God gave me. Can't you see simply by the fact that God has put hair on your head, that He wants your head covered? "Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man," -- "Doesn't nature itself teach you that because hair is on your head, your head should be covered, therefore, if a man is without hair -- and they took that negative word out, it's in there. It's pronounced -- it's the Greek word men -- M-E-N, if a man is without hair, if he's bald, that it's a shame unto him. And in the next verse, we're told, verse 15, "But if a woman has hair," this beautiful hair, "it's a glory unto her." Let me give it to you again. Can't you even tell from nature, that just by the fact that there's hair on your head -- hair on male heads and hair on women's heads -- just the fact that it's there, can't you see that nature is saying that your head is supposed to be covered? And God has given the same covering to men as He has given to women. You both have hair. That's what he's saying.

 

Now, the next phrase in Verse 15, if you have a King James, you'll see that that word her is in italics. That means it's not in the Greek. But before I go -- before I tell you that, I want to talk to you about the word covering. The word covering, the Greek word translated covering means veil. And I'd like to take a couple of minutes to go into 2 Corinthians 3, just to give you -- just to talk a little bit about the veil.

 

2 Corinthians 3:13-16, "And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished, but their minds were blinded. For until this day, remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which veil is done away in Christ." So a veil separates and the intention of the Lord, I suggest to you in 1 Corinthians 11 -- in the verse that we were just in, let me get back there.

 

I like to put it on the message -- in Verse 15 of 1 Corinthians 11, I'm going to tell you what I'm suggesting to you, and then I'll go over it with your word by word. I'm suggesting to you that the Lord is saying that there's no male or female in Christ. Can't you tell? God gave your both hair and this covering is not meant to separate men from women, but in Christ we're all the wife of God. We're all female unto God. That's what he's saying. And there's no Greek word translated her. It's not there. The Scripture is saying, "for hair is given," and the Greek word translated her, in the King James it says, "for her hair is given her," we're speaking about the second her. It can easily be translated them. It's a Greek word that can mean his, her, them, those. I'm suggesting to you that it should be translated them. God is speaking to both the man and the woman and He's saying, "for hair is given to them that there should be no more separation between men and women." You both have hair. Now, let me read it to you. I know I didn't make it very clear to you, but I did make up an Alternate Translation. Let me read it to you.

 

Alternate Translation, "Didn't nature herself teach you by the natural growth of hair that should a man," -- I'm sorry -- "Doesn't the natural growth of hair teach you that the lack of it dishonors the man, but that if a woman has beautiful hair, it's a glorious thing. Because hair is given to both men and women, or given to them as a contrast to their physical separation." Now, that word contrast, where I got that from -- I'm not doing a good job today, I'm sorry. Let me try this again. Are you all OK? OK. That one of these words here -- let me get it for you, instead of -- had to write it down somewhere. I can't find the word. Where's the word -- word veil is, OK. -- for her hair is given to her, OK. I guess it's that Greek word that's translated is -- for -- her hair is given her for a covering. That Greek word translated for can be translated instead of. So I know I didn't make it very clear, but this is the best I could do. God gave it to me. I sat there before Him and I said, "Lord, it simply can't mean what everybody says it means. It doesn't make any sense." And this is the translation that He gave me. "Both men and women have hair and the Lord has made it that way, so as to emphasize that in Christ, there's no more separation between male and female." And also I would like to remind you that hair in spiritual matters is a type of spirit. Hair typifies spirit. Do you remember Samson had his hair cut off and he became weak? Hair is a type of spirit. When our spirit is joined to the Lord, we have the strength of Samson. So the Lord took a natural type and He gave it to both men and women to emphasize that to God, in our relationship to God, we're both the same.

 

I'd like to read that Alternate Translation to you again. "Doesn't the natural growth of hair teach you that the lack of it dishonors a man, but that if a woman has beautiful hair, it's a glorious thing." What he's saying is, whether you're a man or a woman, if you don't have it, it's a dishonor, if you have it, it's a glorious thing. Because hair is given to both men and women to contrast their physical separation against their oneness in relationship to God.

 

And the last Verse 16, "But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God." And what Paul is saying there, is if there's anybody there who has misunderstood me, and thinks that I'm telling you that women have to wear a piece of cloth on their head, we never said it. That's what he's saying. Now, ladies, if you want to cover your head, I'm not telling you not to cover your head. I know it's very African to cover your head. Cover your head. But don't think that you're doing it because the Lord has commanded you to do it. Don't think you're doing it because it makes you holy. Don't do it because you think it's protecting you from the angels. Don't be deceived. The truth is going to set you free. You all are beautiful whether your head's covered. If you like head coverings, wear them. Does anybody not know what I'm saying here? OK. OK. Praise God.

 

[INAUDIBLE]

 

Any questions tonight? Do you have any questions, anybody?

 

Praise God. I want to understand if that the way my mind or my thoughts has gone now, like in, somewhere where [INAUDIBLE] was saying that day, we men should not put down the things of man and I don't know if we found liken the same thing to, you know, what this thing taught now. Please, thank you.

 

Well, that Scripture is speaking about transvestitism. OK? It's speaking about a physical man dressing like a woman because he's a pervert. See, styles change from society to society. In Bible days, men wore dresses. Now, and here in Africa, men wear dresses. But if you walk down 42nd Street in New York, wearing a dress, you're going to have a problem on your hands. I'm telling you the truth. Going to have a whole stream of men that are looking for homosexual partners walking after you. So the Bible can't possibly be saying that, you know. And in our society in the United States today, it's very acceptable for women to wear pants, but they could be very effemina- -- very feminine, even though they're wearing pants. And yet, I have had secular jobs in Manhattan which is really sin city, I mean it's really bad there today. And I've seen women walking down the street or in a business or a corporate office wearing a man's business suit. A man's -- you know what a man's business suit is, with the tie and the whole thing. That's perverse. You just have to look at it and you could see that it's perverse, you know? Well, there's nothing wrong with a woman wearing pants if it's the style of the day. And aside from all that, the bottom line always is motive. Are you trying to be stylish or are you really a lesbian trying to look like a man? God's interested in your motives. And of course, you know, sometimes we're not aware of our motives, you know. Sometimes we have underlying qualities that are ungodly, and we're not aware of them. I don't know why I'm saying this tonight, but I'll say it. I don't know where this message is going. But if you're a woman, and you like wearing men's clothes and you find yourself being followed by all the lesbians down Times Square, you should stop wearing those men's clothes. And you shouldn't be complaining that all those lesbians are bothering you. If what you're doing is attracting some ungodly attention to you, and you don't like the attention that it's attracting to you, you should stop doing it. You don't turn around and rebuke the person. Stop doing it. We have this in New York. Women walking down the street with skirts up to here. And when the guys working on the -- men working on the streets in construction turn around and look at them, they call a policeman. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. And they haul them into court. They haul them into court for sexual harassment. This is what we're coming to. A man can't look at a woman. If you look at the wrong woman's legs, you can find yourself in court with a lawsuit for thousands of dollars. And you prove you weren't looking at her legs. Of course, her dress is up to here, but that's OK.

 

Why didn't the Lord appoint any female apostle? Can a woman really be a bishop according to the teaching in Timothy? Can we also look at divorce and polygamy as meaning spiritual separation and adultery? Well, let's take one at a time.

 

Why didn't the Lord appoint any female apostle? OK. That's a good question. That's a good question. I can't tell you I have the whole answer, but I'll share my thoughts on it with you. And they go something like this. 2,000 years ago, when Jesus appeared in the earth, society was such that it really would be almost impractical to have women going out traveling two by two. See, the society wasn't prepared for it. In our modern world, our society is being prepared for it. Women everywhere are working today. You know, in those days, women never left the house. They stayed home. They were totally protected. The men did everything. They just stayed home with the children and with the sheep. But even more than that, even more than that -- the Lord's correcting me, I should have told you this first -- what we saw occurring 2,000 years ago was a statement, a symbolic statement, the Lord knowing that the Bible would be written and that the church that was coming forth in the nature of God, needed an example. And the 12 Apostles were a symbol, stating that apostles have to be male. Apostles have to be male. You see, if Jesus appointed physically female apostles, the people would not understand that they were spiritual males. You see, this is a great mystery. Spiritual manhood is a great mystery. But the symbol was there. Apostles must be male. But in another place, Paul said there's no male or female. And we find other complementary Scriptures. It's a great mystery, because I want to tell you when physically female apostles begin to appear, many will stumble over them. Many. As natural Israel stumbled over the flesh of Jesus, the church today will be stumbling over Christ in the flesh, they'll be stumbling over Christ in the flesh of a man, but they'll really be stumbling over Christ in the flesh of a woman. That's the major reason those 12 Apostles were a statement. Apostleship is male, but it was a spiritual statement. Is anybody not satisfied with that? OK. And then secondarily, the society was not prepared for physically female apostles. Women didn't go out alone in those days. Today, traditions are being tore down. Women are being educated. They're being trained. They travel. They do everything that men do, at least some -- It's possible for you. It's open to you. So this is the hour of the reality.

 

I had a dream once that everybody was standing at a bus stop. There was a big line -- you say queue here in Nigeria -- there was big queue and everybody was waiting for this bus. And the intent of the dream was that they were waiting for Jesus. They thought He was coming by a bus. And this car, this real sporty car, drove up and in the car was a woman, very anointed woman, who was a part of our group at the time. And she drove up in her car and she was supposed to be Christ and nobody would recognize her and nobody followed her. Because they had it in their head that there was a bus coming. You see, Jesus wants us to discern His spirit. And in the hour of His appearing, many are going to stumble. Does anybody here not know that? Many are going to stumble, just like the Jews stumbled. He's not going to look like you expect Him to look. He didn't look like the Jews expected Him to look. He looked completely different. They were looking for a captain of the host, a warrior to defeat a physical Rome. They wanted a man who would lead up their physical army, and they completely missed Him. Because He didn't do what they expected and it's going to happen again. You know, in this hour, there are many spiritual males being called. I don't know about here, but it's going to happen here too, but I can't speak for Nigeria. That's what I'm saying. But in the United States, there are many physical women who are spiritual males. They're just cropping up everywhere  [AUDIO CUTS OUT] and a lot of men are stumbling. A lot of men are stumbling. You see, if -- men and women are stumbling. If we can't get past these religious bondages that say a woman couldn't possibly have authority in Christ, even though the very life of Christ is vibrating through her, speaking through her, giving revelations through her, showing signs and wonders through her, and that man and woman stands there and says, "I'm sorry. It's not allowed for a woman to manifest Christ." He's going to miss it. So there are going to be a lot of people who will stumble in this last day. God's continuously testing us. So I hope that satisfies you. It's the best I could do.

 

Can a woman really be a bishop according the teaching in Timothy? Yes. Yes. You know, your husband is Christ. You see, physical men and physical women are all women. If you're a bishop, your husband is supposed to be Christ, but of course, -- let me put it to you this way. I didn't really go into the detail yesterday, but when we talked about Joel 3, there was a point there that I didn't want to take the time to emphasize. But in Joel 3:28-29, the words, "and He shall pour out of His spirit upon all flesh," appear twice. And I want to suggest to you that God doesn't stutter. He said it twice because it's happening twice. And the first time that He poured out of His spirit upon all flesh, He raised up the church as we know it today. And we have an in in-depth study on those two verses -- Sister Edith has the message here in Nigeria. And the sole specific purpose of this first outpouring was to raise up the sons of God in full stature, in the same way that the soul's ultimate purpose of natural Israel was to produce the Christ. Can you hear what I'm saying?

 

Yes.

 

OK. Natural Israel, God blessed natural Israel. He blessed them mightily. We're told He did everything He promised to do for them. Their life was a glory, led and ruled by the living God. But all that was a side effect. God's whole purpose in this was to bring forth the seed -- singular. And I want to tell you something that some people might find very shocking, everything that God's been doing for 2,000 years has been for one purpose, to bring forth the manifested sons of God. And if you have been blessed, if you have been healed, if you have been delivered, that's wonderful. But it's a side effect. And I want to tell you something very bluntly. You heard parts of my testimony. I was a dead man. But I'm not dead. And there's only one reason why I'm not dead. Because God, for whatever His reasons, decided that I would preach His word. And everybody's not getting healed today. And everybody's not getting delivered today. And everybody's not getting saved today. And we have a carnal church out there trying to beat people into repentance. It's not for everybody in this hour. In the United States, we say we're beating them over the head with the Bible. You chase people away from you. They don't want to hear it. You're forcing yourself on them. Leave them alone. You're wasting your time. You're wasting your energy. Pray. If God sends you back, He'll open their heart. If He doesn't send you back, go do something else. There are only 24 hours in a day. Go home and study. So He's pouring out of His spirit upon all flesh twice. The first outpouring has happened. But the ultimate result of it is not yet completely manifesting. But when those sons of God manifest in full stature, that firstfruits company, there will be a second outpouring and it will come out of the very person of the sons of God.

 

Amen.

 

And it will be the latter rain that will be of such a magnitude that it will affect the entire earth, and all the nations and peoples thereof. I don't even know how I got on that. You were asking me about a bishop. Yes. Yes. A woman can be a bishop. OK. I know why I started to tell you that. I started to tell you that Scripture can be taken on two levels. When it's applied to the, you see, I don't even call them a five-fold ministry. What the men that call themselves the five-fold ministry today, they're really not the five-fold ministry. They don't like it when I say this. They get very mad at me. But they're not the five-fold ministry. The five-fold ministry is in Christ. It's the sons of God. The sons of God. Christ is the evangelist. Christ is the pastor. Christ is the apostle. Christ is the prophet. Christ and whoever He is manifesting through for that moment is whatever He is and when He appears permanently in them, they are all of those things. So are these your questions? No, they're not yours. OK. So to get back to what I was saying, in Timothy, when you apply that Scripture to the first outpouring, to the former rain, we can say, yes, it's true that a physical man can be a bishop and that he has to have one wife and that his family has to be in order. That's true. OK? But then we can also say that a physical woman can be a bishop. She can have a congregation if she's married to one husband. It has to be Christ, you see. And this ties right in with what we were teaching tonight. If her head is covered, if she's a physical woman and her head is covered, if Christ has called her to this ministry, if Christ has called her to minister to a group like this, then He must be faithful to cover her head. And then, yes, she can be a bishop. Because she's not really a she, she's a he. It's the truth. I tell you the truth. So on the one level, OK, if you're talking to carnal people, yes the man has to be a husband or one wife. And if you're a carnal person and you happen to be a woman, you shouldn't be a bishop. If you're a carnal woman, you shouldn't be a bishop. Because then you're a spiritual woman. You see, it's OK for a carnal man to be a bishop in this first outpouring. You see, he's not a pastor. A lot of them call themselves pastors. They're not pastors. But you can be a bishop when Christ isn't your head. If God appoints you in this first outpouring, which is specifically designed to raise up the Son. And in this dispensation, where carnal men are moving in ministry, if Jesus Christ wants to pick a woman and put her in charge of a group, who are you to say He can't do it? Try the spirit. Look at the fruit of the ministry. These religious spirits are going to kill us.

 

You know, I grew up in a -- I was trained in this great church. I thank God for this man that ran this church. He was persecuted severely and he was wounded even more severely. As of this day, he's still not recovered from that wound. He did a great job for God. I had a tremendous foundation, but, you know, when you move in the kingdom, the warfare's intense and the testing is just as intense, you see. We all suffer from pride. Some a little more, some a little less, but we all suffer from pride. And this man, he did -- I thank God for him, but he had a problem with pride. So listen to what the Lord did to him. He's heartless to evangelize. He still comes to Nigeria from time to time. I won't tell you his name. He want -- loved to evangelize, OK. And he just wanted -- he went to India, he went to Nigeria, then the Philippines. He's been in Eastern Europe. He's been all over. And he always had a problem finding someone to preach when he would go away. Every time he picked someone to preach when he was away, it was a disaster. And the reason for it was that he was picking people for the wrong reason. I tell you this with all love for this man. You had to have a professional degree. You had to wear a business suit to church. And you had to be in a certain income bracket or you couldn't preach in his pulpit. And it was a very anointed church. Everybody knew it was a school of the prophets. I mean, it was just raising up ministry there. And the most anointed people in the church were women. And he refused to put them in the pulpit. He was doing this fantastic job across the board, but in this area he stumbled. He would not put a woman in the pulpit. And every time he put a man in the pulpit, he fell flat on his face. And this man went before [INAUDIBLE] he travailed and he cried out and he said, "Oh, God. Why won't you give me someone so that I can feel I'm leaving this church in good hands when I go away. Why are You doing this to me?" And the Lord say, "You got three preaching women in that church." And he wouldn't put any of them in the pulpit. And eventually, he lost that incredible anointing that was on the church. It's just not there. But it had to be much more than that, but I'm telling you this point. Ladies and gentlemen, how dare you tell the living God who He can put in the pulpit. How dare you? You come and you try the spirit. If it's not God, you leave. But if it's God, don't you criticize His choice. And He can do anything that He wants with anybody. He can put a donkey in this pulpit if He wants to. It'd probably do a good job of preaching.

 

Can we also look at divorce and polygamy as meaning spiritual separation and adultery? Whoever wrote this note, are you referring to the Scripture that says if you divorce and you marry another, that this is adultery? Is that what you're talking about? If I don't hear from you, I'm going to assume that's what you're talking about. [INAUDIBLE] Let me talk to you about this issue of divorce. Excuse me just a minute. You see, when the Lord fir- -- first of all, let me tell you this. Jesus said, you can only get divorced for the grounds of fornication. He didn't say adultery was the only grounds for divorce. Now, if you look up the word fornication in Strong's Concordance, the Greek word translated fornication, it is not the same English fornication. It's not -- you won't have the same definition that you'll find if you look up fornication in Webster's Dictionary. Webster's Dictionary will tell you that fornication is sexual intercourse outside of marriage, with both parties unmarried. The Greek word translated fornication means all forms, an encompassing word encompassing all forms of perversion, sexual perversion specifically. Ladies, if you find out that your husband is a homosexual, and a practicing one who will not repent and give up his lover, you have grounds for divorce. Gentlemen, if you come home and you find that your wife is consistently beating your children unto the point of death, you have grounds for a divorce. If there's incest in your family and it's not confessed and repented of with overt successful efforts at change, you have grounds for divorce. If your mate is trying to force you engage in ungodly sexual acts and will not cease from pressuring you, you have grounds for divorce. So this Scripture -- Jesus says, except there's some severe perversion in your marriage that's bringing curses down upon you and your children and all of your family, with that exception, if you leave your husband and go to another one, you're committing adultery. What He meant was -- well, He meant it on several levels. Let me start with this. If while you're married, you meet another woman and you decide you like her better than your wife and you get a divorce so that you could go live with her, that's adultery. Because adultery takes place in the mind and you committed adultery if you didn't touch the woman, which probably isn't likely, but if you didn't touch her, you just kept her chaste until you divorced your wife, you're still guilty of adultery, because you committed adultery in your mind. OK? But if you get divorced because of perversion, well, Paul said, if the woman can't live with the man, let her stay unmarried. Let me comment on that. The implication here is that if you find yourself, ladies, if you find yourself in a marriage with someone who's perverse, there had to be something operating in your life that brought you into this marriage. I'm not condemning anybody. There are curses operating. All kinds of things operating in this world. Why is this woman as happy as could be with 10 healthy children and that woman miserable with 10 miscarriages? There are curses in this life. So if you find yourself married to someone who has a perversion, who will not repent, who will not stop and you leave him, the Lord is saying to you there's got to be something operating in your life that brought you into this marriage. So if you can't live with this man, depart from him and stay by yourself. But I declare to you, I can't show it to you in the Scripture, but it's the word of the Lord to me, that should you succeed in getting your life cleaned up, the curse is broken and the demons cast out and your mind turned around thinking the thoughts of God, and I want to tell you that I've worked with a lot of people like this, I've never seen it happen in less than 10 years, I tell you the truth. If you leave that man because there's a perversion, and you throw yourself at the mercy of God to have your life delivered of the forces that brought you into this, and after you're all cleaned up, if God gives you another husband, you can marry him. When that soul tie is done away with, and you're now prepared to have a healthy Godly relationship with a man, if God gives you one, you can get married again. Now, He doesn't say to the men, if you can't live with the woman, go away and stay single. He doesn't say that. Why doesn't He say it? Because a man is supposed to have authority over his wife. Now, if you're a woman, and your husband's beating you or he's engaging in any kind of perversion, you're definitely at a disadvantage. You're at a disadvantage because you're subject to him and you're not allowed to rise up and rebel against him. Plus, he's also physically stronger than you, so the Lord says, leave. But men, you're supposed to have authority over your women. If they're beating you -- well, I guess I gave you a bad example before, you know. If they're beating your kids, you're supposed to be able to deal with your wife, because you have the authority. And that's why there's no such provision saying that if you can't live with your wife, leave her. If she's so miserable, if she's so miserably unhappy, that she's making you miserable, well, then the Lord wants you to get before Him and find out why she's so miserable. Maybe you could help to make her happy. The husband has the authority, you know. See, I don't about here in Nigeria, but in the United States, things are really messed up. I mean, things are really getting messed up over there. And we have a pretty severe condition of role reversal. And I guess that's why I gave you that bad example. But we have a lot of marriages where the women are acting like the men and the men are acting like the women. And the men are not in authority over their wives and the wives are dominating the men and if you'll examine the women's lifestyle, they'll -- and I'm not saying that they're homosexuals, now don't misunderstand me -- but if you examine their lifestyles, they're living the life of a man. And we have husband abuse in the United States, women beating on their husbands. So in situations like this, if two Christians -- if a Christian man came to me in this condition, I would say to him, "It's my understanding that you are a spiritual female and if your wife is beating you up and you really can't stop her, you better leave, but stay single." Telling you the truth. But don't get married again, because you've got an emotional problem. But in a marriage where the man is a man, you're not supposed to leave. You're supposed to pray for your wife. You're supposed to minister to your wife. You're supposed to love your wife and help her through. But women who are the weaker vessel, if your husband's perverse, leave. But don't marry until you're cleaned up, and then only if God gives you a husband. So I think I answered all three questions. Did I -- something about polygamy. Let me look at these again. Can we also look at divorce and polygamy as meaning spiritual separation and adultery? I got some answer.

 

Well, it's been a wonderful three days. God bless you all.

 

PRAYER

 

Father, I just thank you for these three days. I think you for these wonderful people, the Church of the Loving God. How exciting to think that I could go anywhere in the world and meets God's people and feel like I've known them all of my life. I bless them Father. I pray that not one of them walk out of here without having peace of Christ. I pray that to the fullest extent that I'm able. You are the only One that could do it. Bless them, Father. Prosper that seed. Let it arise in them, Oh God, and let it manifest fully. I pray that you give them spiritual experiences and that You raise them up into full spiritual manhood. In Christ Jesus.

 

Father, may our eyes see Your Christ standing in full stature on this earth, in the flesh of men. May we see it. May it come to pass. May the nations tremble and the earth quake as He begins to walk in His many-membered body. May the shackles be broken off and the chains come crashing down. Father, may Your purposes be revealed to us and Your holy word come to pass. Surely the whole earth, the whole creation stands on tip-toe, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. Father, let that angel that has one foot on the land and the other foot on the sea crying out, there shall be no more waiting. Father. Let it be a reality. Raise up Your people. Let Your word be made flesh and let the word be revealed in the earth through these people. Honor this, I pray. In the Name of Jesus.

 

Amen.

 

I know that if we are to put on and go on to the twelfth midnight hour, not finished. I think all reasonable questions have been asked. And I think all reasonable questions that have not been asked can be answered in looking at what has been said again and again. So [INAUDIBLE] the meetings and I believe God is glorified in the patience of His people. We thank God. Now, I do believe that the Lord that has called [INAUDIBLE] for each person to go back and look at this thing. Because it [INAUDIBLE] on what somebody has said. You cannot speak that you have accepted Him until you have [INAUDIBLE] to it. You know, that [INAUDIBLE] the acceptance of His world to come spiritual. Amen.

 

Amen.

 

Could we, in the process of proving it, your life will be changed. Amen. So [INAUDIBLE] the Lord, I do believe that there might be some differences of opinion here and there, but the life of God's [INAUDIBLE] from the beginning to the end has [INAUDIBLE]. And we'll praise God. We talked once [INAUDIBLE] His message to all. [INAUDIBLE] and that [INAUDIBLE] to you. Where somebody would say the woman should not preach, thankfully we don't have that problem here. If you want to be an apostle, we are [INAUDIBLE] being an apostle [INAUDIBLE]. So we have no problem here. We do not look at your sex, we look at what is coming out from you to know what you are. Praise the name of the Lord.

 

Hallelujah.

 

And we are not excited about [INAUDIBLE] when they want to see His life. Where we are all supposed to be expressing in all of His [INAUDIBLE] manifestation [INAUDIBLE]of the spirit, the mind fruit of the spirit and the five ministry gifts which are the expressive life [INAUDIBLE] for His message.

 

Lord, we are thankful to You for the times that we have had, [INAUDIBLE] Your presence sharing fellowship with Sister Sheila and Sister June. Lord God Almighty, we thank You because what we have believed to see, we are [INAUDIBLE] day after day. Lord, we thank You for their lives. Lord, we know that their [INAUDIBLE] arrangement to Your praise and to Your glory that they have come out in twos. Lord, stand by Your ministers. Let Your glory be over them. Lord, let there be enlargements coming to them, as Christ gets larger and larger in their view. For where we have seen all that we think we can see of You, more remains to be seen of You [INAUDIBLE] it will be as though we are seeing nothing. Therefore, let the Lord, the Christ be magnified before their view, and therefore they're magnified in their lives and [INAUDIBLE]. To the praise the glory of Your name. [INAUDIBLE] the children of [INAUDIBLE] are all around, but all the expressions of the [INAUDIBLE] shall not touch this world. For You have said, he does [INAUDIBLE] begotten of the Father. He [INAUDIBLE] by the only begotten and the evil world cannot touch Him. Therefore, keep this by Your power and by Your great glory. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

We'll pray that the experiences in [INAUDIBLE] will become all the more fulfilling. That the Scriptures will open all the more to them. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

We are happy. We are grateful. Lord, we know that in Christ Jesus there's no failure. Lord God, do their [INAUDIBLE] ministry. Nevertheless, no negative [INAUDIBLE] shall come down with [INAUDIBLE]. And only such [INAUDIBLE] that You have [INAUDIBLE] according to Your great prophesies shall come their way. [INAUDIBLE] cut off from their path. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Thank you, Father. We pray for their families back at home. Let Your glory come over them in defense as You have said. In the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Lord, that they will get back to know that their loved ones have been kept in the power and the glory of God. Thank you, Father.

 

The remaining two days of their stay, make more fruitful to Your praise and to Your glory. Let them not to want of that which is [INAUDIBLE] in sending them forth. Thank You, Father.

 

We pray for Sister June. We pray, Oh God, that the desires of her heart may translate to actual experience in her life. That the events of her life would tell that she has the [INAUDIBLE] and only husband, the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we thank You. [INAUDIBLE] we praise You. In Jesus' Name. We trust that all their provisions are secure to them, they shall never want. And Lord, they shall be [INAUDIBLE] of the blessings of many as they pronounce the word of blessing. Thank You, Father. In Jesus' precious Name we pray.

 

Amen. Praise the Lord.

 

Hallelujah.

 

08/21/14 – Transcribed by VerbalFusion

09/04/14 – 1^st Edit CAS/BP