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....without the person confessing it to you and frequently it is going to be in people that do not even know they are manifesting. Sometimes you can discern it by the words they say, but sometimes you discern it by perceiving a negative energy force that touches your soul and makes you uncomfortable. Now, when you first start experiencing this, you may not know why you are uncomfortable. When you first start experiencing it, you may not even realize that you are uncomfortable until a couple of hours later or the next day. You might say to yourself, "What was it bothering me in that service. I was so agitated I just wanted to get up and leave." You may find out that it was someone sitting next to you who was so manifesting, they just wanted to get up and leave, and it was registering in your heart as your own emotions. You need to petition the Lord to help you to sharpen up your discernment.
The way discernment operates is, frequently it is Christ in you manifesting discernment, but it does not get into your head. It has to get into your understanding. You have to recognize that it is discernment. Sometimes you will be sitting, you do not have to be in a service, you could be anywhere, and you will see a vision, you will go into a trance with your eyes open. Peter was in a trance with his eyes open. What does that mean? He was sitting there with his eyes open, but he saw something that he did not see with his natural eyes.
Have you had an experience where you are in a room or at the park, and your eyes are open, and all of a sudden you are looking at something that is not there? You are looking into the spirit, and you are seeing something in another realm. If you read the prophets, it is very common for the prophets. Ezekiel turned and he looked. The Lord called his name, "Ezekiel," and "Ezekiel turned and he looked."
What does that mean? He turned. Do you think he turned from the left to the right? I used to think that. He heard a voice behind him, and he turns his head and he looks. No, Brethren, he heard a voice out of the realm of the spirit. He turned from his natural eyes to his spiritual eyes, and as soon as he changed modes he looked and he saw in the spirit. When the Scripture says that Ezekiel heard a voice, and he turned, it means he switched modes. He switched from the carnal mode by which he functions in this world unto the spiritual mode by which he functions in the spirit world. He switched from his carnal eyes to his spiritual eyes, and as soon as his spiritual eyes focused, he looked into the realm of the spirit.
Sometimes you will be sitting there talking to somebody, and all of a sudden you will find yourself seeing something that your friend cannot see. You could be sitting in a room full of people like this, and you could be the only person looking at that vision. What does it mean? It means that Christ Jesus in you is giving you a message. Most likely, He is giving you a message about something that is happening in somebody's mind in this room right now. If you were in a meeting like this and you saw a vision which is going into a trance, you go into an open eye trance to see that kind of vision, it would have to have something to do with the meeting that you are sitting in. Now, it could be a call to prayer, except that if it was a call to prayer the vision would most likely come to me. Most likely, although it could come to somebody else.
If you are getting a vision while I am preaching, it is probably a vision concerning sin in somebody's mind right here in the room. Why would you be seeing the vision? It is possible the sin is directed toward you, or you are a spiritual elder. What makes you a spiritual elder? That you are receiving this message, and the Lord wants you to pray. If you receive a message like that, it means the Lord wants you to pray. Brethren, the Church has to wake up and grow up.
Someone from Florida called me the other day and said, "You were on my mind, I called to see how you are." They did not understand that they thought of me because they needed to pray. It was desperate yesterday. When somebody crosses your mind, you should pray for them. God is calling you to pray for them. Now, if you go into a trance and you see a vision that is a little more difficult. You have to interpret the vision. If you do not know how to interpret the vision you could say, "Lord I do not know what this means." You should, of course, petition Him for the ability to discern it, but in a service like this, if I am preaching, you should ask the Lord what He wants you to do. If you do not understand what it means, if you do not know how to pray, then you should ask the Lord if He wants you to put it before the Church, if He wants you to tell me. You should ask Him that right in your seat.
Ideally, if He shows you the vision you should pray about it. Even if you cannot understand the vision, you should rebuke powers and principalities and ask for the delivering power of the Lord Jesus Christ, at the least. If you do not think of doing these things, when you see visions, when you feel discomfort in your heart or distress in your mind, you need to ask the Lord to help you to start doing that. I am telling you that it does not come easily. There are even times now when I realize after it is all over, that I should have prayed and I did not pray, but I am getting sharper and sharper. There is never any condemnation. It is a teaching process.
You are being trained up to be a member of the two-witness company, eventually a Son of God. The faster you ask the Lord, the faster you ask questions, the faster you ask Him to help you sharpen up your spiritual skills, the faster you will mature into the ministry which is in Christ Jesus which you are called to, or you would not be here if you are not called to it.
Back to my major point. We do have some old order deliverance here which is okay. We have a mixture here. We also have a lot of new order deliverance here, a spiritual warfare with the minds of people who are not submitted to us. Real easy definition comparing old and new order deliverance is this.... in old order deliverance the patient submits themselves to you for ministry. That is easy. New order deliverance sometimes the patient is submitted, but frequently they are not submitted to you, and they do not even know that they are manifesting.
Your first challenge is to discern manifestation. We have named at least three different ways that manifestation is communicated to the believer. The person can say something that will indicate that they are manifesting. You can feel distress in your emotions, or you could receive a message in a trance that something is going on underneath the surface. Nothing that you could see, nothing that you could hear is going on in somebody's mind. A fourth possibility, which I do not see happening too often is that the Lord could let you hear the thoughts of the person's mind. That seems to still be a rarity for me. Most of my discernment along these lines is that I feel distress in my emotions or I notice a change in behavior. Just a shade of attitude. I guess attitude would be a fifth discernment. Attitudes are not so spiritual. A lot of carnal people could perceive a change in attitude, but when you feel that stirring in your emotions, that is true discernment. When you see a trance, that is high level communication from the Lord.
Now, why does God use one technique and not the other at any particular given time? I do not know why. Most of my discernment is two-fold, I feel distress in my emotions and sometimes I perceive the attitude which is very subtle. Frequently, I will perceive an attitude in other people and people nearby tell me they did not perceive it. I am not sure how recognizable it is by the average person. It may even be something supernatural that I see that other people do not see. I know I see a lot in people's expressions and in their behavior that goes right past other people. I do not know if it is something perceptible in their face or something that I am seeing that really is not in their face that is registering that way in my mind.
First, you have to recognize the manifestation before you can enter into the war. Then after you recognize the manifestation you have to do something. It has taken me a very long time, and my skills are not perfected. It has taken me a very long time to react to the manifestation with a Godly warfare. It has taken me years, actually. Every time I realized that there was a manifestation....what happens to me many times is I become angry at the person. Instead of praying against the manifestation I get angry at them. What am I saying? I perceive the manifestation, but I have a carnal reaction to it. For example, if I feel distress in my emotions my mind is thinking, "I do not want to be distressed in my emotions. I do not want this problem. I do not want to feel bad. Why do not you just leave me alone and go distress somebody else's emotions." That is my carnal mind reacting to discernment.
The Christ mind reacting to discernment says, "I rebuke you whatever you are, witchcraft, Jezebel, competition, envy, whatever you are I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus, I forgive that person's sins but I utterly condemn this manifestation, and curse at its roots." It does not have to be a big, long prayer, just rebuke it. Then you might want to ask the Lord if there is anything else that He wants you to do, or you keep praying until you feel satisfied. I do not pray very long prayers these days. Most of my prayers are very short, but I do go with the spirit, and I pray continuously against those powers and principalities.
Why would it be necessary in some cases to pray continuously and other cases to just verbalize one rebuke? One possible reason why you might feel led of the spirit to continue to pray is a situation where the person who is manifesting is having an active manifestation. What does that mean? It is an on-going manifestation. It was not just one burst of energy. For example, you perceive envy on somebody's face, and you say, "I rebuke you," and it just passes. The person was envious, and it just passes out of their mind. You rebuked it and that was it. When you are dealing with a Jezebel spirit, or witchcraft in somebody's mind that is trying to control you, or rage that wants to see a certain kind of behavior appear in you, and their anger or their manipulation or whatever the sin is, it is an energy which is actively flowing toward you. It is trying to force you through witchcraft, manipulation, or seduction to do something that you do not want to do. It is flowing toward you, it is an energy. It keeps flowing toward you so you had better keep pushing it back. If you just push it back once, and their mind is still transmitting, you are going to get knocked down. You have to block that energy field.
Spirit is an energy field. When you are up against a powerful mind which is transmitting a controlling spirit toward you, there are many controlling spirits, a controlling spirit or a spirit with warheads on it. If there is an energy field coming against you that is trying to affect you, either to control your behavior, or control what you are thinking, or control your emotions, or control what you are feeling, you have to keep pushing it back and come against it until you break it. If you just say once, "I rebuke you," it is going to come right back and overtake you.
If you have a mind, you have an energy source, an energy field coming against you that is determined to steal your joy and make you sad. If you do not determine in your mind that this will not happen and rise up and manifest joy and oppose that thing, you will blink twice, and you will be so depressed that you will not know what hit you. I am determined to be happy. I have every reason in the world to be happy. I have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. I have good things in my life, I have the Word of God, I have the Spirit of God, I have a beautiful home to live in, I have food to eat, I have clothes on my back, I have a car that runs. I should have put this first, I have fellowship, beautiful believers that love me and whom I love. I have a call on my life, I have a ministry that satisfies me, and you all have a ministry even if you do have a secular job also. You have ministry in your life if you enjoy listening to a tape, if you enjoy going to a meeting, if you enjoy reading the Bible, you have ministry in your life. You have good things in your life. I have no reason to be sad even if someone's carnal mind wounds me.
Paul said, "He who wars does not entangle himself in the things of this world." He said, "Put your mind on the things which are from above and reject the pain of the things which are below." I used to be overcome by sadness, brethren, and I have made a choice. When I was overcome by sadness and depression, I did not have a choice. I thought that is how life was. I thought everybody was sad and depressed all the time. That was the family I was raised up in. I thought the whole world was like that. After I came to the Lord, I found out that was not true. The whole world is not like that. I remember when I got the revelation that some people who are dirt poor are happy all the time.
I got this vision in my head of a particular ethnic group of a particular country. Every time I saw these people, with very few exceptions if any, no matter how poor they were and how little they had, they were always joking around. They were always kidding, they were always singing a song. I remember the days when I was petitioning the Lord on that. I said, "What is this, I am unhappy all the time and I have so much compared to these people, and they are happy and joking and singing all the time, what is wrong with me?" That was when I began to work on this ungodly mental and emotional attitude.
We have choices, brethren. I choose to be happy. When a mind which is stronger than me comes upon me and succeeds in making me unhappy, I get very angry because I am made unhappy against my will. I want to tell you, you can choose to be happy no matter what is happening in your life if you are willing to fight. You must fight the energy field of that other person's mind or that circumstance in your life that is seeking to make you unhappy. In Christ Jesus you have your own energy field or your own weapon with which to fight it.
If Christ Jesus is not in your mind, you have no weapon to fight it with, you are just overtaken, but Christ Jesus is a horn. Spiritual power is symbolized by horns in the Scripture. You will read about it in the prophets a lot, "And the goat pushed with his horn, and the ram pushed with its horns." Brethren, if you are in Christ you are a ram with two horns, if you have Christ Jesus in you.
The Holy Spirit is not a ram with two horns. He is a sperm, but you have some power with the Holy Spirit. If you have Christ Jesus in you, brethren, you are a male, a spiritual male, and you have two horns. The goats only have one horn in the Scripture, anyway. The goat in the book of Daniel had one notable horn in the middle of his forehead. Spiritual warfare is mind-to-mind contact. You better start pushing back that energy field, or it is going to knock you down. One minute you are happy, and the next minute you are depressed. What in the world hit you? It could be someone else's mind, or it could be your own carnal mind. Something stole your joy from you.
I challenge you to enter into this warfare. You cannot enter into this warfare until you can see it, and you see it by discernment. Let me tell you, you stand a much better chance of winning the battle if you start pushing back that energy field before it knocks you down. What am I saying? I am saying that it really helps to see it coming. It helps in the midst of your joy. You can discern just a pin prick of pain or depression rising in your heart, and you jump all over it and curse it and crush it and chop it to ribbons. Say, "I will not let you in, I will not let you in, I choose to be happy. I do not care what is happening in my life. My being depressed, my being sad, my being upset is not going to help my circumstance. Faith in Christ Jesus and prayer and submitting the matter to prayer is going to help my circumstances." Say, "I refuse you and I reject you."
Now, my horns are not that sharp. I get overcome. I was overcome horribly yesterday, but I never stopped crying out, "Lord seal up my wall, seal up my hedges, I have been overtaken, deliver me, stand me up and push this ungodly energy out from my soul."
With Christ, brethren, we are supposed to have a force field around us. The occult call it an aura. The Scripture calls it a shadow. It speaks about Peter's shadow, and it supposed to be a wall around our city, a spiritual wall that lets nothing into our city. We are told in Revelation 21, it says, "No unclean thing shall enter into the city." Well, unclean things enter into my city, brethren, and I do not like it. It gets me mad when dogs enter into my city. I know that the only reason dogs can get into my city is because of sin in me, so I actively confess my sins and repent and beg God for deliverance and whatever judgment is necessary to expose my weaknesses because I am tired of being down here in hell. I am tired of being overflowed by spiritual tidal waves. I am tired of other people's minds afflicting me, and I am tired of losing power over my own life. I am tired of being afflicted, unhappy, confused, sad, insecure and frightened. I cry out continuously for the Lord to raise up my weapon, Christ Jesus in me.
Brethren, this whole world lies in wickedness. We are living underneath a spiritual cesspool, and our dike is filled with holes. All the excrement comes flowing into us and pollutes us, chokes us and kills us. If you do not know any better you just live with it. Let me tell you, to have this revelation that I preach, and to be overtaken with the spiritual filth of this world system is nothing less than a humiliation. I cry out to God all the time," For Your own namesake I am preaching this message, let me be a living example of it, what a shame unto You that the one who preaches this message is overtaken like this." I am continuously and steadily going up, but it is not fast enough for me, brethren.
I have a revelation of what a humiliation it is to be depressed. It is much more than discomfort. If you are truly a Christian it is a shame and, there is no condemnation in this. Do not misunderstand me, I am not condemning you. I am telling you, you are not supposed to be in this condition, it is a shame unto the name of the Lord. It is a spiritual humiliation and a defeat, and you are overtaken because of spiritual weakness. You need to be praying for the Lord to strengthen you, to close up your boundaries, to close up your hedges, to plug up the holes in your wall. It is not supposed to be this way. You need repair. There is something wrong with you if you are overtaken like this, and I repeat, I say this without condemnation, "You have not because you ask not." You have to ask for the repair.
You say, "Oh, Jesus will give it to me anyway." Not likely. Why? Because that is the way it is. If you ask you get, if you do not ask you rarely get. Most likely, because He wants to encourage you to have a relationship with Him. Perhaps there are more reasons that I am not even aware of, but I know that He will help me with the silliest little thing if I ask Him. If I do not, I can go around in circles for months. When every other device fails, the last person I think of is Christ Jesus, and He answers me in about two seconds. I say to myself, "Why have I been walking in these circles for three months." It just happened to me, I asked for prayer for an infirmity that was tormenting me for three months. I am actually walking with a spring in my step feeling one hundred percent better. Why did not I ask for prayer three months ago?
This is me, I am the one preaching this message, I am supposed to be ten steps ahead of all of you, and I am walking around in pain for three months. I did not get healed until I asked for it. "You have not because you ask not." Even more than that, you have not because you are asking everybody in the world before you are ask the Lord. You are making decisions for yourself. You are not submitting everything to Him in prayer.
We are talking discernment. We are talking about communication with the Lord, talking about spiritual energy and force field and other people's minds coming against us, overtaking us, raping us, and penetrating us. It could also be our own carnal mind rising within us and overcoming Christ Jesus in us. Brethren, we have to guard ourselves against other people's minds. The more victory you have over your own carnal mind the more you have to guard yourself against other people's minds. When you first start fighting this warfare, it could be both. It is really hard to keep other people's carnal mind out when you are not victorious over your own carnal mind. Most people, when they enter into this warfare, are very overcome by a combination of their own carnal mind and other people's carnal mind.
As you fight that warfare in Christ Jesus, you are supposed to be pushing back that enemy, pushing them out of your city and sealing up the walls. If you are not advancing, if you can look back over the last six months and not see more victory in your life than you had six months ago, then you need to ask the Lord, what is wrong? Most likely, what is wrong is that there is unconfessed sin in your life. Sin that you are actually acting out, could be sin that you are not aware of, you may be aware of it, but if you are not ahead of where you were six months ago there is definitely active sin in your life.
Now, everybody has sin but there is a world of difference between sin that you are refusing to act out. You will not do it even though it is in your heart or in your mind, and sin that has been confessed as sin. Sin that has been confessed as sin is under severe attack from the Lord, we could say it is under the blood. It is no longer accounted as sin unto you, and the Lord is actively moving to give you the power to overcome it in your life. If you have confessed that you are acting out, it is a different category than confessed sin that you are not acting out. It is a little harder to get delivered from the confessed sin that you are acting out, but Jesus is able to do all things. You must be moving steadily forward. Jesus said, "Either you are for me or you are against me," Either you are going forward or you are going backwards. If you are not going forward, it is because of sin in your life which is not confessed and which is not repented of.
Now, if you really do not know what your sin is, you need the Lord to direct you to someone who is going to tell you. It is real easy if you are fornicating, you know that you are in the sin of fornication. If you are stealing, you know that you are in the sin of stealing. If your sin is subtle, if it is in your personality, if it is in your relationships, if it is the way you relate to people, and your heart is right with God, He will send someone to you to show you your sins. If you do not have your sins shown to you, you will never get out of this trouble. It is the ministry of the Sons to show God's people their sins so that they might confess them, repent and get delivered.
We are talking about new order deliverance and discerning sin in other people's hearts either through their words, through their attitudes, through feelings in your own emotions, or through a trance that the Lord might show you. First, you have to discern it and for a season you will discern it, and you just will not pray against it, Every time you realize that you were discerning sin and you did not pray against it, if you want to be sharpened up in this war, and it is very worthwhile to have your weapon sharpened. You need to confess it as the sin of pride, every time you fail to pray against a sin that has been revealed to you by the spirit. There is no condemnation in this. It is your confession as sin that you failed to do it, it is that confession that stirs up the spirit of Christ in you to give you the power and to increase your discernment to do it the next time. That is the way it works, if you really want to enter into this warfare.
My Bible tells me, "I am the lender and not the borrower." That is not just talking about money. As long as I am in a spirit of righteousness I am supposed to be on top of every situation that comes up against me. If I am going to be the lender and not the borrower, I have to learn how to wage this warfare. There is a training course that we go through, and Jesus sets the rules. If your pride does not like the rules, well, you are the loser, not Him.
These are the rules. Every time you fail to take the victory, if you confess it as sin Jesus will increase you and increase your ability to take the victory. If you do not confess it as sin, if you make excuses for yourself and go on and on about why you, what, when and how, Jesus is not going to increase your skills. He is just not interested in your excuses. Why? He is not condemning you anyway, and your excuses are stopping you from receiving the instruction. It is called justification. It is the sin of pride.
You have a choice, brethren, do you want to go on? Look, you are in this war whether you are fighting it or not, you are in it. Anyone in their right mind would decide to fight. Only someone in their wrong mind who really thinks they can get out of the war would not want to fight. You get beat up until you get the revelation that you are in the war even though you are ducking and hiding and running from it. The war is in you. Might as well start fighting this thing. Might as well turn and fight. It is not enough to resist. You resist, and eventually that force field will overtake you. You have to turn around and punch it, turn around and knock it out. You have to learn to use your weapon. If you have learned to discern sin in the other person, you have to learn to use your weapon.
When I was a kid we used to ride bikes that had brakes on the pedals, you would pedal backwards and your bike would brake, and my father bought me a bike with hand brakes. I had to switch from using foot brakes to hand brakes. I wish I could tell you how many times I saw myself about to crash, and I hit the foot brakes that did not exist, because my automatic reflex was to hit the foot brakes. The hand brakes were right on the handle bars, and I was hitting the foot brakes that did not exist. Got to switch over. My brakes were not working. My brain was moving my feet instead of my hands on my bicycle.
Brethren, you have to switch over. The advertisement says, "I would rather switch than fight." You have to switch and fight. You have to switch into spiritual warfare or you are just going to be a victim for the rest of your life. You cannot just resist, you have to push back that force field because if you fight, you will break it. You may not break it the first time you pray, you may not break it the second time that you pray, but you pray in faith and you keep on praying until that thing breaks. I am telling you, you pray when you overcome, you pray when you are guzzling the alcohol down and you cannot take the bottle away from your mouth. Christ should be praying in you, "I break the power of alcoholism over me." Chug, chug, chug, "I break the power of alcoholism over me." Every time you put it to your mouth, "I break this curse of alcoholism over me," and one day you will stop drinking.
Do not think because your prayer is not answered on the moment that it is not heard, that it is not working? Do not stop praying. "The fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much." How could you say that, that person is an alcoholic? The righteous man, brethren, is Christ Jesus, who is in you. You are unrighteous, your prayers are the prayers of your carnal mind. The only power they have is that Jesus might hear them and take mercy on you, but the fervent prayer of Christ in you avails much. Every prayer that Christ prays through you is answered by the Father in heaven. Not one word that Christ speaks or prays falls to the ground if it is Christ in you. It has to be Christ in you.
As you develop in Christ, brethren, the Lord will be showing you visions. He will be giving you discernment, initially, to overcome the powers and principalities in your own mind. As you become victorious, He will have you waging warfare with other people's minds. The Lord fully intends to deliver this whole creation, and as soon as you can handle it, you are going to be warring with more and more minds. Paul said he wrestled with beasts at Ephesus.
Now, we all start out selfish. Little children are all selfish, but as we grow up and become adults we translate from selfishness to sacrificial people, from selfish children to adults, to married people to parents who find that maturity involves sacrifice. Some people never grow up enough to know or to find out that sacrifice can be very rewarding. Some people do not want to grow up. They want to be taken care of for the rest of their life, thinking that sacrifice is an abominable thing. Those who pass into maturity find out that it is truly better to give than receive. That statement of Jesus' is not just a platitude, it is not just some religious statement.....it is a much more rewarding beneficially, mentally and physically, healthy life style to give than it is to receive. There is a spiritual truth in it.
Well, in spiritual maturity it is the same thing. You start out by waging this warfare because you think you are defending yourself with it. You are keeping that monster or that big witch away from you. That is your first activity with your spiritual weapon, that is normal. As you grow up in Christ, you find out that you are using your weapon to defend people that cannot defend themselves. You are using your weapon to defend the widow and the orphan. Who is the widow and the orphan? The believer, that is a widow, she has no husband. Christ Jesus is not in her, her husband is not in her, so you are sent to fight for her. Who is the orphan? The Christ child is not born in her. It is very rewarding to fight the good fight of faith for people that have no weapons and see that you have saved their life. It is a good life, it is a hard life, but it is a very satisfying life. Not many people will enter into that voluntarily.
We are told in John 21 that when you are mature spiritually, you do not direct your own life. You go where you are sent, and you do what you are told and you minister. The greatest among you shall be their minister. Now if you are still young and selfish, there is no condemnation in it, but the truth will set you free, and there is a better life style in your maturity. We are talking about responsibility. We are talking about the Lord revealing the hidden manifestations of people's hearts and minds. The Scripture says, "In Christ nothing shall be hidden."
Brethren, you will get to the point where everywhere you go, judgment will be falling. You will be moving in a spirit of righteousness that will attack manifestations in people's minds that will save their life through judgment falling on them. People will be saying, "Where did that destruction come from?" Well, maybe a Son prayed for you. Maybe a Son perceived sin in your life and prayed against it, not to bring destruction into your life, but just prayed a general prayer, rebuking that sin, rebuking that manifestation, blessing the person, forgiving their sins. The next day, "whack," the Spirit of God comes out of the blue, and brings a judgment in that person's life that, although painful and shocking at the moment, will result in some form of deliverance. How do I know? The Lord decided that this was the judgment that was necessary at this moment.
The scope of new order ministry is way beyond old order ministry. To get old order deliverance you have to get to a church, you have to overcome your pride, your fears, and your rebellion enough to get to a church to stand up on a prayer line and to submit to deliverance. In new order deliverance, if you are crying out to Christ in your heart of hearts, He will send a Son to you right where you are, in the bar, in the drug den, right in the motel room. He will send a Son to you right where you are. They will pray for you, and judgment will fall, hardship will enter into your life. The Lord knows that when that judgment in a particular area, that particular form of pain will turn you away from your sin. The Son who is executing the judgment has no idea. All they know is they see the sin, and they rebuke it and forgive your sin . The power of God comes right in and hits you right in the exact spot that is going to break that sin in your life. That is the way it works.
It is a glorious ministry, and, eventually, your skills will become so sharpened that you really do become defensed. I believe that with all my heart, and I look forward to it. You really do get to a place where there is turmoil around you continuously, but that turmoil cannot get into your city. I am not there yet, but I have not stopped praying, brethren. I will not stop praying because I believe it is the truth and the promise of the Scripture, and I will not give up until I get it. I will not stop praying until I get it. I want to be in the eye of the storm. In the eye of a hurricane, the wind and rain is raging, but at the very center of the hurricane there is calm. I believe this describes the Sons of God. In our innermost heart we are supposed to be calm and outside of us is all of the devastation and destruction that results from the Spirit of Righteousness which is in us contacting the sin of this world system. There is an atomic explosion when the Spirit of Righteousness contacts the sin of this world system. Judgment falls.
How can you tell the difference between the satanic judgment and the White Throne Judgment of Christ? The fruit of the judgment. What is the end of your judgment? Is it destruction? Is it a destruction that puts you down and you never climb up again? Is it a destruction that kills you, or is it a destruction that just merely changes your direction into a more Godly direction?
You have to ask yourself, "Was I using that car for God's purposes or does the Lord say I was using that car for ungodly purposes?" I am not saying you were. I am counseling you to ask these questions. "Why did I lose this car? Did Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, take it from me? Or did the Lord take this car from me? According to God's mind was I misusing this car? Was I using it for activities that the Lord did not want me to use it for? Was this car giving me power to do things that the Lord really did not want me to do? Is it possible that the Lord took this car from me to keep me in line because I was just going all over the place and not doing what He wanted me to do?" I declare to you that if Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, took your car from you, the Lord will replace your car, but if the Lord took your car from you, you will not get a new car until such time as the Lord decides to give you one.
If your car is not replaced in the near future, the chances are excellent that God took it from you, not forever. I do not mean you cannot ever have a car again, but the Lord may have taken it. I do not know if the Lord took it, but I am telling you that if that car is not replaced in your life shortly that there is an excellent chance that the Lord took it from you.... to punish you to hurt you? NO. Somehow you were using that car, or your use of that car was turning you away from the Lord instead of pointing you toward the Lord. If it was God who took it from you, He took it from you to point you back to Him. If that is what happens to you, take comfort in the fact that the Lord has taken it because He wants to point you to Him.
Maybe it was Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind. If it was Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, we will pray for you and the car should be replaced. We see the fruit of the destruction will reveal whether it was Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, who brought it upon you or whether it was the Judgment Seat of Christ. If it is the Judgment Seat of Christ, the loss will be used to bring you closer to the Lord. If it was Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, that took your car from you, it will just bring hardship and destruction into your life with no improvement. You will not learn anything from it, it will not teach you, it will not improve your character.
If Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, has taken this car from you there will be no benefit, no Godly fruit from it. If the Lord has taken your car the lack of the transportation will direct you into a deeper walk with God. You have to wait and see what happens, to find out who took your car from you, you cannot tell right now. You have to wait at least six months from now and examine the six months and look at your life and evaluate how did the loss of this car change your life? What direction did it point you into? Did it drive you to God or away from God? You have to wait and see. Even in the secular world, analysts are not likely to make a commitment as to how a presidency affected the country. They wait for forty years, and then the historians look back, and they look at the fruit of that man's presidency on this country. Frequently, not until after the man dies, but a certain number of years have to pass before historians look back and see how this man's presidency affected this country, or this is how this national event or this war affected the world. Men go in forty years later after evaluating the effects of the events on society. You have to wait and see what the fruit of your loss is.
Some loss is from Satan's, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, reaping and sowing judgment, just pure destruction with nothing good coming out of it at all. Some loss is from the White Throne Judgment of Christ which means that even though your loss was painful, good fruit came out of it which should make it tolerable. That is a hard word, but most of us are so stubborn and rebellious that we just do not do what God tells us to do, without pain. Sometimes He takes things away from us to force us into the direction that He wants us to go. Job said to the Lord, "Why do you hurt me like this, why do you not just tell me what you want me to do or what I am doing wrong and I will stop doing it?" The Lord said to Job, "Because you do not have the power to stop doing what I want you to stop doing." Judgment is necessary.
Judgment is in the flesh so that we should learn to live after the spirit. What does that mean? It means man, left to his own devices, if you have a choice between moving in the spirit or moving in the flesh, man chooses the flesh. It is just like me pedaling backwards when I do not have any foot brakes. Man chooses what he is used to, what he has been doing all his life. It is a reflex reaction. We do not have the power to change ourselves, so what happens? If you want to use the example of my bicycle, how are we going to learn to use those hand brakes? When I crash up the fifth bicycle because I have not gotten it into my head to use the hand brakes, I may get it into my head to start using my hand brakes. Can you hear what I am saying?
Someone sent me an article once which said that this person went walking down the street and fell into a man hole, and it took three months to get out of the man hole. When they got out they went walking down the same street, and they fell in the same man hole. It took nine months this time to get out of the man hole. This time they went walking down the street, and they stopped just before the man hole and said, "This is the man hole that I got stuck in the first time for three months and the second time for nine months, I think I will slow down and walk around the man hole." This time they avoided the man hole. The next time they came to the street they stopped at the head of the street and said, "That is that dangerous street because of that man hole, I do not think I will walk down that street at all, I think I will take the next street."
The Scripture says judgment is in the flesh. The Lord wounds our flesh, and your flesh is more than this body. It is your emotions, your soul. He lets you get hurt. Sometimes He is the one that hurts you. Why? So that you will be forced to use your spiritual wings. Man chooses to use the flesh to solve his problems, over the spirit to solve his problems. If the Lord cuts off our flesh, if we find ourselves powerless to solve our problems with the use of our flesh or our carnal mind, if we fail every time we try to solve our problems with our carnal mind, we will be forced to turn to the spirit to solve our problems. This is why so many of us have such hard lives. Our flesh is being wounded. God is judging our flesh so that we can learn to live by the spirit.
If every time you solve your problem with your carnal mind, you fail, somewhere along the line you are going to learn to start praying before you take action. If every time you feel discernment in your heart, and you forget to pray, and you find yourself cast down by the person's mind, depressed and overtaken, sad, frightened, and confused, sooner or later you will get mad enough to start coming against that force field of that person's mind as soon as you recognize the distress in your own soul. I am rapidly approaching that place. At the first sign of discomfort that I recognize as coming from another mind, I am all over them like a bat out of hell. You all saw it tonight, to what ever degree you could see it. I would not receive that sadness, you take it right back, I do not want it. Sometimes I do not know where it is coming from, sometimes it is not the person in the same room. Sometimes I feel someone's mind or emotions invading me, and I do not even know who they are.
Recently, I have started to fight with strength that I never had before. Last week I was in a three hour battle. A depression was trying to come on me, I had absolutely no reason to be depressed. I was in the same place that I was in the day before happy as a bug in a rug, had no reason to be upset, and this distress was coming upon me severely. I waged war against it for three hours before it broke, and when it broke I was happy again. One more proof that it was not me. It was an attack, an onslaught coming from another place. I had no reason to be upset. I had no reason to be unhappy. My soul was being invaded by someone else's emotions. "Get out!" I would not receive it. I fought against it with all the strength in my mind, and on top of that I cried out to the Lord Jesus. It is called the double portion, Christ Jesus in you who is not in perfection, fighting along with the Lord Jesus Christ, your big brother, who is in perfection. It is the double portion.
If you fight and you do not give up, you must have the victory. Hold on to the horns of a altar, believing in faith that your affliction will pass, and it will surely pass with victory, if you can just believe. If you cannot believe, if you look down, you are going to sink down under the water. Do not look at your circumstances, you have to believe in the power that you have which is in Christ Jesus and, in your big brother, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, do not be deceived and do not believe that you are going to use this power to get yourself a Cadillac. That is witchcraft. You have to be using the power of God for a righteous purpose, to fight off spiritual enemies that are trying to overtake you and destroy you. You do not use the power of God to get wealth, you do not use the power of God to take vengeance against other people. You do not use the power of God to control other people who are trying to hurt you. You are supposed to be blessing them, and praying for them, and asking God to have mercy on them. There is tremendous power in praying for your enemies and blessing those who despitefully use you.
Again, the theme of this message is new order deliverance, discerning the motions of sin in people who are not submitted to you, waging war against them out of the righteousness of Christ, keeping yourself from being penetrated and, at the same time, helping the other person. Even if it appears that the other person was not helped, that other person will never be the same because of the warfare that I prayed against their carnal mind. They are radically changed for the life of the age. The result of the warfare that I prayed against their carnal mind may not even manifest for a year or two, because this particular person is basically submitted to Christ and under a program of correction.
You could pray against sin in people that do not even know the Lord if the Father directs you to do so. You could influence the lives of people that do not even have a relationship with Christ. I have seen God have mercy on people who do not even have a relationship with Him, has a Son pray for them. and their life is radically changed for the better. Why would that be? Maybe someone prayed for them, maybe someone who knows the Lord prayed for them. Maybe their heart prayed, maybe they looked like they were a heathen, but some where in their heart of hearts they cried out to the one true God to help them. They may not even know His name. Maybe, somebody cried out, "God if you are really up there, if you are really real, help me," and He would answer a prayer like that. I have seen Him do it. A person does not know Jesus, you mean God answers the prayers of sinners? Brethren, no matter how deep in sin a person is when their heart cries out, "Help me, please, if you are up there, help me," that is the spirit of man crying, "Abba Father," and I am telling you, for that moment the, Lord is racing to answer that prayer. Eventually, that person will be born into the revelation and the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Lord will respond to the heart-felt prayer that comes out of a man's spirit. Does not matter what condition his life style is in, no matter what his religion is, the Lord responds, and eventually they will be brought into the true doctrine. Some people God responds to, and they are not even brought into the true doctrine. Did not Jesus respond to the Gadarene demoniac? What are you talking about, the demoniac did not say, "Lord help me?" The Scripture says the Gadarene demoniac worshiped Jesus. I think he called Him Lord. There are indications in the account that he acknowledged Jesus' authority and submitted to Him. Jesus got him out of the tombs, got him out of his social situation where he was not even functioning and translated him into a social situation where he could function. The demoniac said, "Let me follow you," and Jesus said, "No." He just helped him in answer to the man's cry.
The man recognized Him as God and he cried out. You cannot get any help from the Lord if you do not recognize Him as God. If you want to get from God, you must acknowledge God is. How can you get a gift from someone when you do not believe that He is. I have had people say to me that He would have to prove Himself to me. You will die in your sins. He does not have to prove Himself to you. If you do not praise Him, He will raise up the rocks to praise Him. He does not need you, brethren. You need Him. He does not need you.
Well, I guess we did not go on with Zephaniah tonight. I had a message on old order deliverance. Dealing with the sin in minds of un-submitted people and frequently unsuspecting people. It is the ministry of reconciliation which is in Christ Jesus. It is a glorious ministry, very difficult, you cannot do it unless you are first delivered yourself, the preparation is difficult, painful, but glorious. I, for one, pray to find myself in the eye of that storm where I am totally protected, and at peace and in contentment, and the storm is raging every where around me. Why? Because the spirit in me is in full-fledged warfare with the sin in this world system, but I am in perfect peace.
I do not want to go around quoting Scriptures. I want them to be real to me. God will keep that man in perfect peace who keeps his eyes upon the Lord. I do not condemn you if you are not in perfect peace, brethren. When I am not in perfect peace, I do not condemn myself, but I know I have to do something to get there. I have to keep on fighting, I have to practice the power of God. You have to practice the power of God. First, you need instruction which is what you are getting here, and then you need to practice. How do you practice? You ask God to give you practice experience, and to show you if He gave you the experience and you failed to take it.
COMMENT: You said that if Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, does these things they have no purpose. There has to be some kind of purpose to it, so what is it?
PASTOR VITALE: What I said was if Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, has done it to you then there is no fruit. I said that nothing good comes out of it. Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, is the mediator of the reaping and sowing judgment. He is Jesus' high executioner. This whole world is under the wrath of God. We have been given over to destruction, and the Scripture says that every sin shall have its just recompense. If destruction comes into your life, it is in reaction to sin, and if Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, is the one that is executing this judgment on you, no good thing comes out of it. Not that there is no reason for it. No good fruit comes out of it which means that you are under the wrath of God, which means it is a judgment for unconfessed sin.
When you confess the sin in your life, you transfer from the reaping and sowing judgment mediated by Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, into the White Throne Judgment mediated by Jesus Christ. When your sin comes under the judgment, which is mediated by Jesus Christ, He turns the whole thing around and uses it for your good. What does that mean? You will learn from it, you will grow from it, you will change from it. That is why you look at the fruit. It is not good to be under the reaping and sowing judgment of Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind. That is not a good sign for a believer. It means that there is unconfessed sin in your life and Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, has a free hand with you in this area.
COMMENT: How do I focus in on what it is? Would something like this, in the situation we are discussing, would it be something to do with the car, could it be something the Lord would bring my attention to something else that, maybe, I am not even aware of?
PASTOR VITALE: It is most likely like that because as I told you on the phone tonight, you really need a lot of work on the way that you think, and a lot of things that you do are the result of wrong thinking. Exactly why this happened to you, if God tells me I will tell you. Right now I do not know the answer, but you need so much work, which is the case with many people. I personally would have to hear from the Lord as to where He wants to start with you to work on your wrong thinking.
What you need to do is just let it go, and tell the Lord that if He is willing to give you another car you would like one. If He is not willing to give you another car, you will just have to live with it, and ask Him to show you where He wants you to start making changes because you have a lot of unconfessed sin in your life. You have a lot of areas where you are doing things that you should not be doing. Some of it you know about, and some things you do not know about. The point is you need to be submitted to a general program of having your sins revealed where you can confess them and repent and make changes.
You need to be submitted to a regular program, and you are not. You are in rebellion against what He wants to do for you. My prayer for you would be that the Lord would direct you into an attitude of mind where you start receiving this correction because as you submit to God, the destruction loses its power over you. Right now, destruction has a lot of power over your life. It has much, too much power for someone who has a relationship with the Lord. You have a lot of unconfessed sin. First thing you need to do is find out, get your own confirmation whether or not God wants you to make a commitment here and, if He does, then make a commitment here. That is the first thing for you to do, to make a commitment to a ministry that points out your sins so that you could start to change. I have waited eight years for you to make a commitment here.
The average person that has trouble in their life, they want deliverance from their symptoms and you are no different than anybody else. You want deliverance from your symptoms. You are really trying to solve your own problems. You want a car, you want this, you want that, you think that you know what you need, but you do not know what you need because you are thinking with your carnal mind. You are thinking, "For this life now, this is what I need," but Jesus is thinking about your spiritual future, and what He has for you in the realm of His spirit and what He wants to make out of you. One way or another you are going to have to do it His way, but you are on your own track, doing your own things, solving your own problems. Your mind is wheeling and dealing, and spinning and figuring out to get things that you want or that you think you need. All that has to go because Jesus has to be in control of your life. You have a war going on with God.
You are trying to run your own life, and about two years ago you started to hit against a stone wall, and that stone wall has a name, His name is Christ Jesus. You have a broad spectrum of problems, and they are all getting in under the fence because you are un-submitted to and rebellious against what God is trying to do in your life. What you need to do is make a commitment to a ministry which will point out your sins. It is wonderful to go to a church where you dance and you sing and nobody really knows you. You slip in on Sunday morning, and you stand in the back of the church, and you feel real clean and go home and nobody looks into your heart and sees your sins. Nobody points out your sins and nobody corrects you, but you feel very holy because you have been in church.
You could continue to do that, and the chances are of the destruction staying at the same level or getting worse in your life are very great because you are just fooling yourself. That kind of church is fine for people who have not yet come to a place where the Lord is getting ready to heal them by showing them their sins. That is a baby church. I am not in any way putting anybody down. It is the truth of the Scripture that it is the church for people who have not yet come under judgment, and the Lord only chastens His Sons. He only corrects you, or He only shows you your sins if you are a Son. If you are not a Son, He lets you stay in one of these beautiful churches with these big beautiful buildings with their beautiful music and probably some nice preaching about faith, and so forth.
There is good preaching and teaching, but no one is coming to you and saying, "Sister that thought that you just had, that word you just said, that thing that you just did, is the motions of sin in you, and you need to repent." They are not doing that for you in that church. Are they? No, they do not do that in that church. That is why you go to that church.
Lots of times, you are not aware of what your own motives are. It is not true that you just have not made a commitment anywhere. It is true that you are going to the church that is not exposing your sins, and you are fleeing from the church where your sin will be exposed, and that is the truth. Whether you can see it right now or not, that is the truth. The only word I have for you is to make a commitment to the church that is going to point out your sins so you can get out from under this destruction.
COMMENT: I am scared, Pastor.
PASTOR VITALE: I know. Everybody that comes here is scared. It is your carnal mind that is scared. She knows that she is about to die, and it would help you, if you cannot believe me, to at least pray about what I am telling you. It is in your carnal mind that is frightened, and that there is destruction coming upon you. It is the destruction of your carnal mind. She has every reason to be frightened except that you are not your carnal mind, you are Christ Jesus. You are feeling all of the feelings of your carnal mind, so by the grace of God, you have to ask the Lord to help you win this warfare to get your body here.
I remember someone here that fought this fight for a long time, and she used to run out of here and leave for long periods of time, be gone for six months and come back. One night there was a big encounter here because we have conflict in this ministry. We have confrontation between Christ and your sin. I remember the night she walked in and said, "My carnal mind did not want me to come here tonight, but I brought this body here. Christ in me brought this body here tonight." It was the beginning of a tremendous degree of victory for this person.
Christ in you has to rise up and get your body here, and you make a commitment here, including Sunday morning because there is nothing wrong with that church, but you are using it to hide behind. You are hiding behind it. If you come here and make a commitment here, or you want to go to other churches on a night that we do not have a service that is fine. You should be here every time the door opens, and that goes for everybody here. You will get a deliverance and help in full proportion to what you put in here. If you cannot get here every time the door opens, that is between you and God. I am giving you the word. If you do not want to do it or you cannot do it, God knows, but I am giving you the word.
To get the most that is available in this ministry, you have to be here every time the doors open. If you cannot get here, God knows whether it is legitimate or not, but whether it is legitimate or not, to get the most out of this ministry you have to be here every time the door opens. No matter how legitimate your not being here is, if you are only here fifty percent of the time, you are only getting fifty percent of the benefit that is available. No matter how valid your reason is for not coming, if you are here twenty-five percent of the time you are getting twenty-five percent of what is available in this ministry, and I am here to tell you the truth. I do not force anybody to come, but you will hear the truth from me. That, you will hear.
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