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The Following Message Has Been Transcribed For
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It is a life style that leads to the highest form of existence that we can have down here in hell. It builds us up, and a life style that sows to the self which is the exact opposite of sacrifice. A life style that says, do what you feel, do what you need, do want you want, do what's good for you and the heck with everybody else, that is a life style that ultimately results in the lowest form of existence that we could experience in this place that we are living in.
There are people over all the world that know, that are not even Christians, Buddhism knows it, Hinduism knows it, Taoism knows it, every religion and life style that preaches a disciplined life style knows it because discipline is just another side of self sacrifice. What does it mean? It means that you can't do whatever you want at the minute that you feel like doing it. That's what it means. That's what a disciplined life style means. That is what a sacrificial life style means. You can't do what ever you want. There is a name for that. Does anybody here know the name of the life style that says, just yield to every emotion and thought in your mind? I don't think anybody knows it. It is called hedonism. Just do what ever you feel like doing, and this philosophy is moving into our society rapidly, and it exists already in many levels of our society although the society as a whole has not accepted, there are many subcultures in our society right now which are saying, if it feels good, man do it. It is a philosophy of life which is the exact reverse of Christian doctrine which is self sacrificing, and doctrines of many disciplines across the world which build character. . . Why is it so important to resist impulse? Because impulse comes out of your unconscious mind.
PASTOR VITALE: The psychiatric name for your unconscious mind is? I have mentioned it here, the psychiatric name for your unconscious mind?
COMMENT: The libido.
PASTOR VITALE: That is correct, and another name for it is the libido or the id. It comes out of your unconscious mind. It is really the mind of the beast in you, and there is a beast in you that must be restrained. Does anybody know the psychiatric term for that part of our mind who's job it is to restrain the beast? Does anybody remember that? The ego. It is the job of the ego to restrain the id. A new born infant has an ego, but it is not at all developed, so for all intents and purposes it like a withered arm, an arm that you can't use. Child rearing, the experience of being trained up to become an adult, is an experience that forms the ego. It forms it, and your whole childhood experience determines whether or not you have a weak ego or a strong ego, and if you have a weak ego that means your libido or the id or the beast in you is going to have much, too much, power over you. You can have an ego that is too strong which can crush your whole personality under a religious spirit. Ideally speaking, the ego, which is basically the conscience, stands between the id or the libido which is the beast, wild, raging, all the passions, all the animal passions.
Brethren, we are spirit dwelling in an animal body, and at this time we have an animal mind because the mind in this fallen creation is not born of the spirit but it is born of the flesh so we are dwelling in an animal body with an animal mind with animal emotions, and we have, now I am talking about the person who has not been reconciled to Christ at this point, the average person. We have a drop of the life of God in us, and not only is the life of God in us restricted to a drop, but that drop is dead, but because God is so great even that drop of God which is dead is still functioning on some level in that it is exerting some memory of the righteousness of God, a weakened memory of the righteousness of God, which because it has very little power, if any power at all, is not called righteousness but called good.
Infants are born not with righteousness, down here in hell, but they are born with a potential to be good. They are not born good. We are not born good. We are born evil. You take an infant that's newly born and let it grown up given to its own devices, that child will be evil. We are the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the evil is stronger than the good because the rulers of this world are evil. It is like saying the democrats have more power in the government because we have a democratic president and a democratic congress, and there is an opposition party called the republicans, but they are very limited as to what they can do so we are born with the potential for good which is pretty much powerless; however, God has made a provision for us down here in hell. He has arranged or set up societies where there are adults, care takers, that have the potential while raising the children to reinforce that potential for good, to teach it, to build it, to strengthen it, to give it practice, so that by the time the infant reaches a chronological age where they are responsible for their own life they have internalized such a knowledge and a practice of goodness that it is at least somewhat of a restraint, enough of a restraint against the evil id, or libido, to keep that beast in check so that you can have some chance at a decent life, not a perfect life, but a life that will have enough goodness in it so that you are not in torment. That's the best we can hope for in this world since in this hour complete righteousness is not yet available to man.
Then what is complete righteousness? It is complete peace, complete contentment, a life with no torment whatsoever. In this hour it is not available to us. The best that we can hope for is a life which is more good than evil. Every human life has evil in it. So we see that the job of the ego is to mediate or to stand between the id, the raging, bestial, passions and desires, the impulses of the id, and what's happening outside of us. In other words, somebody says something or does something to you that is ungodly, and your id wants to kill them. Two extremes now, hear it? Someone completely attacks you, completely 100% wrong in what they are doing and your id's answer to the problem is to murder them. The ego stands in the midst, and says to your id, you can't do it, I won't let you, and then your ego turns to the person who is completely wronging you and deals with that wrong and hopefully a way that the person has been instructed in childhood will put an end to the problem without doing something to the other person that will be destructive to yourself, and that hopefully will solve the problem in a manner that will even help the person or glorify Jesus Christ, bring some sort of Godly resolution to the problem.
Now, for people who are continuously being overcome either by the raging passions of their id, and they are going out and doing all kinds of....let me back up. If you are being continuously overcome by the raging passions of your id that you can't really blame on anybody else, you are called self destructive. If no body has done anything to you, you just have a problem in your own emotions, and you decide to go stick a needle in your arm, then your id is driving you to total self destruction. If your problem is that you can't cope with what somebody else is doing to you....wow, that thought just went out of my mind what the Lord was telling me to say to you....it is a whole different set of problems. If you are not coping with people....I will have to let that go, it went right out of my mind what the Lord was telling me to say.
So, the job of the ego is to integrate the raging passions of the beast in you with the reality of your external circumstances. For those of you who are seriously studying these tapes and are very intelligent people, you are thinking right now, ah ha Sheila says this is not reality, this world is an illusion. Yes you are right. I have taught you that this world is an illusion. This world is an illusion when you compare it to the reality of life in Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus is the reality, and this existence is the lie, but this existence is a lie to which we are subjected. What does that mean? It has power over us. It can hurt us. It can cause our existence to cease so, therefore, we see that there are many realities. There is only one true reality which is in Jesus Christ, but for those of us who are fallen we each have our own reality. People who are subjected to fantasies, to them it is real. We hear about a man who went out on the street with a machine gun and mowed down 40 people because he believed that the monster from the sea was out to get him and that all of these 40 people were the slaves of Godzilla. If this guy has it in his head that these 40 people are slaves of Godzilla, and he machine guns all down he was behaving in accordance to a reality that he was subjected to. He really believed that his life was in danger, but it was not a reality that you were subjected to.
So we find that, although it is true that this world that we dwell in called hell, is an illusion, it is a lie when you place it up against and compare it to the truth of life in Christ Jesus. It is nevertheless a reality which we are subjected to. What does that mean? We can't get out of it brethren. And you say, oh we cannot pass from this reality into the reality of life in Christ. You can call it several things. You don't have to call it another reality. You can call it another world. You can call it another realm. You can call it another plane. You can call it another dimension, but there is another place. Jesus said, I go to make a place for you. There is a place in which there is no torment, no pain, and no tears. Total contentment where you never die but just live in peace forever and ever and ever. This place exists. Jesus Christ is dwelling there right now in the bosom of the Father. It is real, but we can't get there. Jesus said, where I go, you cannot come. If you want to talk about it in parable form, that's o.k. If you are three years old in the spirit that is o.k. Where ever you are is where you are.
You want to hear it in parable form? There is a place. It is called the Garden of Eden, and it has guards outside of it. Those guards are what? What is the name of those guards? Cherubim. And what are the weapons that they wield that keep us out? Flaming swords. Our ancestor, Adam, was driven out of this place of perfection, and Jehovah placed Cherubim with flaming swords at the entrance way to the Garden of Eden and we can't get in, and we will not be allowed back in until we are cleansed from our sins because no sin is allowed in this perfect place. It is a Holy place. You can't get in there in your present sin filled condition.
So, we see that this world that we live in, it is A reality but not THE reality. I could say that to you in this same manner that Jehovah says, I am the greatest of all of the gods. Jehovah never said that He is the only god. He never said that. He said, there are many gods out there, but I am the biggest, and I am the best, and I am the most powerful, and I am the only one who is righteous, so if you want to live you must come unto me. Of course, the others will pay you for your service, and the payment of your service to evil gods is death. Now why would a god pay you? What kind of service do you render to a god? The use of your members, the use of your mind. I want to stop and pray for a minute. Father, I just feel my mind is going all over the place. I just pray that your spirit should prevail, that this is a surprise message, I had no intention of preaching it, that what you have for this group this morning should come forth from the mind of Christ in me, and should come out of my mouth in the perfection that you would present to your people, and I am not really sure what's coming up against me here, but I just submit to you Lord and pray that your perfect will be done in the service this morning. I just rebuke every opposing force. I case down Jezebel and witchcraft and any anti-Christ in my control, and I just pray, Father, that we should have a smooth delivery of the word that you have for this people this morning, and whatever is opposing me, particularly this mind control, should be utterly destroyed and cast out of this meeting. In the Name of Jesus. Amen.
What was the last thing that I said, does anybody remember? Why would a spirit want to pay you, why would a god need you? Well, first of all, god is a relative term. Another word for god, a general word for god, is deity. The Greek word is Theos, just means god. What does that mean? God is someone who is superior to you. Brethren, human beings are gods to the animals in the jungle. The animals exist in a particular reality, a particular realm, although we share this planet, we both exist on this planet physically, we could be standing one next to the other, in the spiritual world man is superior to the animals. Now there is a movement in this country right now whether you are aware of it or whether you ar not aware of it which is to make the animals equal to man. Brethren, the animals are not equal to man. Yes, we live in an animal body. Yes, animals have a soul just as we do, but man has something that animals don't have and that something is spirit, mind. Mind is spirit. Animals are not equal to us and neither Adam nor you are equal to Almighty God. Do you see what's happening here? Do you see the seduction?
This whole nation is coming under a major seduction. If they can convince you that the animals are equal to man it is a Brownie point to prove to you that man is equal to God. He's just forgotten that he is really a god. Just as there is a hierarchy of authority among life forms in this world, man is the highest, then comes mammals, then what ever comes underneath it called bugs, insects or whatever it is, I don't know what the order is, I guess that's more the word, an order of the life forms in this reality. Man is superior to animals. The most highly intelligent animal is subjected to the godhood of humanity. All you need is a pair of eyes and some brains to see it, but if that is not enough for you the Bible says, and let man have dominion. But there is a corrupt mind in the world today. It is the mind of the beast, and if he could convince humanity both that animals are equal to us and that we are equal to God, the next step is a return to human slavery. I am telling you, that is what we are being set up for. Now I think largely the men who were dong this, how much they are aware of I don't know, but I am telling you that I am a Prophet of God and I am telling you that this is the Word of the Lord to who ever hears this tape, this is not just an issue of pagan religion, this is not just an issue of doctrine, this is an issue of all of humanity being brought into subjection to a spiritual authority which is pure evil.
There is only one force in this whole world that opposes the spiritual authority of the devil who is the god of this world, and the name of that authority is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only one that has power over her (the devil), and that is why everything that she does is designed to bring down Christianity, to bring down any human being in which Christ is appearing, because she makes it look good. She makes her religion sound good. She makes her ideas and her philosophies look good and sound good and appear good, but the end of the whole thing is the enslavement of all of humanity. Jesus.
So, god is a relative term. Did you ever hear the term king of the jungle? I guess they say lions are the king of the jungle. There is an order of strength even among the animals. Now among the animals the order is determined by physical strength. In the jungle the order is determined by physical strength, and if you can hear it, hear it, in certain elements of our society in our spiritual jungle, in the lowest realms of humanity, order is determined by physical strength. As man ascends spiritually order is determined by strength of mind. Now don't get this confused with a righteous warfare. Let me elaborate on this. There was a time in human history, and this situation exists in other parts of the world right now, I would like to believe that it doesn't exist in the United States but we seem to be hurling backwards, where all difficulties and disagreements are determined by even hand to hand combat, brutal hand to hand combat, men went to war. Men go to war now and stay several feet away from each other and throw grenades. Back a couple of hundred or so ago, hand to hand combat, cutting people's heads off and piercing them through with a sword, horrible. You really had to be raised and trained up that was what a man does. I don't know how anyone could even do that without having your mind conditioned to it.
Most of the whole world was that way at one time, and now we are supposed to be in the more civilized world where Christianity reigns, we are supposed to be moving in terms of negotiated peace and talking to one another and being reasonable and compromising, finding a way to get along with each other, but there are times where you have one person who is reasonable. Let's talk about nations. You have a reasonable nation who is on one spiritual plane, who is on this high spiritual plane which says, let us speak and let us talk and let us reach a compromise and let there be no blood shed, but you have a nation rising up which is existing on a lower spiritual plane that is not willing to negotiate, that is not willing or even possibly able to reason, and they are determined to do violence to you. Then even the reasonable nation must take up arms and fight.
We are talking about what a god is brethren. A god is the entity which exists on a high spiritual plane. Man is a god to the animals. The lion and the whole family of lions are gods to the zebras and antelopes that they prey upon and take at will to feed upon. Well, there is another world that we can't see. It is an invisible world. It is a world of spirit. Spirit which has no form and no shape but has authority and power to manipulate the thoughts and the activities of not only animals but animals that have spirit in them. Animals that have spirit in them called man, and these gods that are pure spirit, that have no form or shape, that have no animal in them, they are just invisible spirits, they want to engage in activity in this reality, and they are not satisfied with engaging in activity of lions and gazelles and zebras. They want to engage in activity on the highest life form possible which is man. They want a man to think through, to speak through, and to act out through, and the only opposing force to them in this world is the Righteous One, and every righteous manifestation of Him, we are told in the scripture that Jesus Christ was the appearance of the righteousness of God in the flesh. Short of the appearance of His perfect righteousness, as we see in our example the Lord Jesus Christ, so don't go telling me you are righteous unless you can stand nose to nose with the Savior Himself.
Go tell it to someone who is going to believe it because I don't. Either you pass the test or you don't, and if you are standing in the same place where He is standing what's the unequivocal sign that you are righteous? You cannot sin, but it is not obvious that you cannot sin. What is the obvious thing? You can't die. So if you can put a knife through yourself and walk away then come and tell me that you are righteous because you are not righteous, no not one of you are righteous, we all stink, so don't tell me how you don't deserve what's happening to you because you do deserve it. So we see that the gods of this world, there was one god, the devil, and there are many expressions of the devil who are out looking to dominate men and when they dominate you, when they think through, when they feel through you, and when they speak through you, and when they do through you, they give you a reward. What does that mean? There is a result of invisible spirit expressing themselves through you, and the results of this union of invisible spirit and humanity is death.
So, we see that this reality of this world called hell. Once again, let me say it to you. In comparison with the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the truth, and this is the lie. He exists forever and ever, always was, is now, always will be, and this reality (the world) there was a time that it did not exist, does exist now, but there will be a time that it does not exist any more. This reality has a name. It is called the realm of time. Time has a beginning and an end. The place where the Lord Jesus Christ dwells has no beginning and has no end. It just exists. Always has existed. Now that is hard for our fallen minds to comprehend. I have trouble with it myself, but I believe that it is true. And what I cannot understand with my carnal mind I just let it go. If you don't have the equipment to understand something at this time let it go. You will just make yourself sick. We see that this world that we live in is a reality, one of many realities which comes under the heading of him ? What does that mean? It means the corporate world that we know of is a reality, but each individual has their own reality. Even if we are dealing with well adjusted people, what ever that means. Let's say the whole world is perceiving this existence realistically.
In other words, everyone sitting in this room, I hope, can say, that's the TV over there and that is the recording equipment over there and it is Sunday morning and that dumb train is going by blowing its whistle, interfering with out service one more time, hopefully everybody here can perceive that we are partaking of the reality which is in the room right now which is in the corporate reality of this whole world, and yet beyond that each one sitting in this room has his own reality. Maybe you had a fight with your husband this morning, maybe you are having financial problems, whatever is the reality of your own personal heart that you are not sharing. Why would you not be sharing it? Because it is not appropriate to what's being done in this room. You cannot give free vent to every emotion that you have. You cannot express every thought that you have. You must have priorities, and the priority in this room right now is that the Lord Jesus Christ should visit us, and that we should partake of His life which is being made available to us in this hour, and whatever His life touching us is doing in us right now, and whatever He would teach us now, that is the top priority and every other reality must be subjected to it.
The reality of our pain, the reality of our anger, the reality of our financial problems, the reality of our infirmaries, must be subjected to the highest reality, the reality that is positive, the reality that is going to build you, the reality that is going to heal you, the reality that you are going to grow from, the reality that you are going to benefit from, the reality that is going to raise you up, not pull you down, because if you start going down and there is no restraint you will keep going down. This existence which is in your mind is a bottomless pit which will swallow you up, and the way you get into this pit and the way we are all in it to a degree, the way you descend more deeply into the pit instead of ascending out of it is by lending yourself towards hedonism, concentrating on yourself, concentrating on your pain, concentrating on your emotions.
Now listen brethren, you are supposed to take some time and energy and direct it toward the solution of your problems, but anything more than that, anything more than the energy necessary to go before God and understand what's operating in you and determine what your plan is going to be, what your plan is to deal with this problem, anything beyond that is negative, and it is sucking you down into the depths of this pit which will keep bringing you down until it utterly destroys every good thing in your life. We must resist this with all of our strength, and a good technique by which to resist it is to be dedicated to the life style which we are instructed to lead in the Holy Scripture, a sacrificial life style in which you have duty and in which you perform your duty no matter what. Now if you are in a war, and you are a member of the armed forces, you know no matter how scared you get if you get up and run the Captain is looking at your back with his rifle pointed at you, and he has the full authority to pull the trigger and shoot you down if you are running away from the battlefield. So you have two choices, you are going to get shot in the back while you are running or if you fight the enemy you have a chance of survival.
This is the same principle which I talked about in a recent meeting where some misunderstanding came forth and challenged me. I told you about a young man who was running from the neighborhood bully, and his father stood there and said, you fight him or you fight me. The young man had a better chance of beating up the neighborhood bully than beating up his father. You can't spend your life running, brethren. Get your eyes pointed, get your eyes focused, on what your duty is. What is your duty? To serve God, to submit yourself to righteous instruction and righteous ministry and to do good works to your fellowman, and these good works are not depending on whether they do good works to you or not, but to submit ourselves one to another and do the righteousness that we are instructed to do while every cell in our body is screaming to do something else, and if you do these things, the scripture says, if you do them secretly despite the pain that it is causing you, your Father in Heaven will reward you. If you do these secretly because the other people around you may not know the pain that is raging in your being. They just look at someone with a big smile on their face, saying, hi can I pray for you? They may not know the pain in your heart, but the Father knows the pain in your heart, and He will reward you openly, but the reward doesn't come over night. That which is sown you shall reap.
If you sow unto your own comfort, you will reap domination by evil spirits because Christ doesn't reward self comfort. The devil rewards self comfort. He gives you pleasure. He says, do evil, think evil, it will make you feel good, do what makes you feel good, and the pain will pass at the moment, but you will pay the price. What price? Of coming more and more under the bondage of the id , the raging beast in you, that wants you to be at war with every good thing available to you in this world, so submit yourself, submit your members to the Righteous One. Submit your members to the Righteous One brethren, and turn your life around. Do your duty. Do what is right, take your eyes off of yourself, and you will find yourself ascending out of the depths of hell into the righteousness of Heaven. I am not telling you there is no pain there, but you really have no choice. There is no comparison between the two life styles. Be disciplined. Do your duty. Do righteousness and eventually you will reap what you sow, and even if you don't you are much better off being persecuted for righteous sake. What does that mean? When you have really done nothing wrong than to be under the dominion of the devil. Jesus. I feel like I have been all over the place with this exhortation. Thank you Lord.
I watched another preacher on TV this morning, and I feel the Lord would like me to put this comment on this tape. A man was preaching that he was raised up in Pentecost and that there was a lot of emotionalism in Pentecost, but he said he is not preaching against emotionalism and neither do I. If you have heard me, you have heard me say, I have personally passed through it, I have no objection to anyone jumping up and down in this meeting if you should feel led to do so, we just happen to be a mature group, and it doesn't happen, but the emotionalism of Pentecost is something that must be passed through because it is emotionalism without direction. It is the impartation of power. Power to do what? The example that this preacher was giving was someone jumping up and down and knocking over three chairs and saying hallelujah, praise God, the spirit was moving last night, I knocked over three chairs. We are not given power to jump and knock over three chairs. It is o.k. if you jump and dance if you are also learning self discipline, if you are also beginning to be engaged in spiritual warfare, and you are implementing in your life the things that you are being taught. You say, all of the excitement of Pentecost is a ? expression of the major purpose Pentecost, and you shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you, but the power must be directed. If the only thing you do with the power is to knock over chairs and dance and run around the church, it is a waste of power. The power must be harnessed. It must be directed, and it must be used to overcome the devil in your life. Power to restrain the devil in your own life, that you should sit and learn that the devil in your life should be continuously and systematically weakened If you are looking for a quick fix, you are in the wrong place. There is no quick fix. You have to work against him, you have to undermine him, you have to lay in wait to destroy him continuously, hopefully before he destroys you. It is o.k. to sing and dance if you are also in the war, but you have to change. The power that is given to you is given to you to change, and you cannot change until you recognize what you are doing that's wrong. Now if you spend your whole life thinking the problem is the other guy you will not see where you are wrong and you will not change, and if you don't change the other guy's behavior toward you is not going to change, because you are caught in a never ending circle of hatred and destruction.
And on these two commandments hangeth the whole law? Anybody? Love God with all your heart, your mind, and your soul and love your brother as you love yourself, or as you would like to be loved. Because most people don't love themselves. Did you ever wonder about that? Love your brother as you love yourself, most people hate themselves. Love your brother as you would like or expect or hope to be loved. You do and then I'll do it. I've heard that before. You do and then I'll do it. Where is that in the Bible? We will boil your baby and eat him today and tomorrow we will boil mine, and complained the woman, I said o.k. and we boiled my baby and ate him and now she won't turn over her baby. Brethren, you boil your own baby and you eat him first and who is your baby? Your carnal mind. Don't tell me that we will boil mind today and we will boil yours tomorrow. You take care of yourself first.
How did Jesus put it? Get the moat out of your own eye before you look to fix your brother. Fix yourself brethren. Fix yourself. Fix yourself. Fix yourself. Do your duty. Do righteousness. Complete your responsibilities. There is no excuse for getting up and running out in the middle of a chore that you have agreed to complete. If you need something to keep you in your seat, your emotions are raging, remember that you have taken on the responsibility of that chore for the evening. What are you getting up and running out in the middle for? Complete what you start no matter what you are feeling. If you can internalize this it will give you the strength to overcome the thoughts of the devil that are ripping with destructiveness through you. Discipline. Duty in the highest responsibility, duty towards God. The highest responsibility, duty toward God. Right underneath that, the next highest responsibility, duty toward those who you are responsible for, toward your dependent children, people who need you to survive. If you are a man, responsibility toward your wife who's caring for those dependent children and, therefore, cannot ideally work. It is not ideal to work when you are raising children. Duty will lead to holiness. Discipline will save your life. Discipline will save your life. Jesus.
