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

 

 

We are going to be talking about the deafness of the adder. I do not know whether this will be a whole message or not, but I know the Lord gave it to me in my heart, because one of the things we run into here, every problem that we run into here, it is throughout the whole world. Nobody is different. Many, many people have these problems, and many people in this world have overcome these problems. Every single human does not have it, but a large part of the society has it. We are talking about spiritual deafness now, a spiritual deafness that blocks communication and causes us to bring confusion in a crisis situation rather than to bring health.

  

I just had a few words on my heart to speak to you all about this. We had a situation this morning where one of the microphones was not working, and we had an opportunity to work together, and there were a couple of comments made that brought in confusion. I hope, through this message, not to criticize you but to help you to understand how you can help and how you can help productively. Most people want to help, but they do not know how to help. So they feel that if they say something, or if they do something, it makes them feel better, they feel that they helped, but since they really did not know how to help, the fact of what they have done is cause confusion on the person who is qualified to solve the problem. Now I am not always qualified to solve the problem, I am talking now about a situation that I have described in past years as changing spiritual sexual roles.

 

When you are in a group -- this is a foundational principle of body ministry. Body ministry means that Christ Jesus is in control of the whole group, and He is bringing forth the person in the group that has the wherewithal or whomever He has chosen to give the wisdom to solve the problem, and it is up to everybody to recognize the leadership of Christ Jesus in that particular situation. When we come together on meeting nights, or on Sundays, it is easy because you know that I am the teacher, that is easy. I am trying to help you to understand that I am not exercising a blind control here. In any area that I recognize that someone has more knowledge than me, I will turn the authority over to you instantly. I am not looking to rule over anybody. It seems that in most of the instances I do, the wisdom is on me to solve the problem, but it does not have to be that way.

 

As this ministry grows it will be impossible for me to do everything, absolutely impossible for me to do everything, so I am more than willing to recognize when wisdom is upon somebody to do something and appoint someone else rather than me. We did have one example of that when we were trying to organize the office, and I asked xxxx and I asked xxxxxx what they thought, or how they wanted a particular format, and both of you seem to be hesitant. You felt the decision was mine, you did not want to make any decision, but I explained to you, That is your area, you make the decision, I do not care whether it is on line one or line three, that is the area where you work. You have to be comfortable with what you do, and you are doing the actual work there, so probably you are more likely to have practical suggestions than me. It is like I asked you if you wanted a peel off label that is says book rate, or would you prefer to use the stamp, and you said you prefer to use the stamp, I am not going to insist that you use the peel-off labels. The only occasion for which I might interfere in something like this, in a situation where it really should be your decision, is that if I really believe that what you are doing is not practical but you are just afraid to try something new.

 

That happened with our fax program. I was having so much trouble with that fax program. It was really causing me such grief, and one tech at Gateway wanted to switch me over to Microsoft fax, and I did not want to do it. I did not want to do it. Why did not I want to do it? I did not want to learn something new, I was afraid it would be worse. I do not know why I did not want to do it, I did not want to do it. And then it took a whole year, another year later, our computer man whom we love came in and did it without asking me.

 

Now technically speaking, he was out of order doing that, switching over our fax program without my agreement, but I am so glad he did it, because in that situation he had wisdom that I did not have, and I have not had one problem with my fax program since I switched to Microsoft fax. So when it comes to the computer -- well, he was still wrong in doing it, I hope you see my point. I am not riding roughshod over you here, but it just seems, at this time, that in most of the situations the wisdom is on me, butthat is not my choice. I will turn over the authority in any area that the Lord tells me to do it.

 

Now what tends to happen in this group is that when there is a crisis, everyone is going in their own.. not even a crisis but a problem, something that needs to be solved, it is less likely that you follow my leadership than you do, and really all three of you at some time have gone off in your own direction.

 

Now I have an example in my mind for you, and that is our Star Trek crew. Number 1 is the assistant to the captain, he is in the highest office below the captain, and if you watch that program you will see that every time an emergency or a situation that requires immediate action arises, the captain gives one order and Number 1 gives another order and it works. Why? Because Number 1 knows the areas in which he has authority. Now if the captain disagrees with Number 1's order (and they have shown this over the series) he says, Belay that order, and whoever the lower officer is that is carrying out Number 1's order has to obey the captain. But it is a blessing to see them work together. Your signal goes on, there is an emergency, it goes red alert, or whatever, captain says, Do this, and Number 1 says that, because Number 1 is in charge of certain things.

 

But what happens here is that there does not seem to be any understanding of how we can work together. And I find that everybody, it did not happen with you today, but it has happened with you too, that you are all trying to solve it by yourself and it just brings in confusion. So I want to assure you that I am not trying in any way to put you down or make you lower or say your ideas are no good, but we do not work together, something is wrong. You cannot be going on in your own direction when I am in the middle of trying something. So what has happened here? It has been happening over the years, and the Lord is just deciding to address it today, that the areas of authority are not clear.

 

In other words, when someone here tries to solve the problem, they are doing it in a way that is hindering what I am doing, it is not working together. Our efforts are not integrated, and there is misunderstanding, like what happened with you just before. The reason that I questioned you is because I knew that you heard me wrong, you heard one word. You heard one word and you completely misunderstood what I said. It was not such anything terrible that you asked if the other microphones were on, that would not have hindered me at all, but the reason I questioned it was because I knew that the reason you asked her was that you misunderstood what I said to xxxx. So we have got a communication problem here. You heard one word that I said to xxxx, and you drew a conclusion and you did what Number 1 did, except that you had the whole problem misjudged. Do you understand what I am saying?

 

Let me go into it more deeply. I said to xxxx that there was a hum there, and I found out what was wrong, and I was explaining to xxxx where the hum was coming from. I was telling xxxx that when you have that kind of a problem it is called troubleshooting. When you solve problems enough, the next time the problem arises you know what to look for, right? That makes sense.

 

So I say, xxxx, when you have a hum like that what it means is that one of the channels is open here, and you thought I said microphone and you turned around and asked xxxxxx if her microphone was open, but I did not say microphone, I said channel. Now I am mixing two issues here. There was nothing wrong with what you did. That would have been something like if Iwas  sitting at the mixer and I said, Wow, there is an open source here, and I am checking the channels and you went around and checked the microphones. That would be good thinking. Can you hear that? That would be good thinking. The reason I called you on this was because you did not hear what I said, and very often you misunderstand what I say. OK?

 

I want to make that very clear now. If I am sitting at the mixer trying to find out what is wrong, it would be perfectly fine for someone to go around and check if any of the microphones were open. The reason I called xxxx on this was because her asking xxxxxx if the microphone was open was in direct response to what I said to xxxx. I had a direct communication with xxxx that you acted on. Can you see the difference? Xxxx, can you see the difference?

 

Now, the point is that at that moment I was talking directly to xxxx, and you responded and I was not talking to you. See, if it is a general situation, and we are all looking around trying to find out what is wrong with these microphones, that would have really been fine if you would have just gone around checking. I may not be expressing this exactly right, but somehow it was -- how do I say this to her, Lord? This was not a general search to find out what happened, it was a direct communication to xxxx, and you interjected in it. Do you see the difference? OK.

 

Does anybody not see the difference here? OK, the mikes are one thing. If the power is on it is true that that could cause a hum, but the channels are those buttons by each one, two, three, four, five, on each one. You have a volume control on each of those channels, and one of them was turned all the way up, and that is what was making the noise.

 

So I want to say it again, because I do not know if you all got it. The reason I said something to xxxx was because I knew that she heard one word that I said, but I was not talking to her. It was a specific communication with xxxx, that if you wanted to listen to and learn from it, but you did not learn from it, you heard one word that I said. What I said went right over your head, and you rose up and did something else. And that is the reason that I called you on it, because that basically was what I was going to talk about before we had the problem with the mixer. That is a tendency that you have that you do not work together very well because you want to do it your own way. In other words, I have a logical plan; we will do this and we will do this and we will do this, and you just go off and do your own thing.

 

So, that was why I called you on it, because I know that was one of the things the Lord wanted me to deal with today. One of the things that anybody who wanted to could have done while we had this problem, was go around and checking the mikes and see if the mikes are on, that would have been a legitimate thing to do on your own. But something that happens here a lot is that while I have a plan in my mind and I am testing or whatever I am doing, someone will give me information that I do not need, that I did not ask for, and that almost invariably turns out to be inaccurate.

 

When you give me information that I did not ask for, it almost invariably turns out to be inaccurate, and what it does is put a confusion on me. And this is not just me, it must happen to you at home too. Look, it goes both ways. We do it to others, others do it to us, the problem is operating, everybody is doing it to everybody, and usually sooner or later you are at both ends of the stick. So if you can learn from what I am telling you, and you can make whatever changes are necessary, then when it turns out that you are the one that everybody is putting confusion on, you will have a spiritual foundation for changing that situation in your own homes. Does anyone not know what I am talking about?

 

Now, I think when you offered your information about the mike, what you said had nothing to do with what I was doing. I had disconnected the cable, and the cable that was connected to your mike was now connected, everything was misconnected. So for you telling me the mike was over there, all it did was put confusion on me. And what is happening is that you are all, you are looking at me as I try and solve the problem, and instead of flowing with me, you are drawing your own conclusions about what I am doing and offering help based one what is in your mind. And the truth of the situation is that what is in your mind is not what is in my mind and it is not what I am doing, and we have a major communication block.

 

That is what the Lord wanted me to talk to you about this morning. And it really arose out of our session the other -- it was productive, but He showed me a few things. I was over at xxxx's house and installing some software for her and trying to set her up so she could work on the database in her own home, and she was having some problems with her fax. I was trying set her fax up for her, and I guess the Lord is just ready to deal with this because I have known it for a long time that xxxx was down on the floor, and it was not a comfortable position, and I was trying to work with her to check out some areas and find out what the problem was. And I am asking her a question, and she is giving me an answer that makes no sense at all, and I found out it is because she was not thinking what I was thinking. She was doing her own thing.

 

So, hopefully, what our hope is, is to overcome these communication problems and to learn to work together and to become so grounded in this ability that when we see the situations arising in our families that we will be capable of dealing with them. Now, you may not be able to be as open and honest with your family as I am being with you, but I know this is the truth, that if you put this before God, what I am telling you, that if you make changes in the areas that you are doing wrong, when these kinds of situations arise in your family, you will have the spiritual strength to really quiet the confusion. Once you take the victory in your own heart, you will be able to quiet the confusion at the other end, OK?

 

So the word in my heart this morning was the deaf adder, the deaf adder. Now we know that we are all serpents, that all of fallen humanity is the Serpent and this narcissism that we all have to some degree or another, when that narcissism gets thick it covers us like a veil, and we stay in our own little world and we stay with our own thoughts.

 

Now, none of this is conscious, this is information that is going to help you break out of a jail that you are in. It is a spiritual jail that you are in, that you are deaf, that you do not hear what other people are saying, and you are not sensitive to what other people are thinking or feeling or what other people's needs are. Being a spiritual person is simultaneous with being a sensitive person; to be sensitive to someone's discomfort without the person having to go into a whole big deal and tell you that what you are doing is confusing them.

 

Now just for example, when xxxxx stopped by to drop off the software for xxxx, I wanted to say, Hi. I saw he was at my door, and I could see by the look on his face that he was rushed and that he could not stop and talk, so I said OK, xxxxx, thank you, and I let him go. Now, people who have this curse on them, it is part of the curse of the fall of being deaf, would not have recognized that he was in a hurry, and then he would have had to say to them, Wel,l I would really like to talk now but I have to go, and then in an extreme case the person who wanted to talk would have been offended, saying, He knocked on my door, he could not even stay five minutes and talk to me.

 

There are people in this world like that, that would have been offended, and said, He could not stay five minutes. But I do not know what kind of an emergency he had, apparently he is been very busy. I have emailed him, he has not answered any of my emails, but communication exists on many levels. It exists on the level that I started out this exhortation with, just understanding, or just having a sense for the flow of the other person's spirit, and if you know what they are doing, if you can flow with them and understand what they are doing, then you could be a Number 1 and go out and do things that will assist that person, or if you cannot sense what they are doing, you know enough to be quiet.

 

But there is a spiritual deafness that stops us from doing this, and it is under the curse of the fool, it is under narcissism. We are in our own little world. It is an inability to see the headship at the moment, and I am telling you again, it does not have to be me, but what I find out here with all of you is that in the areas where the authority is on you, you do not recognize it. It is nothing personal against me, you are just having trouble recognizing the authority even when it is on you. I have been talking to you about that for years that you do not know when you have authority, right?

 

So you do not see it when it is on me, and you do not see it when it is on yourself. It is a deafness and a blindness which is spiritual, that the Lord wants to bring you out of, He wants to take that hood off of your head. It is easy when I am sitting up here with the microphone that you know I have the authority. But in the flow of everyday life, one of the things that being a spiritual person means is to recognize who has the authority in every situation and how to assist that person and flow with them. And how, if you have the authority and someone also thinks they have the authority, you have to learn how to deal with people like that, because the answer is not always to just give it up.

 

If it is authority that Jesus is requiring you to exercise, and you just turn it over to the other person because you do not want a conflict, well then you are not serving the Lord Jesus Christ, so what am I talking about? I am talking about the ability to flow spiritually with other people. A lot of people are deaf, spiritually deaf, and the Scripture says that if you are spiritually deaf, it is a curse that you cannot hear from God, and that you can be deaf in certain areas and not in other areas. I am not telling you that you never hear from God. What I am talking about today is sensitivity towards other people, and the issue that I had in my mind before this whole thing started with the microphones. Does anybody want to say anything about the microphones, anybody not understand what I am saying? Because it really happens here a lot, that you all want to help, but you help in your own way instead of flowing with the spirit. Does anybody want to say anything about this? OK, I want to pray for you and then we will go on with the other issue.

 

PRAYER

 

Father, in the name of Jesus, I just unplug these deaf ears Lord, and I break the curse of the deaf adder, Father, and I break all curses of pride that are associated here. And I just pray that You help these who truly would like to help, that You help them to learn how to help in a positive way, how to help in a way that will really assist instead of just looking like they are helping because they are saying something. I pray that you take away the counterfeit, Lord, and that you give them the real thing, true sensitivity to themselves and to their fellow man and towards group activities, in the name of Jesus.

 

You see, it all goes together, the ability to see your own sins. If you are aware of your own feelings or if you understand what is going on in your own heart, you will be sensitive to other people's feelings, although the tendency is for people who are deaf to be aware of their hurt, very aware of their hurt and offenses and very deaf to the offenses that they do or to the effect that they have on others.

 

There are two different ways of being aware of yourself, when you are aware of your sins then you are opening up spiritually, when you are aware of your sins and you will probably. -- you should be sensitive to other people, what they are feeling and what they are thinking. But when you are deaf and blind to your own sins, what usually goes with that is an over sensitivity towards the offense and the hurt that other people do to you. What goes together, a deafness and insensitivity as to how, as to the effect that you have on other people goes together with an oversensitivity when people offend you.

 

I have on the board a chart which indicates certain experiences that people have and whether or not -- now, we are talking about spiritually deaf people, spiritually deaf people. The second column shows whether or not they are aware, and the column on the far right as I face the board is whether or not they are aware of how other people feel. Now number one is hurt feelings. The spiritually deaf people are very aware of their own hurt feelings, they know when they have been hurt, but they are almost never aware of when they hurt others, because we are talking about an affliction, brethren, which is a blindness. It is a deafness and a blindness that prevents us from seeing how we affect other people. Now, nobody consciously knows they are doing this, OK? We are talking about productive change here; no one that I know is deliberately going out to hurt anybody, but this blindness and this deafness arises out of an unconscious refusal to see how our behavior affects other people, because somewhere back there in our unconscious mind, we just cannot face the possibility that we are doing something wrong.

 

Some people just cannot face that they are wrong, but everybody is wrong, so it is some kind of character disorder if you cannot admit that you are wrong and that you do things wrong from time to time, because everybody does. This is all unconscious, they just do not want to change and all that they could see is themselves, that they are literally under a veil and all they see is themselves. And also people that have spiritual deafness, and it is really spiritual blindness too, have a tendency to think that everybody else is feeling what they are feeling, or to think that everybody else thinks like they think. We are in our own little world. What we are trying to accomplish here is to bring forth a change of consciousness. We are trying to expand our horizons and to expand our minds so that we can be a more aware and a more productive person, so that our relationships can be more positive. In order to do this we have to communicate, but communication depends on our ability to see and to face the truth about what is in our own heart, and how we are affecting the other person.

 

So spiritual deafness and blindness stops us or prevents us from seeing how we affect the other person, and all that we are left with is how we feel. One of the biggest problems with people who are spiritually deaf -- I do not even want to say problems. One of the biggest characteristics or strongest characteristics of people who are spiritually deaf is that there will be an interaction between them and somebody else, and they will be hurt, but they will be blinded and deafened to their contribution to what brought forth the incident. And people who are spiritually deaf cannot hear what the other person is saying. They cannot hear what the other person and they cannot relate to what the other person is feeling because they are locked in their own little world, where whether they realize it or not, they think that everybody is like them, and they think that everybody's motive is the same motive that they have. This is all unconscious, when I say they think, what I mean is, the people who are spiritually deaf react to circumstances and situations and conflict as if the other person was just like them, as if the other person was thinking what they are thinking, as if the other person was feeling what they are feeling, and there seems to be a hindrance to understand that in a given situation. We can have five people that can really see the situation differently.

 

Now, there are areas which are morally -- the situation is established where there is a moral issue, but even in moral issues, there are people who have an opinion that does not go on the side of the moral issue. But the less clear-cut the issue is, the more difficult it is to discern that someone who has a different opinion is really right or wrong, but we are not talking about a moral issue. There are just different opinions. It is very hard to see the other person's point of view if you are coming out of a spiritual place, whether you know it or not, where you are presuming that, that person is having the same reaction that you are having, the same person is thinking and feeling and has the same motives as you do, and these are the characteristics of spiritual deafness. We are deaf, those of us who suffer from this, are deaf to the other person. We are deaf to how they feel about it, how they think about it, we are deaf to how we are talking about problem solving today, we are deaf to how they are going about to solve the problem. So, therefore, we go about to solve it in a completely different way, which frequently hinders the person that is trying to solve the problem because there is a veil between us, and that veil is covering our mind, and it is selfishness.

 

The first time somebody told me that I was selfish, I was offended. I said, I am not selfish, I do this and I do that, but the true definition of selfishness is that your primary concern is with yourself. Now, I still could not relate to that until it was explained to me, because I did a lot of things for other people when I was told that I was selfish. And most of us who are selfish do not know it, especially if we are the kind of people that do a lot of things for other people. But selfishness means concerned with self. So here once again we are talking about motives, and if what we do primarily is to protect our self and defend our self that makes us selfish, that is the definition of the word.

 

Now, there is a healthy selfishness and you have to draw distinct lines here, you have to walk in this world, hopefully in the wisdom of Christ, being aware that there are certain activities you cannot be engaged in. I am not talking about that, I am not talking about the wisdom of how to survive in this world. I am talking about situations where your motive is -- Lord, I am having trouble getting this out -- when we walk in wisdom, in righteous wisdom, there are certain things we do and we do not do, and there is a righteous selfishness. There is somebody here who, for several times, I had to correct, they did not understand the statement of the self-help groups, of the Twelve-Step groups that say this is a selfish program. That statement is talking about people who are in relationships where the person they are in a relationship with is making ungodly and unhealthy demands on them. In that case you have to be selfish and say look, If I give up these twelve-step meetings because you want me to walk the dog, the end of that choice to give up what I need to stay strong to do something that you want me to do that is not essential, the end of it will result in my downfall, or is a devastation unto me. That is a healthy selfishness you see. That is a healthy selfishness.

 

We are all called upon to make decisions every day, all the day long, what we will do in every circumstance. There are issues every day that we have to deal with., but selfishness that I am talking about, the kind of selfishness that is destructive is a selfishness that will make a decision that is not life threatening. I am not talking about issues that concernwell-being, I am talking about your relationships with other people. Let me give you an example. Someone unconsciously or whatever will make a decision to not admit that they have done something and let the other person feel bad because of it or experience discomfort because of it, that kind of selfishness that on the surface, the person says, Well, none of this comes into your conscious mind, it is just the way we deal with people.

 

I was talking with xxxxxx the other day about the man who sold her her computer. She called him up and told him that she found out that there was no fax program on her computer, and the way he dealt with it was to just ignore her and not call her back. I use to struggle with this for years. I finally figured it out when people do that --I was not raised like that -- I finally figured it out when people do that, it is their way of saying, I am not going to give it to you, but it is very ungodly and it is very unscriptural. The Scripture says let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay.

 

If you cannot do something for somebody you have to tell them, or if you do not tell them, you are dealing with the situation in pride. You are supposed to communicate openly. Now xxxxxx had a very good price on that computer, he never, from what I understand, he never promised her a fax program. He promised her a modem, but he never promised her a fax program, so he should tell her that: I never promised you a fax program. For whatever reason, people cannot do this, and when you do not, that is really hurtful to people that you call them, that they call you and they are waiting for a phone call back and you do not return their call or you do not answer their question.

 

That person has a choice to be a man of integrity, and say, Look, I am sorry if you are disappointed, when you talked about it, I never told you that I would give you that, you know you never asked me and I never told you. But to let the person be waiting for your phone call and have to guess what is in your mind, this is wounding and it is hurtful to people and is a communication problem. So that is the kind of selfishness that I am talking about, that is selfishness. In a circumstance like that a decision is made, no matter how unconscious it is, a decision is made, not to do the right thing, not to do what will be the right thing with regard to your customer, but to do what was the easiest thing for that man, or to do what would make that man feel good in his emotions. And because he, for someone in that situation, feels good in their emotions dealing with the situation that way, they are hurting someone else so that they could feel good, that is the kind of selfishness that I am talking about.

 

So we find that people that are spiritually deaf are in their own little world, cut off from communication with others because they are not sensitive to what other people are feeling or thinking, and they are not sensitive because unconsciously, of course, they are assuming that everybody is like them. They are assuming that nobody is different than they are, and that if they are feeling this way everyone else is feeling this way too, and the people in this condition will go through their whole life in their own little worlds.

 

Now why are we talking about this here? Because one of the things that we are doing here is trying to build spirituality in you, and spirituality is intimately associated with sensitivity to other people. Spirituality is intimately associated with sensitivity to other people. If you want to hear from God in an everyday ongoing situation, I am not saying that it cannot happen, that you will not hear from him if you are not sensitive to other people because there are all kinds of situations in this world, but let me put it to you this way. If you are a person who is desiring to hear from God on a more intense level, and you have been praying about it for a while, and you do not hear from Him in the manner that you would like to, perhaps the problem is your lack of sensitivity. Now on the other hand I do not want anyone to think that because they have an intense relationship with God, that they may not be spiritually deaf, because that is not necessarily true, because we can be deaf in one area and not in another area. We could be able to see certain things in one area and not see other things.

 

There has been a prophecy here, I know to me and I think to somebody else here, that we would know all the truth. Did someone else get a prophecy like that here? To get all the spiritual truth of the doctrine of Christ, everything else that comes along, you have to take the whole package and it includes seeing the whole truth in yourself and seeing the whole truth in others also, because either you are going to see all, or you are going to see in part. Now if you have five people who see in part, you may have five people that see in part in different ways, but if you want to see all things, you have to see all things, about the doctrine of Christ about the truth of God, about the truth of ourselves personally, about the truth of our brethren, and about the truth of humanity in general. So this awareness which is the exact opposite of deafness and blindness is intimately associated with maturing spiritually.

 

We are called to be the two-witness company, and we are called to expose the sins of others, not to destroy them, but in a way that will produce the destruction of their sin nature and the increase of Christ Jesus in that person, but, brethren, we cannot move in this ministry if we are not looking into our own heart. Many of us want to look into our own heart but we cannot, as I hear that from a lot of people, I cannot see, I cannot see. Well there are spiritual cataracts on our mind. So I guess that is why this message is coming forth this morning. My main goal, what I am trying to say to you, this was my instruction from the Lord this morning, is to help you all to become aware that if you find yourself in a conflict., if you are interacting with somebody, and all of sudden they are screaming at you, and to your mind there's absolutely no reason why they are screaming at you, you really have to ask the Lord if you somehow did not contribute to this.

 

I am going to really simplify this. I am going to break down the whole world, humanity, into two categories for the purpose of this understanding. The people who deal with their problems by being very calm, they almost never raise their voice, they just have that ability to stay calm, and the other category is people who have almost no tolerance for frustration, and they scream and yell a lot when they become frustrated. Now this is not acceptable behavior to scream and yell when you become frustrated or to become abusive or scapegoat, this is not acceptable behavior, but the benefit of being that kind of person, is that you can really see your errors and you know that you have to change. The category of people that have the ability to stay calm, in all forms of crisis and insult and etc., they are in danger. People like this are in danger of thinking that they have not done anything whatsoever to contribute to the problem, and that is a real danger. So people who are spiritually deaf almost always draw the conclusion that the other person is wrong, or that the other person did something, and they never see their contribution to it, because in their mind the fact that they did not raise their voice means that they did not contribute to it.

 

They could have been involved in very frustrating behavior, they did not mean it, they did not know they were doing it, we all have irritating ways about us, but some of us have more irritating ways than others. And I know that I do the best I can to be aware of the qualities that I have that may be irritating and to not act them out. I found out that to get along in this world, you have to really make an effort to go the extra mile in every interaction, to help the person not to be offended. If they have misunderstood you, to help them to understand you. If all of us lived like that, it would really be a great world. And sometimes I get selfish, sometimes I know somebody has misunderstood me, and I manifest, and I say, Lord, I do not want to go back and explain it to them, I did not do any thing wrong, they misunderstood me, but you have to.

 

The one who has the understanding has to minister to the one who does not have the understanding, especially if they are suffering because of a lack of understanding. You want to be a son of God, you have to go to them and you have to set there discomfort at rest. Lots of times I tell you, I do not owe you an explanation, but I am giving you one because I am a son of God. I do not owe anybody, I only answer to God, I am in a great place. If you can hear the difference, I do not owe it to you, but I owe it to him.

 

I thought this was an exhortation, I am talking for 45 minutes already. Let us see what I have on the board here. The Lord wants to open you up, you are like the inside of tin cans. He wants to use a can opener, He wants to get you out, because this is going to rev up your spirituality, this ability to be aware that people are thinking different things than you are or having different reactions to the same exact thing that you just experienced, it tones up your spirituality. It is going to make you more sensitive to other people, and when you are more sensitive to other people, you are much more equipped to do the work of the Lord. When you are sensitive to other people, you can move right in there and flow with the spirit. Spirit, feeling, spirit is in feeling, spirit is everything that you cannot see, so if you are in spiritual ministry, you have to start becoming aware. And the blockage is unconscious, of course, the blockage is that if you start becoming sensitive to other people, it is not easy and you are going to be exposed to the other people, because if you are sensitive to them, then you are going to be opening up yourself to them. That is the spiritual communication, it is exposing yourself, and you have to learn how to function in this world, it is not easy, but you could do it in Christ. And this is a part of spiritual manhood.

 

A lot of people, like there is someone who has been on my mind for weeks, and I know they are staying away because I know this is their modus operandi. For whatever reason they do not want to partake of this ministry, and they cannot believe that I could be friends with them without them partaking of this ministry. They cannot believe it because they cannot be friends with me. They are under conviction when they are just around me. So when you are spiritually deaf you are very aware of your own hurt feelings, but almost never aware that you have hurt the other person. It does happen sometimes that you could be completely blameless, but it is very rare. I say that it happens to me a lot after years and years and years of this training, that the Lord has put me through, sometimes people are hurt and I am really blameless, but I think in the average person it is very, very rare.

 

Spiritually deaf people are oversensitive when they are hurt. They even have trouble getting over it and forgiving, but they are almost completely unaware that maybe the reason the person acted in the way they did was because the hurt person provoked them somehow, and maybe the person that is deaf did not even mean to provoke them. We have attitudes, and we have the way we deal with things that sometimes are very, very irritating, and I had someone say to me once, Wellm that is the way that I am. Well, you have to change. You could go through the rest of your life being that way, but then you can expect that you are going to be running into people that are going to be having bad reactions to you. Some people will have bad reactions to you, other people will not want to continue in a relationship, all kinds of different reactions. You see, if we do all that we could do, and there is a separation in our life, or any kind of a trouble, then we stand blameless before God. We are not responsible for the other person, but we are responsible to do all that we could do, and it is really necessary to recognize that when we are hurt, maybe, just maybe, we did something that we were not aware of that the other person was reacting to when they lashed out at us. Do not misunderstand me, it is not acceptable to God to lash out at people, but if you want to look at this in a positive way, if you are in a relationship where there's a lot of lashing out, I will give you a positive way to look at it, maybe this is your opportunity to see qualities in yourself that are provocative.

 

Let us just say that you are a person that does things that are very irritating sometimes. If no one is around to have a negative reaction to you, you could live and die and never know that you have this quality, so if someone lashes out at you or is in any way, whether it is overt or subtle, here you have an opportunity to say to the Lord, Lord, is there something offensive about me? And if there is, I want to know what it is and I want to change. So that is the upside of having someone lash out at us. We can make the best of everything because spiritually deaf people are 100% of the time, when they are offended, they never see that they did anything whatsoever at all. It is always the other person, and this kind of attitude alienates you from the other person, alienates you because the other person can only take so much of everything being the way you see it. Communication in a relationship is a give and take, and you really have to understand how the other person feels. And all of this is a prerequisite to working together.

 

If you cannot, that is how we started this message, if you cannot flow together in the work place, or in a work situation, the chances of you flowing together in a relationship where emotions are high is very small, very small, you have a very small chance.

 

The spiritually deaf person is aware of their emotional needs, but they are almost never aware of the other person's emotional needs. I was a spiritually deaf person. I was there, you know, I know that this is all true. You just think that everybody else is OK. Just because somebody looks strong and somebody is in charge of their life, it does not mean they have no emotional needs. Everybody has emotional needs, everybody requires respect, and honor and affection, nobody is that strong that they do not need these things. The spiritually deaf person is unaware of their own hurtful behavior, they are very aware of the other person's hurtful behavior, but completely blinded to their own hurtful behavior, and they think the whole world is crazy. The spiritually deaf person is unaware of their own motives. I have down over here at the bottom of the board some of the results of being spiritually deaf, and that being spiritually deaf results in engaging in the wrong methods of accomplishing our goals, because if you are spiritually deaf that means your communication is very poor.

 

So if you want something from somebody, the chances are 99% that if you are spiritually deaf that you are not going to go to them and say, Look I need something, would you help me out, would you do this for me. It is not likely that you are going to do that because your communication is poor, you do not even know what your own motives are, or if you do know what your motives are, you do not want any conflict. Life is negotiation, everything you want you have to talk to the person, they may say, No. You have to compromise, you go back and forth. Some people who engage in manipulation and dishonesty are people who do not want to risk the other person saying, No.

 

And here is our selfishness again, they just want what they want, what they want, and they do not want to give you a chance to say, No, so they trick you into doing what they want you to do. But the saddest part of the whole thing is that there are large sections of our population engaging in this kind of behavior, and they do not even know it is wrong. They said it as a child, they have been doing it all their life, they think this is the way you accomplish something that you want to accomplish, through dishonesty and seduction and manipulation. They actually think it is diplomatic, because their definition of diplomatic is to avoid conflict, do whatever you have to do to accomplish your goal without avoiding conflict. This is another activity of selfishness and you need to know that if you engage in that behavior that you may be at peace because you have avoided conflict, but if the other person ever finds out that you have been dishonest and you tricked them, they will have a deep wound, and maybe they will have a deep wound even if they do not find out.

 

So lack of communication leads to many other problems, and frequently the people who get things done this way by the wrong methods, they are unaware of their own methods. They do not think they are doing anything wrong and then that person that finds out that they were tricked gets all upset. Maybe it is a person who lashes out, and here you have some quiet person seductively manipulating to get something done, and the person who is manipulated is screaming, and the quiet person saying, What is wrong with you, I did not do anything wrong, you really have a problem.

 

So the spiritually deaf person is not aware of their own motives, neither are they aware of the reason why the person is screaming. Now look, people who scream, or people who do evil to you, they have to have a reason whether they are aware of it or not. They have to have a reason, and it is our responsibility to say, Lord, did I do anything to make some one choose that method of communicating with me?

 

I remember years ago, when I was in my twenties, somebody deceived me in a very hurtful way. They gave me to understand something that eventually was exposed as untrue and it really wounded me, and some very wise person said to me in those days, Now, why did he do that, why did he not tell you the truth? I said, Well, I do not know, I do not know, I did not make him do that. The man said to me, "What would your reaction have been, if he told you the truth?" And, knowing myself at the time, I would have really carried on like a lunatic. Now does that make it OK to deceive somebody? No, but the person involved was a very passive person and they had a fear of my reaction, because I was a real Jezebel in those days. So that person's fear of my reaction made them be dishonest with me. Now that does not mean it is OK, it is not, what that person did was not right, but I have to face the fact that if I was a different kind of person, if I was not a roaring Jezebel in those days, that person would have been more honest with me.

 

Do you understand what I am saying? It does not make what he did right, but I was not completely innocent in this deception, it was his fear of me that led him to do that, and if I was a more godly person, I might not have had that problem. I was really offended when that man first told me that, but I now see that it is the truth. So for us to be blameless, we have to say that, first to be blameless in any situation, we have to be walking blameless in our whole life.

 

Now, a lot of people tell me that they are afraid of me now. When I use to hear that people were afraid of me, it use to really upset me, because I do not want people to be afraid of me, but I know that when I get my behavior in order that I am really fair and honest as I deal with people from day to day. I now know that any fear that someone has of me is their own problem. If I were a punishing person, tyrannizing person, an unfair, and unreasonable person, if I was giving you reason to be afraid of me, OK, then I would be party to your fear of me, but if the reason that you are afraid of me is because of the anointing that is on me, well there is nothing I could do about that.

 

If the reason that you are afraid of me is because I run a tight ship here, but a godly tight ship, well then, there nothing I could do about that. You have to deal with your fear, I hope you are all getting this message. The spiritually deaf person is unaware of teamwork, and that is really one of the major issues that I believe the Lord brought forth this message this morning, I did not know I was going to preach it until an hour ago. It is very hard to have a good place in teamwork if you are not communicating with other people. The spiritually deaf person is likely to say to themselves, Well, I was just trying to help, and if the person leading the team says to them, Do not do that, or rebukes them, the spiritually deaf person says, Well, that is the last time I am going to help her or him.

 

So the spiritually deaf person cannot understand that although they thought that they said what they said or they did what they did because they wanted to help. We need to understand that help that is not asked for by the one who's trying to head up the team has the exact opposite effect then of helping. It brings in confusion, it brings in misunderstanding, and it prolongs the unsolved problem. So we can not have our own definition of help or assistance, you have to flow with the team, under the direction of the head of the team. Now the ideal situation in Christ is that nobody will have to be told anything, everybody will know what they are supposed to do receiving their communication from Christ Jesus within them.

 

So if we have a teamwork situation and there is confusion there, that means at least one person is in their carnal mind, because Christ Jesus does not thrust himself in another person. it is a fine motive to want to be helpful, but we must be helpful in a productive way or we become counterproductive. We think we are being helpful and the result of it is the exact opposite of what we tried to bring forth.

 

The spiritually deaf person is not aware of creativity, usually they are not aware of their own creativity, they are not aware of their own gifts. Usually they are rigid and under the law, spiritually deaf. Creativity is an inner voice. We have to respond to our inner voice. And they are unaware of creativity in others also, usually imputing their own motives to the other person. Spiritually deaf people, especially those who are under some kind of rigid law, cannot comprehend that other people are thinking creatively and may feel differently about something. And again, if you want to move in the spirit, creativity is closely associated with moving in the spirit, we have to come out of this religious bondage, we have to come out of our own way of doing things, because spirituality is a flowing together with other people, a flowing together like the planes that you see flying in formation in the skies, that is what we have to do.

 

And the way to enter into this, if you can hear this message, and you can associate yourself with this message, the first thing that you have to do is ask Jesus to help you to be silent. If you can identify with this and you find that you are talking and that you are not moving in teamwork, but what you are saying and doing is interfering with the one who the headship is on at that moment, the way to go is to stop talking for a season until Christ starts rising in you. I know that when I came to the Lord I had a lot of problems, and one of the problems that I had was that I imputed evil motives to everybody, well to a lot of people, I imputed evil motives to them. The way the Lord dealt with me on this was that I took a position I was going to suffer the loss unless Christ Jesus rose up and defended me, and that I would give everybody the benefit of the doubt, I would believe whatever they told me. If I thought somebody meant something or someone had a particular motive and they told me they did not, where the old me would have said, You are lying to me, I decided that I would take their word for it, and unless Christ Jesus came around and said, Sheila, you were right and that person really did have an evil motive towards you, if I did not hear from Christ Jesus I would believe what they told me.

 

And it took a couple of years and now I have a very good ability to discern people's true motives. A lot of people really do have evil motives towards you, sometimes they know it and sometimes they do not know it. As a son of God, we are supposed to come into all truth. All truth is not just doctrine, all truth is the truth of people's hearts towards you. All truth includes your own motives and the truth of other people's motives towards you, and then when you start seeing all this evil you start going through a stage where -- everybody does not have to be the same, but I went through a stage where I was angry -- because you see the evil in people's hearts, and then you go through a stage that you are angry, because you see the evil and they do not even know that the evil is there.

 

There are people walking around thinking that they are great Christians and they have all these evil motives in their heart. I went through that stage, where I was angry over that, and then eventually you mature into Christ Jesus where you become the teacher who will show people whose motives are ungodly, that they are there, and how to deal with them and how to get delivered from them. Because, brethren, the whole message of salvation is that Christ Jesus is come to deliver us from our carnal mind. Christ Jesus is come to set us free from thinking with an animal mind that brings conflict and pain and trouble into our life, and I have found out that we are the source of all discomfort. Everything is how you deal with the problems.

 

We do not have to be upset, but the problem is that a lot of people make this choice in their carnal mind, I do not have to be upset, and then they deny the circumstances of what is going on. What I am saying to you is we can see the truth, we can know when someone's heart is evil towards us, and we can deal with it in prayer without being upset, in a godly manner, and when we do that, we help the other person too. But the bottom line is that you cannot come into a spiritual ministry without being willing to face the full truth about yourself, about your loved ones, about your wife, about your husband, about your children, about your parents. Does that mean you have to hate them? No, but you have to face the truth about them.

 

It is very hard to face the truth about your immediate family and people that you have loved and still love them. Let us say they have really done something wrong to you, it is much harder to face the truth and forgive them, truly forgive them and continue to love them, than it is to deny what they did. It is much easier to, well not for me, but for the spiritually deaf person, it is much easier to deny what they did, it is much easier to deny that there's a problem there. it is much easier to deny that maybe I did something that contributed to their behavior, maybe I provoked them, they treated me so badly. I know I did not mean it, but maybe I did something that really embarrassed them.

 

Maybe I did something that really embarrassed them or really hurt their feelings, it is much harder to face the truth and to forgive and to continue on knowing, and to love somebody knowing that they have the character disorders that they have. That is a challenge, to me that is a challenge of a lifetime to really face the truth about myself, and love myself with my failures, and my shortcomings and to love and forgive others knowing the truth about them. And once you come to this place, you then are in a position to help them, and the spiritual principle that I can apply to this is the piercing through to the left side of the heart center. When you are here on the right side of the heart center you are grappling with Satan and she has got authority over you. But when you pierce through to the left side of the heart center and you connect with the Godhead above, you become strong enough to come back into your heart center and drive Satan back, boil her sea, and bring order to your life.

 

You have got to stop, you have got to separate, this is the true sanctification. You have got to separate from the activities of the carnal mind to live in victory out of the mind of Christ, and to really help people in Christ. Now, there is an assistance to people in the carnal mind. I have had people come to me and say, Pastor Sheila, I have been in ministry in the Church for years, why are you telling me to be quiet? Because your ministry in the church was out of your carnal mind. It did good, it did good, but it did not produce eternal life, and all ministry that you give to people out of the mind of Christ, no matter what it is that you helped them with, no matter what it is that you do for them, if it is coming out of the mind of Christ, you are leaving seeds of Christ in their heart, which could sprout and produce immortality in that person.

 

So if you want to go to the ministry which is in Christ Jesus, see, there is a drying up of the ministry of your carnal mind, no matter how good that ministry was. See there are many ministries in the Church today feeding the poor, they are doing a great work, there are people who are hungry, they are sending medical help. These are all good works, brethren, and I am in no way suggesting that the people who are doing them should stop doing them, but there are no seeds of immortality with this work.

 

I think I mentioned this off the message, when we prayed for Xxxx, that the ministry which is in Christ Jesus is that you just live your life, and the Spirit brings people to you, and just one short encounter with them can change their whole life. You know, I had somebody say to me once, someone who was coming to me for counseling, but they did not come very often because they had counseling on their medical insurance at work. She said, I go to this counselor, I pay her $1, I sit there for an hour, I walk out and nothing has changed. I talk to you for ten minutes and my whole life is changed, and I do not take any glory for this. This is the ministry of Christ Jesus.

 

There is power in simple kindness that comes out of Christ Jesus, but your carnal mind must be silent. She has got to shut up if you want this kind of ministry in Christ Jesus to come forth. If you do not want it, it is OK, but you cannot have both at the same time. You know, when I was a young person, I was a very selfish, greedy young person, and I use to think that everything that I achieved whether it was a material thing or any kind of an accomplishment, that I would just continue to hoard all these things in, and my possessions, spiritual and material possessions would just increase and increase and increase, but I found out that you lose things, things fall away.

 

Just last week a thought entered my mind, I honestly do not know where it came from, God or Satan, I do not know, but a thought entered my mind that a particular sweatshirt was my favorite sweatshirt and the next week I put it in the wrong wash and it is all ruined. It has black marks on it, my favorite sweatshirt. So I do not whether that was the Lord telling me that that was idolatry or that was Satan trying to hurt me, but I am not attached to material things. So I found out that my greed was not realistic, that I could accumulate every good thing that happened to me over the years, things come into my life and things are taken away from my life, both material things, relationships, spiritual and emotional experiences.

 

I was raised up in a Pentecostal church where I cast out demons three, four, sometimes five nights a week, and I was very upset when that anointing to cast out demons was taken from me. I was very upset, but the Lord took it from me. That does not mean that I could not cast out a demon today if He wanted me to, but I was doing that three, four, five nights a week. I have not cast out a demon in a couple of years, and I do not have the opportunities to do so, and when that opportunity arises, it is usually.. the anointing is usually on someone else in the room because I have a different kind of anointing now.

 

So I found out that you cannot hold on to these things and accumulate them. Why am I telling you all this? I am telling it to tell you that if you want the spiritual ministry which is in Christ Jesus, you have to be willing to let go of other forms of ministry that you have engaged in over the years. do not let go unless He is working on you letting go in that area right now, but prepare your mind that you cannot do everything. You cannot do everything, and He taketh away the first so that he can give you the second.

 

I think I have pretty much covered this. Just let me comment on this last row here. Spiritual deafness results in confusion. You confuse the person who is trying to communicate with you. Frequently, if you are spiritually deaf you are not confused, but the person who is trying to communicate with you or run the team gets confused, it results in misunderstanding. It is very hard to run a team if the person that you are giving an instruction to interprets what you say and goes out and does whatever they want to do. What kind of a teamwork are you going to have? It does not work, right? It does not work, and the bottom line is, there is also an element of pride and rebellion there. There can only be one boss, brethren.

 

In the army, this is the example that I give all the time. The one-star general submits to the four-star general. It does not mean that you are put down or there is anything wrong with you, but everybody cannot be a boss. My mother used to tell me, You cannot have all cooks, all captains and no workers, something like that. It does not work, it does not work, and it does not mean that you will not be a chief in another circumstance, in another situation. But I will tell you this, that the chances of the Lord promoting you to a place of headship before you can learn to submit to headship is not likely, because if you cannot submit, you cannot lead. Even Jesus was under the Father. You will never do it. You cannot ask people to do what you will not do yourself or what you cannot do yourself, so you will be under authority until you learn how to submit.

 

So spiritual deafness produces unsolved problems, the problem does not get solved. Everybody is going in their own direction, you are busy with trying to figure out the confusion and the misunderstanding that the problem does not get solved, and lot of people live their whole lives in marriages and family situations where nobody understands each other. They all just go in their own direction, and it looks like they are all together, but emotionally and mentally they are all going in their own direction. There is no communication at all, no flowing together. Spiritual deafness results in the use of wrong methods to accomplish your goals, dishonesty, manipulation and seduction which arises out of wrong thinking, dishonesty, manipulation and seduction which arises out of a thinking that says all confrontation is no good, but the truth of the matter is, people who engage in this do not want to give the other person the opportunity to say, No.

 

They do not want to give the person the opportunity to say, No, so they engage in dishonesty, manipulation and seduction. Spiritual deafness also produces isolation. I just mentioned that before, people of the same family marry people sometimes, there just is no spiritual communication. Now I am not talking about marriages where we have someone here in the congregation where the husband travels a lot and the wife travels a lot, that is OK, you can do that, I am talking about a spiritual communication. You could have a marriage where the husband and wife have careers and they are apart from each other a significant amount of time, I am talking about a spiritual communication. I am talking about a tie that is rooted in something in a communion of understanding one another, and spiritual deafness will produce a dull spirit. Because as long as you are yielding to this curse of thinking of perceiving only what you feel and what you think and what you need, it also dulls your hearing to the spirit world, and what we are trying to do here is become sensitive to the spirit world.

 

And spiritual deafness produces also blindness and loss, a lot of loss. You lose a lot of opportunities, a lot of relationships, a lot of experiences,why? Because you are in your own little world. You are like a turtle in a shell, and you will not come out of it because you do not want to experience being hurt, you do not want to experience being wrong, you do not want to have to submit to authority, etc. It is all founded in pride and rebellion and narcissism, and this is the condition in a variety of degrees of all of humanity. we are all deaf and blind to God except those of us who have a restored relationship with Him. Fallen humanity wants to do what each man wants to do, whatever is right in his own eyes. I actually heard someone on television last week saying, That is your definition of adultery? His wife does not care, so, therefore, it is not adultery. Is that crazy? Adultery, I mean that is a word that is clearly defined in all of western society. Now, the man who said it was trying to make up a new definition for adultery. His definition was, sexual involvement with someone other than with your mate if your mate minds. And the one whose making up the new definition of adultery is saying to the people who are cleaving to the true definition of adultery, That is your definition.

 

This is all narcissism, turning the table, switching it around, making the other person the guilty party. it is all ungodly and it strengthens pride in you, it strengthens the bands of pride in you. I want to pray for you all, I really did not intend to bring you this message this morning but the Lord gave it to me.

 

PRAYER

 

Thank you Jesus. Well Father, we just pray for everybody including myself, Lord. May all spiritual deafness be stripped from us. May the stopped ears be opened, and the closed eyes be opened, Lord, and may our spirituality come forth, Lord, and ascend above the carnal mind. May we experience the liberty which is in Christ Jesus, Father, that we might return to the world above and dwell with you. And I forgive everybody's sins, Lord, and I pray that this message should do the job that you intend it to do, and that spiritual growth should ensue Lord, and you should be glorified in all of us, in the Name of Jesus. Any questions or comments on this?

 

One other thing -- another activity of the spiritually deaf person which is also a characteristic of narcissism is if that person wants something from somebody else, they will put the issue to them in a way. In other words, instead of saying to the person, Look, I need something, will you do it for me? They make it sound like they are doing a favor for the other person. The person who has the need makes it sound like they are doing a favor, so they are switching roles.

 

You see, if I have something that you need, or something that you want, and you come to me and say, Pastor Sheila, can you do this for me?, I could say, No. I guess I mentioned this earlier, but I did not put it quite this way, but the person who engages in dishonesty and manipulation will go to the person and say, Look, I want to do something for you, this is my gift for you and, therefore, you can give up the other thing that you do not need. I will give you this so that you can give up the other thing that you do not need. When you do that, when you are the person that needs something, but you make yourself the great giver then you deny the person the opportunity to say, No, you are dishonest. You know that you do not have to thank the person because you have made yourself the giver, and if the person ever figures out what you did, you put an arrow in them, because you have tricked them and you have made a fool out of them. When you manipulate somebody you make a fool out of them. If they ever get the revelation in their head as to what you did, you have made a fool out of them. That is the truth. Manipulation is very wicked. Any questions or comments here?

 

No it is not out of order and we are coming to that place you know, xxxx. I am at that place with xxxxxx and xxxx, and I know that you have been telling me for quite a while that you want that, but your reactions to things that I told were such that it put me off. It did not encourage me to do this, do you understand what I am saying? But you are doing better and better when I tell you things, the last couple of times I have told you something, you have not been aggressive towards me at all. So I am perfectly willing to do this, OK, as the Lord leads me, but I need cooperation from you because you are very strong. You know you have a very strong will and a strong mind, and over the years, I know it was not your intention to hurt me, but your responses to what I told you were very hurtful towards me. Do you understand what I am saying? Pride rises up, pride rises up.

 

So anybody who wants this relationship with the Son of God, who has the ability to show someone their own motives, the person's responsibility is to deal with their own pride, which you are starting to do. So I will be able to tell more and more things. Do you understand what I am saying? Your pride used to rise up, and you are very strong, and that pride used to really wound me. Although it was not intended to wound me, it was intended to defend, pride defends self. Do you understand what I am saying? Pride defends self. Someone has to really be convinced that they want to hear these things to the point that they are going to restrain their own pride, which you have started to do. Well, if you are not aware of it, I guess that is what it is. Sometimes I get confused, whether it is your subconscious or your unconscious, but if it is by-passing your consciousness.

 

But you have got a very spiritually -- you are male, spiritually speaking, you are male. You are very strong, and this strength that we have, either our carnal mind lays hold of it or our Christ mind lays hold of it. And it is not an easy thing to hear this kind of correction and hold back the pride of our mind, which is our knee-jerk reaction. And when we are told something about ourselves that may not be pleasant, pride rises up and attacks the person. Now, if you are aware that pride is rising up in you and attacking the person who is trying to help you, you can deal with it more, but it is really taking you a long time to perceive it, and from what you are telling me, you do not even perceive it.

 

What is on my mind is the last time I did tell you something on the phone. I do not even remember what it was, and I told you, I said, xxxx, I feel like we are striving and we are getting into a fight so I really do not want to talk about it, and you made the correction. Whether you knew that you did it or not, you made the correction. Your pride was attacking me, and I felt that I was striving with you, and if I kept on going, we would be in a fight, which would be terrible, as far as I am concerned. So I told you what I was feeling, and for the first time, you made the correction, that pride that was risen up went down, and I finished telling you what I had to say to you. You had no awareness of that at all? Yes, the pride went down, and you listened to me, and I finished what I had to say to you, and I hope that I helped you.

 

I do not even remember what it was, but that is the problem, and it is the problem that we will all come up against. Did that mean something? Yes, that is the problem that everyone manifesting in the two-witness company will come up against. The people's carnal mind will rise up to attack you because this exposure of sin, without condemnation, is to the destruction of the carnal mind. So the more in touch that with our own sin nature, the more ability we have to restrain her when she is trying to attack the one who has come to help us.

 

11/17/02rs