The Following Message Has Been Transcribed And Edited For
Clarity, Continuity Of Thought, And Punctuation By
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You know, blessing does not just mean money. Sometimes people need money, but He wants us to have mercy, and He wants us to give of ourselves to people that need what we have. Sometimes it is knowledge, sometimes it is wisdom, and sometimes it is understanding. It is not always of the Scripture. Sometimes people just do not know how to succeed or overcome in life. They just do not know what they are doing wrong, and maybe you know what they need to know. Glory to God.
This is the ministry of the Sons of God. It is really nice that the Lord has meetings like this. Some churches have two and three hundred people, some churches have a thousand, and they sing and they dance, but that is not what God is doing. He is doing it, but it is just temporary until the real thing comes.
We went to a service recently where there was a few hundred people. There was one man ministering. He called up categories of people and said,"Are you backslidden? Are you not living for God?" You know, most people do not even know what that means. Younger believers do not even know what that means. They are sitting in the church, and they are going there for help. How can this minister, minister to three or four hundred people? He names these categories. The average person does not even know that they are supposed to go up for prayer. This is the hour for the manifestation of the Sons of God, one-on-one ministry.
Depending on where you are in Christ, where God has brought you to, He can send you anyone, from one person to as many as you can handle. It is God's judgment how many people you could minister to at once. You know, everybody does not need counsel twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. You could have people in your life that call you once a month, once a week, or you could have someone living in your house. God will make a judgment as to how many people He will attach to you. When He attaches them to you, He attaches them to you for the specific purpose that you should form a soul tie.
A pipe should be connected between your soul and their soul, and everything of Him that is in you should flow through that pipe into their heart. Everything that you have learned, every blessing you have received, every curse you have overcome, every bit of knowledge that you now know should be transferred into their heart. It could be a one- time encounter. It could be a one-month encounter. It could be an encounter for several years.
This is the ministry of the Sons of God. He is going to send us out in the street. We are going to be ministering to people that are not strong enough to get to a meeting like this or do not know that there is a meeting like this. The churches that we see in the church world today are temporary. God only knows, they are certainly better than nothing, but the hour is at hand that the Son of God is about to appear in His people. He is going to talk through them, and He is going to help people on an individual one-on-one basis by giving them exactly what they need.
I John, Chapter 5. I do not know how far I am going to get, but I am going to start with Verse l. I hope to get through at least Verse 9. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth Him that begat loveth Him also that is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments: and His commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth."
I am not going to read Verse 7 because it is not in the original Greek. I will comment on it when I go past it. Going on to Verse 8. "And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which He hath testified of His Son." I used to read these verses and, for the life of me, I could not figure out what they meant. I prayed about it for years. Lord willing, I am going to impart some understanding to whoever has ears to hear.
Verse 1, Chapter 5, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ." Jesus, the Christ. Anyone want to take a crack at what the difference is between Jesus and the Christ? Anybody want to try it? Let me put it on the tape. We will make this audience-participation night.
COMMENT: I feel Jesus was the man, and Christ was God in man. Christ was anointed. It was God in Him.
PASTOR VITALE: Amen, that is correct. This is the difference between Jesus and Christ because the Scripture says whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Jesus is the Christ, and the Christ is the spiritual life of God that dwells in man. God is a Spirit, and He dwells in the heavenly realm of His Spirit, but God has decided to appear in a man or in men. We were just talking about it earlier. When He appears, where is He going to appear? He is going to appear in the minds of men. You cannot tell that God is appearing in men because of a costume that he wears, or because of something that he holds in his hand, or because he stands up on television and waves a Bible. There are two signs that God is appearing in a man. That is by the words that he speaks and by the spirit that comes forth from him.
The man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, was the Christ, the Logos. The Spirit of Almighty God appeared in the mind, words, and deeds of the man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Because the Logos, the Spirit of Almighty God, was appearing in His word, thoughts, and deeds, He had the authority to say, "No man can take My Life, but I lay it down." What are we saying? When the Christ, when the Spirit of God appears in your mind and in my mind, we shall cease from the experience or the existence known as death. The promise of Almighty God is the Life of the Ages. That promise is to every man on the face of the earth. This is the promise from Almighty God to every human being on the face of the earth.
When I say man, I am talking about men, women and children, all sexes. That promise is eternal life, the Life of the Ages, life in the flesh that will never end.
Do not get confused. This is not speaking of a life of torment that will never end. That is what a lot of people preach, a life of torment, damnation and hell that will never end. That is not the promise of Almighty God. The promise of Almighty God is no more curse, no more tears, total union with Him, peace, contentment, and joy in the Holy Ghost without death. Glory to God.
"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." What does that mean? To get that understanding and believe that Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the man in whom the Spirit of God appeared, there has to be something of God in you. We are told in the Scripture that the natural man, the carnal mind of man, could never believe that. We see these men all over television, all over the streets, all over the city, all over the world, and they are saying God is just a figment of man's imagination. When you hear that out of a man, you have a right to make a judgment that, that man is not born of God.
Why do you have a right to make a judgment? The Bible tells you that whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God; therefore, if they do not believe Jesus is the Christ, they are not born of God. That does not mean they cannot be born of God at some time in the future, but we are admonished by the Scripture to start knowing who we are talking to. Start knowing who we are dealing with, start knowing what kind of a man your boss is, what kind of a man or a woman your mother or your father is. Why? So that you could condemn them? No! So that you could manifest Christ to them and help them if they need help. Glory to God.
"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and everyone that loveth Him (Jesus) that begat loveth Him also that is begotten of Him." Brethren, there is another Scripture that says, "If you say you love God and you hate your brother, you abide in darkness and you are a liar." Now let us get it straight what hating your brother is, brethren. You know this world has everything backwards. Love is not an "icky sticky gooey" thing that lets you be destroyed because you cannot stand up to someone that is trying to rob you blind.
We have all kinds of situations in the church. I have heard of people entering into someone's house and telling them, "I have a right to whatever is in your refrigerator, and you cannot tell me no, or you are not loving me." This is not the love of God, brethren. The love of God is truth. The love of God is truth, the ministry of the Spirit that will correct error or lies in that other person.
What is a lie? It is a thought in your mind that is not of God, and every thought that is not of God, you better believe it, is bringing destruction into your life. You better believe it, because it is true. Every thought that is not of God is bringing destruction into your life, and the Scripture calls it a lie. You see, we do not even understand what a lie is. It does not necessarily have to be a falsehood. Everything that is not out of God, the Scripture calls a lie, and it can only bring death.
This says, "Everyone that loveth Christ loveth him also that is begotten of Him." Well, if you have the Spirit of God, you are begotten of Him, and God requires you to love your brother in truth, in righteousness, and in honesty. You should try to help everybody you could. You should be honest to them in your heart. There should be no deception. There should be no deceit. You should not be trying to use anybody, to rob anybody or harm them in any way.
If they come into your house, as somebody did to me quite a few years ago, and said, "I want that table that you have in your garage." I said, "I am sorry, I cannot give it to you, it is my dead sister's table. I know it is in the garage, but it is my dead sister's table and I cannot give it to you." The woman stormed out of my house very angry at me. Do not let anybody tell you that you have failed to love your brother because that has nothing whatsoever to do with the love of God. When you love somebody, you tell them the truth of the Word of God. If they are doing something that is destroying their life, even if you think it might break the relationship, tell them, but only if God tells you to.
Now, we cannot go around doing this in our own strength. We cannot be condemning people. We cannot be judging people. When you are a little more mature in God, and His Spirit moves upon you to tell somebody that they are involved in destructive behavior and you do it, the Scripture says, "If the person receives the rebuke, you have a brother and if they do not receive the rebuke, they are nothing but a heathen because the love of God is not in them."
You do not let people destroy you, brethren. If someone is harming you, and you know that they are a believer, you go to them and you tell them the truth. Do you know what you did has hurt me? You would be very surprised as to how many times the person does not even know that they hurt you. Give them a chance to make it right with you. Do not break the relationship. Do not end it. Do not walk away. Do not talk behind their back. Go to them and tell them what they have done and give them a chance to say, "Oh my goodness, I had no idea that I was hurting you. I will not do it anymore." Give them the chance. Most believers in the church cannot do this.
I make it sound very easy, but most people cannot do this. They will break the relationship. They will run away from you, but the Scripture says that if you love God, you will love His people.
We have to get a revelation of what the Love of God is. It is not "icky sticky gooey" stuff. Sometimes it is tough. They have a program in the world today and it is called "Tough Love." We have all these kids out there that are just falling apart in their emotions. They are drinking, they are on drugs, they are in the streets, they are all over the place. The parents go for help, and they say give them tough love. Give them guidelines. Give them limits. Give them restrictions. Tell them what is right and what is wrong. Tell them what they can do and what they cannot do and help them to do it by saying, "You cannot do it in this house." Then if they up and leave, well they up and leave. I know parents that let their kids do all kinds of things in their house. They say, "If I tell them they cannot do it, they are going to leave."
Brethren, you have to tell these kids what is right, and you have to tell them they cannot do it in your house. You have to get a Word from God. I am talking in generalities, of course. You have to get your personal Word from God.
Verse 2, "By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments." Brethren, do not tell me that you love God when you are cheating the lady next to you in the church. When she hires you to build a dormer on her house, and you take her money and you do not do the job, do not tell me you love God. When you are trying to seduce the woman in the back of the church, and when you are doing all kinds of destructive behavior that you have not repented of, that is not loving God.
We all have sin in our life. We all have things that we do that we cannot stop doing. The question is, what is your heart? Is your heart saying,"I love it, and I am going to continue doing it," or is your heart saying, "God, I just wish I could stop. Jesus, I just wish I could stop and I cannot stop." That is why we have to be very careful before we pass a judgment on anybody.
If you get your hooks into someone that is doing something terrible and the truth of the matter is that in their heart they are saying, "Jesus, help me to stop," and you condemn that person, you are in trouble, brother. You are in trouble. If God has not given you an insight into that person's heart, you better not be passing any judgment on them. The one that judgeth is the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you are not thinking with His thoughts, you better not be passing a judgment because He is the defender of the weak. He is the defender of the miserable. He is the defender of the failure. He is the defender of the hopeless. He is the defender of the widow, and He is the defender of the orphan. He is the defender of the pitiful, and you better watch out who you are judging.
If God does send you to somebody with a judgment, that judgment must result in their deliverance. If it is really God sending you to tell them what they are doing is wrong and that they have to stop, the end result of this will be that God will deliver them. If you go to them in a spirit of condemnation and you break their heart, God is going to turn around and go after you. It is all over the church today. You better not go unless He sends you. We grew up in a church where the preacher used to say all the time, "Not all of them were sent, some of them just got up and went."
You better not go with ministry to anybody unless God has sent you. You better try the Spirit in your own heart. If you are not going with a heart full of mercy and compassion, crying for that person's addiction, crying for that person in the condition that they are in, if you are going with a spirit of condemnation in your heart, you better not go. You better turn around and not go. This is how we know that we love God. We keep His commandments and what is His commandment? "Love God with all of your heart, and your mind, and your soul, and love your brother as you would love yourself." Glory to God.
Verse 3, "For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments and His commandments are not grievous." That means hard. It is not hard to keep His commandments. Why? Because when Jesus Christ dwells in your heart, He becomes your strength. A lot of people would read this and say, "What do you mean, it is not hard? I cannot stand that guy over there. He disgusts me. I cannot love him. I really despise him." Brethren, when Jesus Christ appears in your heart, when He becomes your mind, you are going to love everybody. You are going to be able to love the leper and if you cannot love the afflicted of the earth, if you cannot love the obnoxious person, what it means is that Jesus is not living through your mind. Glory to God.
Verse 4, "For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world." We have a problem in the church today. We have thousands of people that read this Bible, and they think that they have every promise in the Bible. They think that because they have the Spirit of God and they speak in tongues, they think that they have been born of God. They think they have the ability to love everybody. They think that they have overcome the world and there are many thousands of people, unfortunately, in the church today, that are laboring under a lie.
Brethren, "For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world." Brethren, what is born of God is Christ. If your thoughts are not Christ, if your thoughts are not love, if your thoughts are not righteousness, if your thoughts are not strength to perform what you know you have to do in your life, you may have the Holy Spirit, you may speak in tongues, but He has not yet become your mind.
For these promises to apply to you, the Christ that is born of God in your heart, has to become fully your mind, your thought processes.
We have a church world filled with people that are the equivalent to a woman who is maybe one month pregnant, that have a Christ in them that is barely functioning, and they are running around judging a lot of people thinking that they have the right to do this. I adjure you to look upon your heart and if you are not going with mercy, you better turn back.
"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world." You see, it is not you or me that overcometh the world. It is Christ in us. It is the Spirit of God in us working for us. For Him to overcome the world for you and for me, we have to come into obedience to Him. There are many people in the church world today that do not understand this. There is great misunderstanding in the church world today. Glory to God.
"It is Christ in us that overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith," but our faith cometh from Christ. Alleluia!
"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." Brethren, you have to understand that you do not have all of this power because you speak in tongues. It is Christ, it is the Spirit of God that has been birthed in your mind that has this power. He has to come forth to full stature.
First, He has to be conceived. I am not going to get into that teaching on this tape. We have many tapes on it if anyone hearing this tape wants to hear it. It is Christ in you. It is the Spirit of God in you that is coming forth in seed form, and we have to submit to His thoughts. We have to turn away from our thoughts. We have to turn away from the thoughts that want to send us down the street to destruction and cry out to God and ask His thoughts to come through our mind that will give us the strength to overcome. Glory to God.
What I am telling you is that there is a separation between you and me, the natural person, and the Christ that is within us. Most believers think that it is them. It is not you. He is in you. He is separate from you. He is living inside of you, and He is separate from the way that you have been thinking all your life. You have not miraculously changed because you speak in tongues. There is a Life inside of you. The seed of Almighty God has entered into your mind, and He is growing like a mustard seed. He is coming forth in strength and power. The Scripture says that as He starts to appear in your mind, the mind that you were, the man, the woman that you have been for twenty years, is going to war with His mind.
You are not going to want to do it His way. You are not going to like it His way. You are going to want your old ways, and He is going to rain down judgment on you. When you cannot get up off the floor because you are so beat and you are so tired that you say,"Okay Jesus," then His mind is going to prevail, and you are going to do it His way. According to the Scripture, He is going to bind up your wounds. He is going to put you on His own animal. He is going to give you His own transportation. He is going to give you a new coat. He is going to put a ring on your finger. These are all spiritual things, and He is going to bring great blessing into your life.
Brethren, we have to do it His way, and we have a church world full of people that want to do it their way. I declare to you that you shall never succeed because you are fighting against Almighty God.
We have a church world filled with people that are blaming every bad thing that happens to them upon Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind. I declare to you that Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, is the servant of Almighty God. He is the executioner with the black hood and the sword that brings you to repentance. He is God's servant. You are not fair game. You are not a rabbit out in the woods that Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, can do whatever he wants to you. If you do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ, his job is to bring you into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
If you do have a relationship with Jesus Christ, the hardships in your life, the works of Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, in your life have the purpose to show you areas in your life where you are still thinking with the mind that you had before He was birthed in you. You have to reject your ways and receive His.
He gave me a word tonight before I came in. "If you are deceived, you are deceived because of pride in your own mind." You think that you know a better way than Jesus. Let me tell you, I have been in a battle with Jesus thinking that I knew a better way. It was a long battle, and I had to admit that He was right. I wish that I could have admitted it ten years earlier. I went through all kinds of hard times. He is not going to move. You have to move. You are wasting your time. You have to change. You and me, mankind, all of us, we have to change. His way is the only way.
Sometimes we cannot understand it, and sometimes it does not make sense. Things have happened to me and I ask, "Why Lord?" Because He said so. When I was a kid, we used to say, "why" and my mother would say, "because." "Because 'why' is a crooked letter. You are too immature to understand my ways," saith the Lord. "If I explained it to you, you could not believe it. You could not understand it. You could not appreciate it. Just do what I tell you."
Why do I have to wear a coat when it is twenty degrees out? Because you will get pneumonia and die if you do not wear it. It has to be His way. We are spiritual children and there are things that we simply do not understand. The sooner we stop fighting, the faster He is going to appear in our minds. The faster He appears in our mind, the faster the curse is broken and the peace, contentment, and the blessings of life appear in our life. Glory to God.
Verse 5,"Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God." It seems that John is repeating himself here. He is saying that to overcome the world you have to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, you have to be born of God.
You know, a lot of people think that they believe Jesus is the Son of God and they are just saying words. It is the same thing as with repentance. A lot of people say the words, "I repent," and they think that covers everything, and they really have not repented. They do not even have a revelation of repentance. Repentance means to be sorry for what you have done, to say that God's view in that particular situation is right, and your view is wrong and to change your ideas for God's ideas.
Repentance is a very complicated process, and we have to repent in every area that is sin in our life. Repentance goes on for years. There is no end to it.
People say that they believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but they do not even know what that means. They do not even know what it means that Jesus is the Son of God. I had an encounter with a Jewish believer in Manhattan. He was very angry. He said, "What do you mean, Jesus is the Son of God? How could a Spirit have a son?" Well, did you ever ask yourself how a spirit could have a son? He was really angry. This man had studied the Scriptures in Hebrew. God sent me all the way into Manhattan to tell him that what it means to be a Son of God is that you have the mind of Almighty God flowing through your thought processes. He just looked at me with his mouth opened. No one ever said that to him.
Brethren, the hour is at hand that those people that go forth in the earth in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ must know what this gospel means. The hour is over for all of these believers filled with pride, going out spouting Scriptures, not even knowing what they mean. How can God have a son? He is living in His Son's mind. Glory to God.
Verse 6, "This is He that came by water and by blood, even Jesus Christ." I prayed about that for years. "What do you mean, He came by water and He came by blood." Brethren, there are two births. The first birth is when we come forth in this human body, and the second birth is when the Spirit of Almighty God becomes our mind. "This is He that came by water and by blood." The blood indicating the soul life of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are going to have this body born of water, and we are going to be born of the blood of Jesus.
He is going to be the generator of our every thought, word, and deed. Every thought we think is going to come fromJesus. Every word we say, and every deed that we do is going to be motivated by Jesus Christ being joined to your mind and my mind. When that happens, you have been born of water, and you have been born of blood. If you are hating your brother, you have not been born again.
I do not care if you speak in tongues. You are only in the process of being born again. When you are completely born again, you shall be incapable of sin and because you are incapable of sin, the righteousness of Almighty God shall appear in you and because the righteousness of Almighty God appears in you, you shall cease from dying.
There shall be no more curse, and there shall be no more tears. Whatever your problem is, it shall cease to exist. This is the hope that we have. Every man that has this hope purifies himself and looks upon his own soul to discern the sin in it and turns away from that sin by the power of Almighty God, Jesus!
"This is He that came by water and by blood, even Jesus Christ." Jesus Christ, the man, was born into a human body, and He was born again. His every thought, word, and deed came forth from the Father. Not by water only. He was not just a natural man, but He walked the earth by water and blood. The natural man gave Him His body and His soul, and the Spirit of Almighty God was the One that determined everything that this body and this soul would do. Because God Almighty was His thought processes that determined every thought He would think and everything He would do, He was incapable of sin.
Well then, why do we sin today? Because this body that we were born with, this body that came of water, this body is here is for the specific purpose of God, the Spirit, joining Himself to our minds and completing us. This body has an existence of its own. In that in-between stage, before God becomes our mind, this body is out there doing all kinds of things that are destroying us. It is a rare person that would sin if he was able to stop. It is a rare man that would sin if he were able to stop. If you are so reprobate that you just love your sin, and you do not want to stop, you are really in trouble. You better cry out to God.
Most of us would change if we could. We believe that we cannot, so we keep on doing it but we can change in Christ. Glory to God.
"And it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth." The spirit in us beareth witness when we have been born of the flesh of the water and when we have the mind of Jesus Christ. You can tell when somebody has the mind of Jesus Christ because of the spirit that is manifesting in them, and that spirit is truth. Therefore, for you to make a judgment as to whether or not Christ is appearing in someone because they have truth (where ?) in their mind, which makes them have truth in their words, for you to make that judgment, you have to have truth. A lot of people talk about truth. They do not know what it means.
Brethren, this whole world is a lie. Look up the word "lie" in Webster's dictionary. A lie is an illusion. It is a shadow. It is something that is going to pass away in a moment's notice, and you will never know that it was ever there. This whole world, the chairs that we are sitting on, the building that we are in, the bodies that we have, our wives, our husbands, our children, are an illusion. This is a shocking word, it is just an illusion.
It is just here temporarily until what? Until the Lord Jesus Christ joins Himself to us. All of the pain, all of the suffering, all of the torment, all of the poverty, whatever your torment is, it is just for a season. Now that season might be a long time for you, but from the eyes of God, the way God is looking at it, is that it is just for a season.
You are sleeping, brethren. You are having a bad dream. The day is coming that Jesus Christ is going to join Himself to your mind and change your thinking and when your thinking changes, your behavior will change and when your behavior changes, your life will change. There is no easy way out, brethren.
I wish I could bring you up here and say, "Poof, out in the Name of Jesus," and you would be fine, but if anyone tells you it works like that, either you are misunderstanding them, or you have received a lie. Before you are ready to have an evil spirit cast out of you, you have to see it for what it is, and you have to call it sin. You have to hate it, and you have to want nothing to do with the behavior that it is driving you to perform. That is the way it works, brethren. You hate it, and you cry out to God.
It does not work the opposite way, where you are performing the behavior and, at least in a measure, you are enjoying the behavior, and you really do not particularly want to stop except that you know it is not right. You have a revelation that it is not right, and you think that you are going to get the easy way out. You are going to have the demon cast out of you and, therefore, you do not have to hate it. You do not have to look at it. You do not have to resist it. You do not have to despise it and cry out to God for deliverance. You do not have to not do it when that thought is in your head saying, "Do it, do it, do it."
You want it the easy way out. Well, we will just cast the demon out and then I will stop thinking that I like it. No, brethren, it does not work that way. It is going to be God's way, or it is not going to be at all. We hear a lot of testimonies about people that have miracles like drug addicts and alcoholics. We usually hear these testimonies about drug addicts and alcoholics, that they just wander into a service and God cast that demon of addiction out of them. How do you know that, that man was not crying out to God for ten or twenty years saying, "Jesus, I cannot stop. I hate it, and I cannot stop." All you hear is that one day he wandered into that service, and they cast that demon out of him.
Brethren, you have to hate your sin. There is no demon going to be cast out of you by the power of Almighty God if you do not hate that sin. If you are not strong enough to stop, you have to be agonizing in your heart that you did it. Every time it overtook you and you could not stop, you have to be saying, "Jesus, help me, this thing is too strong for me." You cannot enjoy this thing and wake up in the morning and say, "I want a demon cast out of me so that I do not sin again." I am telling you the truth. You have got to hate that thing.
You have got to do it against your very own will. You cannot do it and love every second of it and wake up in the morning and say, "I am sorry now and cast the demon out of me." No way! I am telling you, no way. It is just not going to happen and He is going to let you continue to do it until He does the work in your mind. Now, why would you hate it? You have to get a revelation that it is killing you, and that it is killing your family, that it is destroying your life, and then you will hate it when you do it. You cannot enjoy that thing and love it every second and then in the morning say, "Cast the demon out of me."
God is going to let it continue until you go all the way to the bar, to the liquor store, and all the while you are putting that bottle in your mouth, you are saying, "Jesus, help me, Jesus, help me, I cannot stop." Then you are a candidate for deliverance. Glory to God.
We are on Verse 6. "It is the spirit that beareth witness because the spirit is truth." You need the Spirit of God in you to discern whether someone else has the Spirit of God. That is what that means. The concept of truth and lie from a spiritual point of view is this. Very simply, everything that is of God is the truth, and everything that is not of God is a lie. If you believe that it is okay to kill your baby, if you believe that it is alright to have an abortion, no matter how you are justifying it, if you believe that is okay, I declare to you, it is a lie because God does not say that.
I do not condemn you. I do not judge you if you have done it, or if you are doing it, or you are planning on doing it, or thinking about doing it. I am telling you that the truth of God's Word is what He believes. Anything other than what God believes is a lie.
We have a problem in the church today. I am not going to lie about it. The church is filled with believers that do not know what God says on any given issue.
If you have a problem, you better get on your face before God unless you are blessed enough to have contact with somebody, without a question of a doubt, that really hears from God, and then you could go to them, and God could speak through them. If you do not know a believer that really hears from God, you better get on your face before the Lord, and He will send somebody to you. He will send somebody to you in the middle of the street, but He will send somebody to you.
Do not assume that the answer to your problem is coming through anybody that is a born again Christian because the church is filled with born again Christians that are talking lies. They do not know what they are talking about. Your deliverer is Jesus Christ. There is no pastor, there is no man, there is no woman, there is no husband, there is no wife, there is no mother, there is nobody that is going to deliver you, but by the Spirit of Almighty God. His name is Jesus Christ, and all you have to do is say, "Jesus," and He is right there. Glory to God. Alleluia.
I am just going to comment on Verse 7. "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost and these three are one." That is not in the original Greek, and it is a verse that was put in by another denomination to support the doctrine of the Trinity, which we have taught here is not in the original Scripture.
We are going to leave that out and go on to Verse 8. "And there are three that bear witness." That word, "in earth" was added also and should not be in there. "And there are three that bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood." There are three witnesses to what? That God has appeared in men.
If you are looking to see if God is appearing in any man, woman or child, if you want to know whether God is appearing in them, what are you looking for? You are looking for the Spirit. Do they have the Spirit of God? You have to be able to discern it. You are looking for the water. They need a body. We have all these believers thinking they are going to go dancing off to heaven. Brethren, God is not going to appear in you unless you have a body. You have to have a body. That is the water, Glory to God, and the blood, you have to have the life of Jesus Christ in you. You have to have the soul life of Jesus Christ in you. Those are the three witnesses that God has appeared in the flesh of mankind.
You need a human body. You need the thoughts of Jesus Christ, and you need the spiritual life of the Father, which dwells in His Christ. Obviously, you cannot discern this in any man unless you, yourself, have it. Glory to God. These three agree in one. They all agree in what? They agree that the Spirit of God, Christ, has appeared in the earth of mankind.
Verse 9, "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater." Well, what is the witness of men? How do we know that a man exists? You see him, you hear him, and sometimes you are hurt by him. There was a famous philosopher that once said, "Because I think, I am." He went to college for a hundred years to make that statement. "Because I think, I, therefore, know that I am."
If we receive the witness of men, that men exist, there is such a thing as mankind. He is here. We see him. He walks, he talks, he breathes, he hurts, he loves, he is here. Well, we believe what we see. The witness of God is greater. What is the witness that God is? We have all these intellectuals out there saying that there is no God, but God says that He has a witness. It is not a body like we see. It is not what we see with our eyes. It is what we discern with our spirit.
God says He has a witness. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness of God, which He has testified of His Son. The witness of God is in Jesus Christ. The witness that God is, is in Jesus Christ, that He was crucified, that He was resurrected, and that He ascended to the right hand of the Father, and that He is pouring out of His Spirit in this hour upon all flesh and appearing in the minds of men.
If He is appearing in your mind, He is going to do in you what He did in Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He is going to impart to you righteousness and the life of the ages through the abolishment of death. Death has been outlawed. Glory to God.
Verse 10,"And he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." If you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, then you have the witness in yourself. You have Christ in you. You cannot believe that Jesus is the Son of God if there is not some manifestation of Christ in you. "He that believeth not God hath made God a liar." God says that He is. He said that He appeared in the man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He said that He is going to pour His Spirit out upon all flesh and appear in all mankind; therefore, granting salvation to the entire world. If you do not believe this, you have made God a liar.
Brethren, you better be very careful before you make a statement like, "I do not believe that," because I declare to you that if it is true and you are wrong, you have made God a liar. I admonish every believer that is hearing this tape, we are all in different stages of spiritual development. Everything is the spirit in which you say it. You can be free to say, "I really cannot receive that at this moment. I really cannot see it, but I am going to leave it alone because maybe it is over my head." You can say that, but when you say, "I do not believe that," that is a wrong spirit, brethren.
If you have done that, you need to repent because if you were wrong and that was a true word, you have called Almighty God a liar. The root of what was manifesting in you is pride. You have raised yourself up against the Word of God and made a judgment that this is a lie. Glory to God.
"Because he believeth not the record that God gave His Son. He that believeth not, God hath made him a liar because he believeth not the record that God gave His Son." What is the record? Verse 11, "And this is the record that God hath given to us eternal life and this life is in His Son." If you do not believe that God has granted eternal life to all men, you are calling God a liar. There are a lot of people that believe that eternal life has been granted to all men, but they do not believe that, that life is in His Son.
They think that the medical society will eventually have the power to grant eternal life to all men. They believe in all kinds of witchcraft power to grant eternal life to men. If you do not believe that God has promised eternal life to every human being on the face of the earth and that the way to get this life is to get the mind of Jesus Christ as your mind, you have called God a liar. All of the other in-between doctrines, I admonish you to be circumspect, brethren. If you have not had one clear word from God that something is a wrong doctrine, you better just put it on the shelf. Glory to God.
I will repeat Verse 11. "This is the record that God hath given to us eternal life and this life is in none other but the Son of Almighty God." Brethren, we have to get a revelation that you do not have eternal life because Jesus Christ was crucified. You have to get the result of that crucifixion inside of your own heart.
He was crucified, and now His life is available to you, but it has to get inside of you for you to have eternal life. This was not some "way out" abstract act that was done two thousand years ago and because He bled on Calvary, you are going to have eternal life. No, that blood has to get inside of you. It is spiritual blood. It is His Life. His Life has to get inside of you. It has to become your mind. Glory to God.
Verse 12, "And he that hath the Son hath Life." If you do not have the Son, brethren, you do not have Life. Well, what is this? I wake up every morning. Brethren, the Bible says that you exist. If you are not joined to God, you exist. The only Life is in the Son." He that hath the Son hath Life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not Life."
The Scriptural definition of death is the carnal mind. If your every thought, word, and deed is being motivated by the mind that you are born with before Christ was joined to you, the Scripture says that you are dead, and Life is in the Son. You have to get His mind and all of the power that is in His mind that is going to stop you from doing things and thinking things that are killing you, because we are not just talking about behavior here.
Jesus said, "If you hate your brother, you have killed him." If you have killed your brother, the judgment of death is upon you, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We have to get His mind because there is no way were are going to stop thinking thoughts of death and doing deeds of death until we exchange the mind that we were born with for the mind of Jesus Christ. Alleluia!
Verse 13, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." This instruction is for you that you should know that eternal Life is available to you. Most of the world does not know it. The Life for the ages, the abolishment of death, the peace and contentment and joy of the Holy Ghost that is in Christ Jesus forever, is promised unto you.
It is promised unto every human being that has been born on the face of the earth. "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God." It is promised to the whole world, "For God gave His only begotten Son that all should come to a knowledge of the Lord and not perish." This Scripture says, "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal Life." Brethren, there is no way you are going to appropriate it unless you believe it. You start by believing it. That is the beginning. You have to believe it.
"And that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." That word, "name" typifies "spirit." That you should believe that the Spirit of God exists and that the Spirit of God which is in His Son has the power, when it gets inside of you, to give you eternal Life and to deliver you out of the hands and the wicked torment of sin and death.
Verse 14, "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything (now hear this) according to his will, he heareth us." All these Christians running around saying, "I asked Him for a Cadillac," or "I asked Him for a trip to Europe." Brethren, this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask Him anything according to His will, He heareth us. You can pray your heart out, brethren, if it is not His will for you, He is a very strict parent, and you better believe you are not going to get it. If you are asking for something that is hurting you, you better believe you are not going to get it.
Sometimes we ask for things that it does not appear to us that it is hurting us. It seems like a really simple thing, but we do not know what His plan for us is all the way down the line. If what you are asking for is not going to help you along the path that He has chosen for you, the chances are you will not get it.
This is a terrible false doctrine in the church today that makes people believe they are going to get anything they ask for. "Go get it by faith. Go purchase those plane tickets." Well, you might wind up with a bill on your hands that you cannot pay. "Go do it. Go do it on faith." There is no such thing, brethren. You can only go and do something on faith when that faith is based on a specific Word of God. If God has said to you, "Go do the impossible," and you rise up and you attempt to do it, you are going to succeed because you heard God, and you are obeying Him. If you are doing something on faith, which is based on your own heart's desire, He will not assist you, and the chances are very great that you shall fail. Then if you do not understand this Scriptural principle, your faith could be damaged. "Why did God let me down?" Because He never told you to do it in the first place.
Brethren, we have to understand this Bible. Our lives depend on it. Glory to God.
Verse 15, "And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." It better be based on a word of faith, brethren. What kind of petitions? Let us see. "If we know that He heareth us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him." "I want a husband." Maybe it is not His will that you are going to have a husband. Maybe it is not His will that you are going to have a husband right now. "I want to be a rich business man." Maybe it is not His will for you.
Well, how do you pray? "Father, your will, not mine. Father, prosper me. Father, deliver me from the sin in my life. Father, have mercy on me. Father, bless my family. O God, we need a roof over our head, that is surely in His will. I need a job, that is surely in His will. I need a healing. Help me, Father." He may not heal you the way you expect to be healed. He may heal you instantly, and it may take a long time for you to be healed if He is using that condition to teach you something.
I do want to do another few verses, but I am going to skip down to Verse 18. "We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not." These Christians running around the church world saying, "I am incapable of sin" are falling like flies. They are sinning, the judgments of God are falling on them, ministries are being disbanded, and they are standing up there waving their Bibles saying, "We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not."
Brethren, whosoever is born of God is Christ in you. He is separate from you until the joining takes place. The joining is the marriage. Once the joining takes place, you will be incapable of sin. You will be incapable of ungodly thoughts. This does not mean that you can perform any behavior you want and God does not see it as sin because it is under the blood. It means there is a Life inside of you. It is the Logos. It is the Life of Almighty God, and He is growing inside of you like a fetus inside of a pregnant woman. He is incapable of sin.
You are sin. You are not only capable of sin, we are sin. Man is sin. Our state of being is sin. We can do nothing else but resist sin, the Scripture says. The Life of God is growing in you. He cannot sin. When He stands up in you, in full stature and joins to you, you will no longer be able to sin.
Do not think that you could do anything that you want, and God is not calling it sin. Even if you are sinning and you cannot stop, know what you are doing. Know that it is sin. The pride of your own heart shall deceive you. We know, "That whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself and that wicked one touched him not."
What does that mean, brethren? It means that when Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, who is in your mind, rises up from the depths of your unconscious mind and whispers in your ear and says, "fornicate, drink, hate your brother," whatever your sin is, whatever your thing is, everybody has something. When that little voice rises up, Christ in you will say, "Get thee behind me, Satan. Thou art an offense unto me." He will not agree with the thought, but will destroy it. That only happens, brethren, when Christ, the Life of God is growing in you as if you were a pregnant woman.
When He grows up, when He is ready to be born, when He comes forth in full stature and joins with you, giving you and making you a partaker of everything that He is, His righteousness, His Life, His strength, His victory and His faith, that is when it applies to you, brethren. We are all spiritual children of different ages. Do not think that you are all grown up when you are in kindergarten. You could get killed.
Do not think you could go drive daddy's car when you are five years old. You have a whole spiritual education to partake of. Even then, this thing is not in education. This thing is in experience. This thing that is coming forth in you that is making you incapable of sin, this thing is the Holy Thing of Almighty God. It is the Life of God. It is growing in you like you are a pregnant woman. As you learn and as you receive teaching, He grows. You are being saved by His Life. You are not being saved by the teaching. You are being saved because His life is growing inside of you and you are about to have a baby that is going to save your life.
Verse 19, "And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness." Brethren, do not think that you could avoid the world by turning off the television? Now if you have a conviction to not watch television, I am not knocking you. That is a good conviction. I am not knocking you, but there are people that think because they do not do things like watch television that they are kept from the world.
Brethren, the world is in your mind. The world is inside of your mind. It is the way you think. Jesus was not of this world. Why? Because He did not watch television, He did not go watch the Roman games? No, no! Jesus was not of this world because there was not one thought in His mind that was other than the thought of Almighty God. That is why His kingdom was not of this world.
Verse 20," We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ." This is the true God, and eternal Life. It is in Jesus Christ, in you. He has to appear in you, in your mind.
Verse 21, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." I will close with one comment on idols. Brethren, John is not talking about little statues in this Scripture. Idols are what appears in your mind when Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, rises up from the depths of your unconscious mind and whispers to you, and you agree with him. When he says, "Hate your brother," whatever your sin is, when he says, "Do it," and you say, "I love it," a demon is birthed.
That demon now dwells in your mind, and he strengthens the thought, "do it, do it," whatever your sin is. The more you do it, the more he is strengthened, and somewhere along the line, that demon has to be cast out of you, but not until you really hate that sin. Even when you really hate it, it has to be God's time. You could be crying out for years, "God, this filthy habit, I hate it." You just have to do the best you can and wait for Him to deliver you, once you get to that point where you hate it. Glory to God.
The true idols are demons, and demons are formed in our souls. They are not what you see on the television, and there is nothing to be scared about. I have heard all kinds of crazy stories about demons. People are terrified, and I do not want to be in a room where it is cast out because it is going to jump on me. That is all old wives' tales. Demons are products of your soul when you have agreed with an ungodly thought in your mind. It is an idea, it is a thought that is born in your soul, and it stays inside your head, and it drives you to repeat your sin.
A lot of people will tell young women to remain virgins until they get married. Why? Because if you have sex with a man and you are not married to him and it breaks up, you are vulnerable. There is something in you that now wants to experience this. It wants to repeat the experience. If you are a young woman, and you do not have a husband, you could be tempted to get involved with men that do not care about you, that want to use you.
Some people will teach their children, do not have this experience until you are married to a man that loves you. Why? Because once you experience it, something is born in your mind that wants to repeat the experience. Of course, this is true of alcoholism, and drugs, and anything. It is true of anything. The minds of the natural man is filled with lust.
Once we experience something, there is a driving in us to repeat it. It is best to not experience certain things that are illegal. Certain things are legal. Sex is legal in marriage. Some things it is best not to experience at all because this craving is literally born in your mind. In some instances, it is a physical thing and you crave it. The more you do it, the more it is strengthened in your mind. We can get to a point that only the power of Almighty God can set us free, in some instances.
People have all kinds of problems. Watch these talk shows in the morning, if you want to. People have problems you never heard of. They are out there doing all kinds of weird things and keeping them a secret that nobody knows about. It is their secret shame. Sometimes they are not ashamed of it. It is killing you, whatever you are doing that is not of God. It is killing you one way or the other. It is hurting your marriage. It is hurting your relationship with God. It is hurting your life. It is hurting your job. Those are the true idols. They are in your mind.
I just want to close this on a positive note. God loves you, and it is the will of God that all men should be saved, and that Jesus Christ has the power to grant eternal Life to men and that Life is in the Son of God. The way that He imparts that Life to us is to give us His mind. Let the Life of Jesus Christ be glorified in you, and that every promise in this Bible be quickened to you.
Be not deceived, you are not going to get it without a fight, brethren. Why? Because the mind that you were born with does not want Christ taking away his territory. He wants you to keep on doing your sin. He wants you to keep on dying. There is going to be a battle, but "If God be for you, who could be against you?" The victory is assured, but we must wage war, brethren. We must wage war.
Glory to God.
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