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We just want to continue to bless all our enemies and pray for those that despitefully use us, and I exhort you all to keep in mind the purposes of the Lord Jesus Christ, and those are the purposes that He has called you for. He has come to be the Savior of the world, and He has not come to defeat any human being. He has come to defeat Satan, the unconscious part of the mind, and He is defeating Satan, the unconscious part of the mind, in men, but He has come to save men, and nobody is our enemy, nobody is our enemy, because Jesus Christ is offering the Word of Reconciliation to the whole world. Of course, people are alienated from God in their mind, and if we are in Christ, they are alienated from us.
When I say, "nobody is our enemy," what I mean is that at the moment, I know they are our enemy, but Jesus Christ is looking beyond the moment, and He knows that work has been done which is available to bring the whole world into submission to Him.
Even though they are His enemies at the moment, the way the Lord looks at it is that they are no longer His enemies, because He has got the net out, He is already drawing them in, and this is the work that has been committed unto us to draw in. We never stop loving even if we have to rebuke, even if we are in a difficult situation, and what is the love of God?
The love of God is not an emotion. The love of God is a spiritual reality, and what that spiritual reality does is that it gives life. The love of God imparts life. It is never an emotion. It is a reality. Do you understand what I mean? It is an action word, it does, and whatever it does results in life. If it kisses you, it gives you life, if it rebukes you it gives you life, and if it knocks you out, the end result is you have received life.
The Spirit of God will give you whatever you need so that you may receive life. Everything we do to our enemies, every reaction that we react with to our enemies, must impart life, even if it means our humiliation, as long as we are in Christ. Let us not get into any religious bondage here, but just some general guidelines are is that any conflict we find ourselves in, our pride does not matter. The only thing that matters is that Jesus is glorified. Jesus must be glorified. We love at all times. He says, I give you this commandment, "love your brother, love one another." Even if there is a confrontation, the love of God must manifest through us in that.
Now what is the love of God manifesting through us, in that our sole motivating force in this conflict is to bring glory to Jesus, and what is that? It is that this conflict should take a turn, and that offender should receive something of Christ, even if it is one word that goes into their mind as a seed that the Lord can work with.
There is a difference between an attack that comes from our fallen adamic mind and a rebuke that comes in Christ. Now, the carnal mind cannot tell the difference. If you rebuke out of Christ, the carnal mind will tell you, you have accused them, or you have attacked them, and they will tell you that you are guilty of all kinds of sin. We must know who we are in Christ, and we must know to whom we can go to get an honest answer.
If we cannot hear from the Lord directly, we do not receive the discernment of people that are in the gall of bitterness. You do not receive the discernment of people that are carnal men who speak in tongues, because, for all intents and purposes, you are speaking to Satan, the unconscious part of the mind. Who is Satan? Satan, the unconscious part of the mind, is the accuser of the brethren. You cannot believe anything that they say.
From God's point of view, the Church and the world is in a condition of insanity. They are in a condition of spiritual insanity, and the biggest problem with those that are beginning to walk after the Spirit of God is that they do not know who they are, because Jesus said He would laugh at the god of this world, that He would use the weak things of this world. That He has surely kept His word, from what I could see, is the number one on the list. He took a weak thing, and He made a minister of the Gospel out of me, and He has put His strength in me. Glory to God.
Our motivating force at all times must be love. That means that in our heart, we must be praying for our adversaries. No matter what the conflict is, our prayer must be, "Father, let this conflict result in an increase in Christ in this one who despises me." I tell you when you pray a prayer like that, great blessings are about to fall on that person. When Christ in you prays that prayer for anybody, it is the equivalent of Jesus on the cross saying, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do," and your Father in heaven shall surely honor that prayer.
We are being bruised so that they can brought into the kingdom. They are insane, spiritually insane, do not misunderstand what I am saying. They could be functioning beautifully in their natural life, but from God's point of view they are insane, they are spiritually sick, they do not know what they are doing, they do not know who you are, they cannot discern your motives, they think evil of you, they do not understand your words, they do not know what you are talking about, they do not know where you are coming from, they do not know who or what you are, but they are trying to destroy you.
Look at yourself. If you cannot pray, "Father, help them, let some good come out of this." If you cannot honestly pray that, there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus but confess it to the Father, and tell Him that you want to be a son of God, and that you hate their guts, and you would like to rise up and destroy them. If that is what is in your heart, confess it, repent, ask Him to take it away and to give you His heart, and He will do it, and you will see miracles happening in the lives of the people that He sends you to, to be crucified by.
He sends you to people that He knows will crucify you. Why? For two reasons. Their persecution is pushing you onward and upward towards full stature. When you respond out of Christ, and when you pray for them, they too shall find Christ being formed in them. They are going to find themselves pregnant, and they will not know how they got pregnant.
We were speaking about this earlier, the Church world is refusing to consummate her marriage to Christ. She keeps committing adultery with Satan, the unconscious part of the mind, and she is refusing to have a sexual joining which is a spiritual sexual joining with Christ. She will not do it. Actually, I think I have to correct that. It is with the Father. She will not have this spiritual sex with the Father so that she can bring forth His child, which is Christ. She will not do it.
What is the Father doing? He is forcing her to do it, and we were also speaking about this earlier. What is legal for God is not legal for man. In this soul realm, a man can never force a woman, even his wife. You are not supposed to be forcing anybody, but because the living soul has been declared insane by Almighty God, and He knows that her salvation depends on His son being born in her...you see, His motive is not to satisfy His lust. The Father's motive for forcing the living soul that died to have sex with Him is not to satisfy His lust. His motive is to save her life, because she shall be saved in childbearing. If she does not bring forth that man-child, she shall surely die.
That is the size of it. If the Father is in you, if Christ has been formed in you, if you are a member of the two-witness company, you are being sent to people who the Lord knows will crucify you with their mind and with their words. God knows that they are going to do it, when He sends you.
Paul said, "Should I not go where the Lord has sent me?" Even though the prophet (I think his name was Agabus), came and said, "If you go to Jerusalem, you are going to be crucified there." If you go there, you will be crucified. Did he say crucify or put in bonds? Maybe he said put in bonds, "you will be put in bonds." Paul said, "Shall I not go where the Lord has sent me to go?"
A natural man would run to save his life, but the bond servant of Christ goes directly into difficult situations when he is convinced that the Lord has sent him, and he stands in those conflicts, he stands without flinching, and he responds to these spiritual attacks in a way that will bring deliverance to the insane human being that is trying to kill the son of God.
Glory to God, we are in the book of I John tonight, Chapter 4. Hallelujah. Beloved we are called to be new creatures, we do not defend ourselves the way natural man defends himself. The seed is the word. Jesus said, "My words are spirit, and they are life." If you subject yourself to an hour long tirade, and you can get one word in that is going to land in their brain so that the Lord can prosper, you have saved their life. If it takes ten years for the Lord to prosper that seed and sprout it and to start Christ coming forth, your sacrifice by sitting there under that tirade for an hour, has saved their life. Can you hear this? Glory to God.
To the carnal mind, it looks like you have been defeated, but had they only known, they would have never crucified the Lord of Glory. They looked to the whole world like they defeated Jesus. Little did they know, He was going to reproduce Himself in hundreds and thousands and millions of human beings. Glory to God. Do not look with your carnal mind.
We are the Saviors of the world, we are the Saviors that have appeared on Mount Zion. We are sent by the Father as messengers to the human race. He already told us they are going to reject us, He already told us they are going to hate us, and He already told us they are going to try and kill us. Why are you surprised? Maybe it is because you do not realize that you are a son of God. I maintain the whole problem is an identity problem. We do not know who we are, because we remember our weakness in the natural realm, we remember our carnality, we remember our oppression, we remember our captivity, our bondage, and maybe we are not completely out of these things when the Lord starts sending us.
Our carnal mind tells us we are still weak, and in bondage, and carnal. How do you know that you are not? Because when you find yourself being attacked by a spiritually insane person, and you are standing there calm, the Scripture says your fearlessness, your fearlessness in face of their tirade will put terror in their hearts.
When you find yourself in this situation, stop looking at the bondage of your surrounding circumstances, and you better start to believe that the Father has sent you, and if He has sent you, you are a son of God, at least in this situation, and that it is possible for the Lord to speak a word through you during this confrontation that will ultimately save this person.
What do you do? You ask the Father what He wants you to say. You pray silently, and you ask that the Lord be glorified, and you ask Him what He wants you to say, and you ask Him to open the person's mind, and I am telling you I have been through this a lot. You could be involved with someone in an unpleasant situation for up to three hours so that you could speak one word to them, or one sentence that will enter into their mind and root there that the Lord can use.
What am I saying? If you have pride operating in you, and you like to be heard, or you like to be the chief speaker, you are going to have a problem being a son of God, because when you are a son of God, usually when you are sent to people that are resistant to you, you have to do most of the listening. Frequently, you have to submit yourself to their teaching. That is the only way you can get close enough to them to talk to them is to let them think that you are there to learn from them.
I can hear all the people screaming, "This is a deception, it is a deception." No, it is not a deception. You have to get close to them, and you can honestly listen to what they are saying. You do not have to tell them you are looking to convert, but you are looking to honestly communicate with them.
You could say, "Well, I am listening to what you have to say." It is not a deception. You may have to sit there for hours listening to what they have to say. Why? Because they cannot bear what you have to say. I am going through this right now with someone of another faith. They do not believe in Jesus, and he does all the talking. This is going on for months, he tries to let me talk, and I say one sentence and he cannot bear it. He cannot bear it, he just changes the subject. I sit there for hours listening to him, asking the Lord to drop whatever words he could bear into his mind.
If you like to be exalted and show how much knowledge you have, this is not the ministry for you. I told this person I was a prophet. He laughed in my face, he sat there and laughed with his mouth wide open, and you know what he said to me? He said, "Go ahead prophesy." I said, "Hallelujah, that is what they said to Jesus." I did not say that to him though. I said, "You cannot do that." He said, "Why not?" I said, "Well the Lord has to speak through me."
Glory to God. Well I am going to try and preach this message. We are in I John, Chapter 4, Hallelujah. "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world." This is a very commonly preached Scripture, and it is preached to the carnal Church. Well, for all intents and purposes, they are members of Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind.
They are natural men that have received the gift of the Holy Ghost. For what purpose? That they can be converted from Satan, the unconscious part of the mind, unto Christ, so that they can be converted from a natural man to a spiritual man, but because of the great deception over the mind of the church, they have taken this power and instead of using it to purify themselves, because everyone that has the hope of this, of His coming, of His appearing, purifies himself.
Instead of using the power to purify themselves, they are using it to turn against other people that do not agree with them, or do not believe them. We know that Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, is the accuser of the brethren. They have taken the power of God, and they have used it to accuse their brethren.
We are admonished in I John 4:1 to believe not every spirit but to try the spirits, to test them, to prove them, and we are told that many false prophets have gone out into the world. How do we try the spirit? Verse 2, for example there is a whole Church world full of people that are manifesting the spirit of error, and they think that they have the Spirit of Truth, and you have the spirit of error.
How do we get this straightened out? Verse 2, "Hereby, know ye the Spirit of God"... this is how you are going to know the Spirit of God... "every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. This is the spirit of anti-Christ whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now already is in the world."
This sounds real simple. When I was in deliverance, and we wanted to find out if somebody was not manifesting anymore, we would say to them, "Say Jesus Christ is Lord," and the demon would answer, "Jesus Christ is Lord." Demons say "Jesus Christ is Lord." This sounds very simple. "Jesus Christ is come in the flesh," does not say "that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God." I want to jump over to Chapter 5, where it says, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God," and it says in Verse 3, "Everyone that loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also." I did that wrong, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone that loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him."
Verse 2, "By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep His commandments." It is not enough to say, "Jesus Christ is Lord." You have to confess it, and when you confess it, it means that you really believe it. How do we know that you really believe it? We know that you really believe it when you live it. How do you live it? You keep His commandments. What is His major commandment? That you love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind and your soul, and that you love your brother as yourself.
If someone can come to you with a Bible in their hand screaming and yelling and telling you that Jesus Christ is Lord, and I declare to you that they are a liar, because they come breaking the commandments of the Lord Jesus Christ. They come in a spirit of dissension, and they come in the spirit of fear, and they come in a spirit of hatred. What am I suggesting to you? When the Scripture says that this is how you can tell the Spirit of God, "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God."
What am I saying? This Scripture is not talking about someone speaking the word. This spirit is talking about someone's behavior. Let me read it for you again, "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God." I have not studied this, but I assure you, if you look up this word "confesseth" in the Greek, one of the meanings has "to be expresses through behavior." It has to be. I have heard demons say, "Jesus Christ is Lord." It does not say here, "Every spirit that says Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." It is "Every spirit that confesseth it." Every spirit that behaves like Christ in the flesh.
We have people all over the place saying, "I am the queen of England." That does not make them the queen of England. We have people all over the world saying, "I am a Christian." Saying you are a Christian does not make you a Christian, carrying a Bible does not make you a Christian, going to church six nights a week does not make you a Christian. When the spirit that dwells in you confesses that Jesus Christ has come in your flesh, you know that this is the Spirit of God in the flesh of the one that you are talking to.
Does anybody not know what I am saying? The person that you are interacting with, the way they confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, in whose flesh? In their flesh, is by the way they are relating to you. It is their behavior to you, it is their attitude towards you, it is the effect of their interaction with you. Has it destroyed you or has it imparted life to you? Glory to God.
"Hereby, know ye the Spirit of God, every spirit, that is in a man, that confesseth that Jesus Christ that whose behavior witnesses to the fact that Jesus Christ is come in their flesh is sent of God."
Verse 3, "And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh," and every spirit that you come up against, and all spirits are in men, every spirit that you interact with that does not behave in a manner that would convince you that Jesus Christ has come in their flesh is not of God. You can say it all you want. You have to live this thing, man! Lip service and 5 cents is not going to get you on the subway. Either this thing is a reality in your heart or it is not. Either it is there or it is not. I have heard this verse preached all different kinds of ways.
This is how you try the spirit on somebody. Does the behavior of that person convince you that Jesus Christ is resurrected and living in that person's personality? If their behavior cannot convince you of that, this is not the Spirit of God.
Of course, you must be trying the spirit with the Spirit of God. Boy this thing gets complicated. If you are in error, if you are in the gall of bitterness, if you are living out of your carnal mind, and God sends a son of God to you to rebuke you, and your carnal mind declares to you that this is not the Spirit of Christ, then you are being deceived by the darkness in your own mind.
Paul says in another place, "We know everybody, we discern the heart of everybody, but they cannot discern us." What am I saying? I do not mean to confuse you, I am saying that there are requirements to discerning the Spirit of God in a person, and number one, you too must have the Spirit of God.
If you do not have the Spirit of God, you will never discern the Spirit of God in another human being. It is impossible, it is impossible. You too must have the Spirit of God, and you must be trying that spirit in that other person by the Spirit of God. If they have come to you, and they have rebuked you, and your pride is hurting, and you are pricked in your heart, and you are embarrassed, you better make sure that you get into Christ before you try that spirit. You better say to the Father, "Boy this curse has wounded me, and I really want to know, did they do it in Christ, or did they do it out of an ungodly spirit? Because if they did it out of Christ, I want to receive that correction, and I want that deliverance that goes with it."
Even if you have Christ being formed in you, you must be discerning the spirit in another believer out of Christ, not out of your carnal mind. That is the first requirement. Then you judge the spirit or the behavior of the other person, and you make a judgment as to whether or not Jesus Christ is appearing in their flesh. Does anybody not know what I am talking about? Glory to God.
"And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." If that person that you are interacting with is not of God, I do not care what they are saying to you, I do not care how big their Bible is, or how loud they are yelling, if they are not imparting life to you, whether it be through softness or through a rebuke, if the result of it is not an increase of life in you, the spirit of that person is not Christ.
I do not care what they wear around their neck, I do not care about their cross, I do not care about their dove pin, I do not care about the church they go to. What kind of spirit is in them? Is Christ being formed in them? If He is being formed in them, are they living out of Him? Are they relating to you out of the love of Christ? This is the question. Glory to God.
This is that spirit of anti-Christ. If it is not Christ, it is anti-Christ which means instead of Christ, it is an imposter, "Whereof ye have heard that it should come and even now already is it in the world." We see a Church world watching the middle-east for some dictator to stand up and be the anti-Christ of the world. Hallelujah.
It says right here clearly that there are many anti-Christs in the world. Who are the many anti-Christs? Every human being whose behavior does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in their flesh. If it is not Christ, it is the one that is replacing Christ, and his name is anti-Christ. Hallelujah, Glory to God.
Verse 4, "Ye are of God little children and have overcome them because greater is He that is in you than He that is in the world. Ye are born of God little children." Christ is being formed in you, that mustard seed has been planted and the tree has started to grow, and you are therefore the children of the kingdom. Ye are in the process of being born of God, little children of the kingdom, and you have overcome them. Who? You have overcome anti-Christ, anti-Christ in your brother that is trying to kill you. Which anti-Christ have you overcome? You have overcome anti-Christ in your own mind.
"Ye who are in the process of being born of God and are the little children of the kingdom, you are in Christ, and you are the children of the kingdom because you are overcoming anti-Christ in your own mind." Why? If you were not overcoming anti-Christ in your own mind, you would not be in the process of being born of God, and neither would you be one of the children of the kingdom.
I am not studying tonight, I am preaching, so I have not looked up all these words, and I know that I changed the tense here, but I assure you that if you were to check that out in the Greek, that is what it is saying. "Ye who are in the process of being formed of God, you are the children of the kingdom, and you have, or you are in the process of overcoming anti-Christ in your mind." Your enemy is not outside of you, your enemy is your own carnal mind.
The reason that you are overcoming is that the one that is in you, which is Christ, is greater than He that is in the world. Well, we have the world inside of us. The world is our fallen adamic soul. He that is in us, Christ who is being formed in us, is greater than Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, who is the ruler of the fallen adamic soul which is also inside of us. Is everybody following me? I rebuke the spirit of sleep, I rebuke Halloween, I rebuke every oppression coming against this meeting. This is an important message, I rebuke powers and principalities.
Hallelujah. Verse 5, "They are of the world, therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them." Who are of the world? The ones who are not in the process of being born of God, the ones who are not the children of the kingdom, because they have not overcome their carnal mind or the world which is in their own mind. They are, therefore, of the world because they are not overcoming. "Therefore, they speak of the world." What does that mean? It means the words that they speak are not the words of their Father in heaven. It means it is the words of their carnal mind. Remember, James said, "Both sweet and salt water can come out of our mouth?"
We can either speak the words of Christ, or we can speak the words of the carnal mind. Only one, okay. It could change from second to second or minute to minute, but at any given word, it either has to be Christ or your carnal mind. They are of the world, they are not living out of Christ. They are living out of their carnal mind, therefore they speak the word of Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, through his carnal mind, and the world heareth them or listens to them, and every one that is in this world who is also living out of their carnal mind says, "Amen."
I remember when we were in deliverance, the preachers use to preach, and some preacher gets up in the pulpit and he says, "A Christian cannot have a demon," and all the demons in the congregation say, "Amen."
We had some fun in those days. The Church world is filled with demons in the heads of the believers. The only problem is, they do not believe. They call themselves "believers." I do not know what to call them. They call themselves Christians, they call themselves believers, what are they? They do not reveal Christ, they do not confess Christ, they do not believe the true message of salvation.
What are they? They are the enemies of Almighty God who have received the gift of the Holy Ghost. They have not yet received doctrine. They may have received the message of the cross in a measure. Christ is not yet being formed in them, neither have they received the everlasting Gospel which will bring forth spiritual perfection and everlasting life from within them.
They are carnal men, they are manifestations of Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, the enemies of Almighty God who have been granted grace. We are told in the Book of Jude that they are brute beasts, many of them, that they cannot recognize dignitaries. Are you familiar with those Scriptures? They are brute beasts, and they cannot even recognize Christ when He appears to them. There is nothing left for them but a rod across their back.
This is the love of God. Why? Because the result of the rod across their back will produce the seed which is the basis of the formation of Christ in them. You do not, not love somebody because you whip them. We are checking out the motive for whipping them, and the result of the whipping. I want to tell you that if you whip someone, and your motive is not that good should happen to them, either that Christ should be formed in them, or if they are your children, and you want them to grow up to be Godly people, if that is not your motive, I want to tell you that whipping will not produce good fruit.
If it is your child, whether it is your child, or whether it is a human being, being whipped by Christ, that whipping will not produce righteousness if your motive is to vent your anger, or to justify yourself, or to exalt yourself in anyway, or to defeat what you perceive to be your enemy. If that is your motive, you will destroy them. Whether it be your natural child or your spiritual child, you shall surely destroy them.
If your motive is to form the peaceable fruit of righteousness in them, if it is out of love for them, if you hate whipping them, but you do it because you are convinced it will save their life, and God has indeed told you to do so, the peaceable fruit of righteousness shall appear in you. "By their fruits we shall know them." You cannot always tell right away, but we will know in due season who was sent of Christ and who was not. We will know in due season who loved and who did not. We will see what fruit they produced. Glory to God.
Verse 6, "We are of God." God has indeed sent us if we are walking after the Spirit of God. You do not have to be in full stature, but he who walks after the Spirit of God, he is the son of God, and do not think that you will walk after the Spirit of God without waging war, because the world is within you, and he does not want you walking after the Spirit of God. He does not want you to be of God, and he will oppose you every step of the way.
He will oppose you in your own mind, he will oppose you over any natural authority that is over you, he will put you to sleep, he will set you one against the other, he will raise up division and dissension, and depending on how vulnerable you are in this area, some people have a greater tendency to fight with their brother and sister or be envious of their brother and sister. Some people were just born that way, they just are that way before they even received the promise of the Lord and, if that is your problem, you will find yourself having a problem with your brothers and sisters in God.
Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, will do anything to separate you, to divide you, and you must resist all thoughts that you know to be ungodly. Hallelujah. "We are of God, he that knoweth God heareth us." You know what that is saying? We are of God and whoever else has Christ being formed in him. The word "hear" means "to understand, will understand what I am talking about."
Jesus said to the Pharisees, "Why do you not understand my speech?" He said, "You do not understand my speech because I am from above, and you are from beneath." He said, "You do not understand my speech because my word is not in you." He said, "You do not understand my speech because you are of your father, the Devil." You are having trouble finding people to relate to in God. Are you finding out that people do not understand you? That they are accusing you falsely? That they just cannot figure out where you are at? Brethren, in this hour there are very few that are moving in Christ. Very few.
Fear not and take heart because the Lord will bring you in fellowship with other believers in whom is His word, and you will understand one another. Glory to God. In this hour, the majority of the Church has received the promise of salvation. Christ is not yet being formed in them, and they are of a different spirit, they are of the spirit of this world. There is a church within the Church, Hallelujah. "We are of God and he that knoweth God understandeth us, he that is not of God understandeth us not." I have people say to me, "It is just words, I do not know what you are talking about, it is just words." "Hereby, know ye the Spirit of Truth, and the spirit of error."
How do you know the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error? First of all, you have to have the Spirit of Truth in you to discern it in somebody else. The Lord said to Peter, He said, "Only the Father could have revealed to you that I am the Son of God." What is the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error? Jesus Christ said, "I am the truth." There is no way you can discern the truth in another believer unless you have the truth in you. Confusing huh? It is not confusing? Praise the Lord, I am glad to hear that.
"We that are of God, we know God, and we know that God heareth us, we are of God, and he that knoweth God understands us, but he that is not of God will never understand us." This way, we know that the Spirit of Truth is in those who understand us, and that the spirit of error is in those that do not understand us. It is the same principle as Christ and anti-Christ.
As you discern by someone's behavior and by the way they relate to you, when Jesus Christ is appearing in their flesh or whether anti-Christ is appearing in their flesh, by their behavior you know the Spirit of Truth and error by whether or not they understand the Gospel of the kingdom that is coming forth from your heart.
I want to say that one more time. You know whether Christ is appearing in the behavior of a person by the way they treat you, and you know whether that person is of God by whether or not they understand what you are talking about.
You know whether or not Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, by their behavior, and you know whether or not the Spirit of Truth is in them by whether or not they can understand you. Behavior and understanding, behavior and understanding, two witnesses as to whether or not the person is of God. Their behavior determines whether they are Christ or anti-Christ, and their ability to relate, and their ability to understand what you are saying determines whether or not they have the Spirit of Truth or the spirit of error.
I do not want you to think that somebody has to understand the whole Gospel of the kingdom for them to have the Spirit of Truth. For them to have the Spirit of Truth, they have to show some sign of an ability to understand when you explain it to them. Everybody is not in the same place in God, but if they are willing to listen to you, and when you explain it to them, and minister it to them, they comprehend what you are talking about, they have the Spirit of Truth, and that Spirit of Truth may have to be developed.
Some people just do not know what you are talking about. One woman I sat with, I spent hours with her, and she looked at me and said, "I do not understand what you are talking about." She just could not get it through her head. That is the spirit of error, the Spirit of Truth was not there. The spirit of error is the absence of the Spirit of Truth, the spirit of anti-Christ is the absence of Christ. Nature will not tolerate a vacuum. If Christ is not there, the spirit of this world moves right in. If Christ is not there, anti-Christ will be there. If the Spirit of Truth is not there, the spirit of error will surely be there.
As a matter of fact, anti-Christ and error is the condition of the natural man, so that when Christ begins to be formed in us, He must wage a warfare against anti-Christ and error to even enter in, and we have a whole Church world defensed by Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, saying, "This is the doctrine of God," and the truth of God shall never enter in here.
I declare to you they have strength to perform their word only to the degree that Jesus Christ permits it, and when their turn comes, they shall hear the truth and the truth shall surely set them free, each man in his own order in accordance with the election of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ.
Verse 7, "Beloved let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God." This Greek word translated "love" is "agape love." That is the love that can only come from God in you. If Christ is not being formed in you, you are not capable of expressing the love of God. "Beloved let us love one another, for agape love is of God, and everyone that loveth with agape love, is born..." or in the process of being... "born of God, and knoweth, or has a relationship with God."
Why do I say, "Is in the process of being born of God?" Because when we are fully born of God, we will be standing in full spiritual manhood and incapable of death, and this is a process of overcoming our fallen adamic mind, and during that process we do manifest Christ more and more until He fills our entire world. Glory to God.
"Beloved, let us love one another..." with agape love, for agape love can only come forth from God... "and everyone that loveth..." with the agape love... "therefore that is the sign that you are in the process of being born of God, and that you know it, or have a relationship with God. How do you know when you are loving with agape love? Agape love is a sacrificial love. Agape love does not defend itself, agape love wants the best for you while you are killing the person.
Steven's prayer, as they stoned him to death, is an example of agape love. Try the spirit on yourself. Are you willing to go into a situation where you know you are going to be hurt, and you know that there is nothing in it for you other than that the Father will be pleased with you, and there is no carnal thing in it for you?
I had a woman say to me only six months or so ago, was talking about, I do not know what I was talking about, but it was something in the Church world, and she said, "Well there has to be something in it for you. You are not going to go somewhere or do something unless there is something in it for you." She has been a Christian for five years. It was beyond her comprehension to do something just because God told you to do it, but there is nothing in it for you, other than that God wants you to do it.
Hallelujah. Verse 8, "He that loveth not..." he that does not love with agape love, does not know or does not have a relationship with God, because God is agape love. That does not mean that you have to be loving with agape love 100% of the time. None of us are in full stature now, but this Scripture is saying that if you truly have a relationship with God which includes spiritual sexual intercourse with the Father, there will appear in your life, at least from time to time, some manifestations of a self-sacrificing love.
I declare to you that it is not your choice as to what you are going to sacrifice. This sacrificial love is reflected in your obedience to God. He has to say to you, "Give it up," and then it is the agape love. You cannot be giving up what you would like to be giving up. It has to come from the Father.
The Scripture says, "He that does not love with the agape love, cannot have a relationship with God, because God is agape love," and if you have a true relationship with the Father, and you are having spiritual intercourse with Him, you will begin to be like Him. When we have a relationship with the Father, He does not become like us, we become like Him. This is a sign that we have a relationship with God, that we change. This is the sign. We must change.
From the day we receive the promise of salvation, we must start to change. Have you ever seen Christians that have been around for twenty years, and they have not changed at all? What has this profited them? What has the Spirit of God profited them? They think they are going to die and go to heaven. They are deceived. We must be translated into heaven while we are in this flesh.
Verse 9, "In this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him." This is an example of the love of God. The Father gave up His only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He sacrificed Him, that our lives might be saved.
"In this was revealed the love of God..." the agape love of God towards us..."because that God sent His only begotten Son into this world system, that we might live through Him." Because without Him we are dead, and we shall surely be totally destroyed. Agape love is a sacrificial love.
Verse 10, "Herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." Here is love, not that someone loves you and you love them back, but that you love people that are unlovable with the agape love of the Lord Jesus Christ so that, that love has the power to make them lovable. It is a sacrificial love, and it is a love that loves the unlovable. It is a love that gets nothing in return. You look at the highest form of love amongst human beings, and it would not be normal to love someone without getting something back.
If you are a young man, and you are madly in love with a woman, and she says to you, "I want to marry somebody else, and I am going to have their children, and he does not have any money though, so I know that you love me. I want you to support me so that I could marry this other man and bear his children."
No one in their right mind would do that. When you love somebody, you give, and you are entitled to receive in this world system, amongst human beings. Love is a giving and taking. You love, and you expect to be loved, but God loves and He expects nothing back. God does not need your love. He is self-sufficient, He is self-contained, He does not need love the way human beings need love. He has so much love that the love pours out of Him and overflows and has the authority to give life to our dying flesh. Agape love has nothing in it for the person out of which it is flowing. What do you do that for? What is in it for you? Nothing is in it for me, except that my Father be pleased with me.
Again, I adjure you, it cannot be your choice of what you are going to do. You must be sent by the Father to an unlovable person and by your behavior towards them, we who have Christ have the ability to discern whether or not the agape love of the Father is in you. Glory to God. Hallelujah.
I am still on Verse 10. I want to talk about the propitiation for our sins, I just want to read the verse again, "Herein is agape love, not that God loved us because we first loved Him, but that He loved us while we..." could not love Him and we could not love ourselves. He loved us when we were absolutely unlovable. He loved enough to send His Son, the propitiation or the reconciliation for our sins. We are alienated from God because of our sin, and because the Father sent His Son, there is now reconciliation between God and man.
I would like to address the severe error in the Church that portrays Jehovah as a bloodthirsty God. When Jesus Christ hung on the cross, and His soul life blood dripped down on the ground, Jehovah said, "Ah, I got my blood sacrifice, alright human race return unto me." This is a lie. I rebuke this lie in the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our God is not a bloodthirsty God. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, He crucified Him, He raised Him from the dead, and He caused Him to ascend back up into the heavenlies whereby He became a Spirit.
In this hour, He is now pouring out of His Spirit upon all flesh, and because a drop of Him is in you, you now have the potential to be complete in Christ. When you are incomplete, you shall surely die, you shall surely die because of your incompleteness. The propitiation, the reconciliation, the great sacrifice that Jesus has made for you is that He has permitted Himself to be broken up into many pieces, and He is living in each of us so that we can live, because if He was not present in us, we would surely die. It is not the red blood that fell on the ground at Calvary. It is His spiritual blood. That red blood cannot do you any good.
It is His spiritual blood, and it has to get inside of you. When it gets inside of you, it completes you, and when you are complete in Him, reconciliation has been made between you and the Father, because He is the only mediator between God and man, even the man Christ Jesus.
The Scripture says that the man Jesus Christ of Nazareth was crucified on the cross so that men would believe. They would believe that some great spiritual work happened because the average man cannot believe this deep truth, or maybe as God starts to bring it forth, people will be receiving it more easily but, for whatever reason, the Lord has permitted this error to be preached for two thousand years. What an error. Glory to God.
"Herein is agape love, not that we loved God first, but that He loved us when we were unlovable and He sent His Son to be joined to us for the life of the ages, so that we should no longer be sin." It says that He should be the propitiation for our sins. Our sins, brethren, are our state of being. Our state of being is sin, but when He is joined to us our nature changes, and it changes from sin and death unto righteousness and life. There is a piece of us that is missing, and God so loved us that He sent His Son to be joined to us for the life of the ages that we might live and not die.
He did not sacrifice His Son like a bullock because He loved us. The Levitical sacrifices were types of the sacrifice of the fallen adamic soul which must be sacrificed so that the spiritual man can rise up us and dwell in us. Amen, He sacrificed His fallen adamic soul so that His Christ soul could fill His vessel. Glory to God.
COMMENT: We can because, what were you saying, He sacrifices the fallen adamic soul so that Christ...
PASTOR VITALE: That the Christ soul could be all, could be the only ruling soul in His vessel.
COMMENT: That way, it could happen to us?
PASTOR VITALE: Right, and the same thing is going to happen to us. I just did not want to get into that in this message.
COMMENT: The only way it can happen is after Christ died and was resurrected?
PASTOR VITALE: Right. When He sacrificed His soul life so that His spiritual life would be the only life ruling His vessel, and the Father raised Him from the dead. He could have lived forever as a glorified man, but He gave up that soul life and permitted Himself to be broken into millions and billions of drops, and there is a drop in each and every one of us, and because that drop of His glorified soul life is in us, He is going to do the same thing in us that He did in the man Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and thus the whole living soul that died shall be saved.
COMMENT: Before He was crucified this was impossible?
PASTOR VITALE: This was impossible, the provision had not yet been made, the provision for our salvation is His glorified soul. It is His resurrected ascended soul that is now pouring out upon us, that is the propitiation for our sins. It is not the red blood that fell on Calvary. It is His glorified, ascended soul that has been joined to us completing us that is going to save our life, that is the propitiation for our sins, what has been added to us. Everybody okay? Okay. Glory to God.
Verse 11, "Beloved, if God so loved us..." with agape love, ..."we ought also to love one another." If God so loved us that He gave up His Son to be joined to us, which are sin, for the life of the ages, we ought also to love one another. The holy resurrected and ascended Christ is joined to our sin-filled soul. What is the Scripture saying? If we have been strengthened, and Christ is being formed in us, we should be willing to be crucified by our ungodly brethren so that this glorified, ascended soul life should enter into them also.
That is what I was talking about earlier, only it has to be Christ that sends you. Do not get into any religious work and go getting yourself killed or beat up or anything like that. Christ has to be sending you. You have to be in obedience to the Father, and when He sends you to someone that is going to crucify you, you pray for them, you bless them, you ask the Lord how you can help them, and you will be doing the same thing that Jesus did for us. Hallelujah.
"Beloved if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another..." with an agape love that no matter how they are coming against us, we should pray for the very best for them. We should pray that in this encounter, the blood that is coming out of the wounds that they are inflicting on us should touch them too. I will take this question now, but when I preach I prefer to have the questions afterwards, but since you stopped me, I will take this question.
COMMENT: I just wanted to say, eventually that person will stop hating you maybe?
PASTOR VITALE: It may take a long time, because what they are getting in this encounter is the seed, and it could take years even before they have a salvation experience.
COMMENT: They will come to you for mercy, like they will feel it in their heart, like they know what they did was wrong, and they might reap, God might open their eyes, and they might know that all this time that you had good intentions towards them, you know what I am saying?
PASTOR VITALE: I know what you are saying. Let me say this. I believe that when a human being has an encounter with someone that is moving in the agape love of Christ, that they will have at least some measure of a salvation experience in this lifetime, but if what you are saying to me is you are talking about a person that has been hurt and that is hoping for the satisfaction of that person coming to them and saying, "I am sorry, I was wrong." Yes, please take the mike.
COMMENT: Feeling bad for what they did.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, well it might come to that, but whether or not the person will ever come to the individual son that they have damaged and repent, what I am trying to say, if that is what you are looking for, you should not be looking for it. Maybe God will bring them to you to repent, but whether He does or not, we, as sons, should not be requiring that. Maybe God is requiring it of them to come to you and repent, but we, as sons, should not be waiting for the day that, that person comes to us and repents. It is not a Godly state of mind. Do you understand what I am saying?
It is going to touch them, they may come to you and repent, but we should not even be thinking about that. I am convinced that when God orchestrates something, when He brings you together with someone knowing that they are going to crucify you, and you stand in Christ, you have got to respond with the agape love of Christ, and it has got to touch them, it has got to. This is what the two-witness company is all about. We are dying, we are letting them kill us when Christ sends us, so that they can receive the blood of Christ, because when they pierce us we bleed, and it gets on them. Hallelujah.
Glory to God. Hallelujah. Verse 12, "No man hath seen God at any time, if we love one another, God dwelleth in us and His love is perfected in us." No man hath seen God at any time. No natural man has ever seen God. Now we know that Jesus said, I am the Father, and we see Jesus, so how can John be saying, "No man has ever seen God?" No fallen adamic man has ever seen God. You must have the Christ in you, you must have at least the Father in you to reveal to you that this is God in this man, if God is a Spirit, right?
No fallen adamic man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us because...how do we know that God dwelleth in us? If we truly love one another, if we are fulfilling His commandments and, therefore, if we fulfill His commandments, He must be in us, and His love is perfected in us. That word "perfected" means "completed," and I am going to suggest to you that to have His love completed in you, you must have borne the Christ.
To have His love perfected in you, or completed in you, Christ must be born in you. For God to be perfected in us or completed in us, we must be at least pregnant, if not having given birth to the Christ. We were talking about this in the teaching this afternoon. To be complete in Christ, we must have the Spirit of the Father which is the Holy Spirit. It comes and it joins with our human spirit, and they produce a child which is the Christ, and that is the completion of Christ in us. He is completed in us when the child is born in us. Glory to God.
Verse 13, "Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us because He hath given us of His Spirit. This is how we know that we are dwelling in Him, and that He is in us, because He has given us of His Spirit, and His Spirit has perfected us. "He hath given us of His Spirit," His Spirit has joined with us, and He who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit, and that Spirit has caused Christ to be formed in us. Agree with me? Okay.
I just want to put it on this message. The Holy Spirit is not enough, the Holy Spirit is not enough. The Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit of promise. The promise of what? The promise that the Christ will be born in us, which is going to save us in child bearing. We must bear the son. There is a difference between the Holy Spirit and the son, and perfection or completion is when we bear the son, glory to God.
"Hereby know we that we dwell in Him..." or it says in my margin, recognize Him..."Hereby know we that we live in Him, dwell in Him, live in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit." What has He given us? He has given us a child. That is how we know that we dwell in Him and He in us, because the Christ is formed in us. How do we know the Christ is formed in us?
We just went through an hour of teaching how we know that the Christ is formed in us. His love is in us, His behavior is in us, His truth is in us, we love one another, and we are willing to die for one another, that is how we know that Christ is in us. I want to tell you, brethren, the Holy Spirit in you is not going to cause you to die for your brother. There is a whole Church world of people that have the Holy Spirit that would kill you, that are robbing and stealing from other Christians, that are fornicating, that are committing adultery, that are involved in all kinds of sins, and they have the Holy Spirit, they speak in tongues.
When you love one another, when you are willing to sacrifice for your brother, that is not the Holy Spirit in you anymore. It is Christ. If you do not have Christ, you are not doing these things. Glory to God.
Verse 14, "We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world." We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world, and how is He saving the world? He sent the Son to be born in us to save us from this fallen adamic world system which is within our very own being. He is the Savior of my world, and He is saving my vessel by being born in me and swallowing up the world in me, perfecting me, and imparting to me the life of the ages. Glory to God.
Verse 15, "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God." Whosoever, the word in my margin says, "declare." Whosoever shall declare that Jesus is the Son of God. Brethren, it is not with your mouth, it is with your behavior, it is with the love that you manifest, it is with the sacrifice that you manifest, it is with the attitudes that you manifest. Whosoever declare by his very state of being, by what he is, that Jesus is the Son of God in that person, God dwelleth in that person, and he is in God.
"Whosoever shall declare that Jesus is the Son of God." How do you declare it? You declare His resurrection in your very own being. I think there is a Scripture, I believe it is in the book of Acts where it says, "The apostles went about witnessing or declaring to the resurrection of Jesus Christ." They were not preaching it, they were witnessing to His resurrection doing mighty signs, miracles, and wonders. They were witnessing to the fact that He was resurrected in them. This happened after the Holy Ghost was poured out, He was resurrected in them.
Brethren, I could preach for the next hundred years and not convince anybody that Jesus Christ is resurrected, but when He decides to come out from the bottom of the ship that is in me, and I have seen Him do it, and do mighty signs and wonders, they will believe. He did it once six or seven years ago. I know He is in me, and I know what He is capable of doing from the degree of maturity that is within me, but He has not done it in seven years. Why? It is not the season.
I want to tell you, I saw Him do it. I have never seen such an anointing anywhere. The room was dripping wet. Someone that had been deranged for almost their whole life was healed, a very mentally disturbed person was made whole. We are waiting, I have been waiting for seven years for Him to do it again. I hope when He does it again He does not withdraw. It was glorious. I cannot tell you how glorious it was. Hallelujah. Eventually He will do it and not withdraw. I hope it is real soon.
Verse 15, "Whosoever shall confess by his behavior in his attitude and his selflessness that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in Him," because you cannot do it. You cannot confess it unless God dwelleth in you, and unless you are dwelling in God. You have to be one.
Verse 16, " We have known and believed the love that God hath to us, God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him." We have known or understood and believed the agape love that God has towards us, we have understood it and we have believed it, that He has loved us, and that He wants nothing back from us. He just wants to give us life.
I hear the voices saying, "Well He wants obedience from us." Brethren, He wants obedience from us so that we can live. He does not need your obedience, you need to be obedient, because when you are disobedient you shall surely die.
"And we have understood and believed the agape love that God has towards us." God is agape love, He is all giving, He needs nothing from us. He is an energy force that is likened to the sun, and He is continuously giving forth energy, and if you try to get close enough to give to Him you will get burnt to a crisp. He does not need anything from you. He gives all the giving, all the giving, Hallelujah.
God is love, and He that dwelleth or is joined in love, or is joined to the agape love of the Lord Jesus Christ, you dwelleth with God, you are married to God, you dwelleth in God and God in him. That is talking about the marriage whereby our minds, the fallen adamic mind and our Christ mind shall be woven together. It shall be made one, and we shall dwell together in marriage with God, and He shall be the ruling source or force in our being. Hallelujah, and we too shall be like God.
What does that mean? We shall be so self-sustaining, we shall be so independent, we shall be so without need because of the indwelling Christ, that He shall flow over from us, and we shall be a blessing to the multitudes, and we shall meet the needs of a dying world of people that are starving to death, and people that are sick, and people that are morally corrupt. Christ shall be so overflowing in us, we shall be so without need that we will be able to meet the needs of others.
I am sure that all of you have had an experience where you have been so needy you have been so upset, either you have been sick, or you have been emotionally upset, or you have been financially needy, and when that happens to you, you cannot think about other people. How could you minister to other people when you cannot walk? How could you minister to other people when you are so depressed that you cannot think straight? Our every need shall be met in abundance. We shall be so completely satisfied, our every thought will be directed towards those less fortunate than us in this world, and we shall dwell in God and He shall dwell in us, and we shall be in that condition.
Verse 17, "Herein is our love made perfect..." ...This is how we recognize that Christ is formed in us, "...that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is so are we in this world." Herein is our love made perfect. This is how we recognize that Christ is in us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. The judgment of what? The judgment of our own soul that died. When Christ is formed in you, He judges your fallen adamic soul. This is the White Throne Judgment, and as He judges your fallen adamic soul, He gets stronger. As He judges and kills your fallen adamic soul He gets stronger.
When Christ starts to appear in you in the smallest measure, your judgment has surely begun. Why are you surprised that the fiery trial has come upon you? Christ is in you, Hallelujah, and He wants to possess you totally. Do not push against the pricks, work with Him, judge your own soul with fear and trembling.
"Herein is our love made perfect." This is how we know Christ is in us, that we may have boldness or assurance in the day of the judgment of our own soul. How do we know that He is in us, that we may have assurance. Assurance of what? That as our soul is judged and found guilty and worthy of death, that our Father shall surely raise us from the dead, because Christ dwells in us.
Let me say that again. This is how we know that Christ is in us so that when our fallen adamic soul is judged, we should have assurance of what? That we shall live in Christ, we will be raised from the dead in Christ. Do not worry that your soul is being judged. Many people say to me, "You are killing me, I am dying, I have to protect myself, I have to guard myself." No, you do not. Have assurance that Christ is in you, and that if you turn your fallen adamic soul over to Him for judgment, He shall surely raise you from the dead in Him, because as He is, so are we in this world.
We are going through the same experience that He had. He was a natural man, He had two souls, His fallen adamic soul and the Christ soul, and the holiness in Him, the Christ in Him, overcame the fallen adamic soul, brought it into submission, slew it, and the Father raised Him from the dead because all the sin in His soul had been purified and slain by the Christ in Him. The Father raised Him from the dead, and as He went through this, we too are going through and shall go through this.
We have this assurance. He already did it, you see. He already did it. The spiritual life of God that was in the man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, already did it in Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and now He is in us, and He is going to do the same thing. We have this assurance He has already done it, He has demonstrated to us, He has proven to us that He is capable of doing it. Of doing what? Of bringing our fallen adamic soul into submission, of purifying it of sin, and of slaying it so that His Father in heaven will raise us from the dead. He is full well able to fulfill the requirements of the Father that are necessary for the Father to raise us from the dead.
Be assured, know that Christ is formed in you, Verse 17, and because He is formed in you, you should be assured in the day of judgment. Crucify your soul with Him, because as He was crucified and raised from the dead, because as He is, as He is resurrected and ascended in this soul realm, so are we in this world. We have every potential to be everything that He is. He is the first of many brethren. We are all coming after Him.
Verse 18, "There is no fear in love, but perfect love..." ...love that is completed in you, love, that means when Christ has been formed in you, He will cast out all fear. All fear is in your fallen adamic soul. There is no fear in agape love, but perfected love, not the Holy Spirit now, but the Christ in you, He will grow up to be a big tree and cast out all fear which is rooted in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. All fear is in the fallen adamic soul. Christ shall cast out your fallen adamic soul. Jesus said, "I come to cast out Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind.
To cast him out of where? To cast him out of your mind. He is going to get cast down to the earth and come under the feet of Christ, because fear has torment. There is no fear in love, but Christ casts out fallen adamic fear because fear has torment. "He that feareth is not made perfect in love." If you have fear, brethren, Christ is not formed in you. He may have begun to be formed in you, but if you have fear, He is not totally ruling in your mind, and I want to tell you that I believe that Christ is being formed in me. There is not a doubt in my mind, and I still experience fear.
I know that I am not completely perfected, I know that love is not been made completely perfect in me. I know He is in there, and I know He is being formed in me, and I know He is in the process of casting out...how does the Scripture describe it? He is in the process of casting out fear which is my fallen adamic soul, and all the torment that goes with it, but it is a process, and I know it is not complete, because from time-to-time, I experience fear. We all do, and we will experience it until He has completely swallowed up or cast out, whichever word you want to use, our fallen adamic soul. Glory to God. Hang in there we are almost done.
Hallelujah, Verse 19, "We love Him because He first loved us." We did not know how to love, we were evil, but He taught us how to love by loving us. Brethren, if you have a brother, or if you work with somebody, or if you know somebody, and they are filled with hatred, I challenge you to teach them to love, to respond to their hatred with the love of God. Give them an example on how to love you. They need to be taught to love, especially with the agape love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Be an example unto them.
Verse 20, "If a man say I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar, for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen." If a man say, "I have agape love for God, if you are willing to sacrifice for God," and you hate your brother, you are a liar. Why? Because if you are willing to sacrifice for God, God is going to ask you to sacrifice for your brother. If you say that you have the agape love towards God, this is the sacrificial love towards God. God does not need anything that you have, so if you truly have agape love, the Father is going to say to you, "Love your brother, die for him, suffer the loss."
If you hate your brother, you cannot tell me that you have agape love towards God, because God does not need your love. God has more than He needs, so He is going to say to you, "Agape love, direct it towards your brother." If it is there, direct it towards your brother. If you hate your brother, if you are not showing the agape love of God to your brother, then you are lying. Do you hear this? If you have the agape love which is the self-sacrificing love, and you offered it up to God, who does not need it, He would redirect it towards your brother, but if you hate your brother, that means that agape love has not been redirected. That means it was never there in the first place. You are a liar. Do you understand that?
"For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen." If you do not love your brother, brethren, there...
If you do not love your brother, brethren, there would have been no agape love going towards the Father to be turned towards your brother, that is what that means. Do you understand that? Are you okay? Okay, glory to God.
Verse 21, "And this commandment have we from Him, that he who loveth God loves his brother also." This commandment have we from Him, that if you want to love God, you must love your brother also. Hallelujah. That is the fulfillment of the second greatest commandment. This commandment have we from Him, that He who loveth God love his brother also, and I remind you that we cannot love God unless He first love us. Why? Because we need to be taught to love.
When I first came to the Lord, and I heard that the Father chasteneth His sons, I could not comprehend it, I said, "Why would He want to chasten me?" I thought I was okay. I found out what a mess I was. We do not even know what we are like until we get a vision of Jesus, until we hold our self up against the standard, until we look in the mirror of God, and see how vile we are. The end of this word to us is in this commandment we have from Him that He...if you want to say you love me, you have to love your brother.
All these Christians out there manifesting Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, towards their brother. Someone told me the other day, someone said to me that he is against you, and he is against your doctrine, but he loves you. I said, "No, he does not, he hates me." The person said, "Oh no, he loves you." I said, I know that is what he is saying, but I tell you he hates me." They say they love you, they do not know what the word means.
if you want to say that you love God, you must love your brother, and if you do not know how to love your brother, you must be taught to love your brother, and love is sacrificial, in accordance with the wisdom of God. You do not give away your home and have to live on the street.
That is not what it means, it means that under the direct instruction of God, you will sacrifice, not necessarily financial things or material things although it might be, but that is not really the depth of what this is talking about. You will sacrifice your life, you will sacrifice your time, you will sacrifice your pride, and you will give it up. You will give it up so that your brother can receive life, and learn to love God that he too might be perfected, and dwell in the Father and the Father in him. Hallelujah. Any questions?
COMMENT: Remember, you were saying earlier about the...you were demonstrating a love about how God loved us with...you were using an example of a young man being in love with a woman, but the woman did not love him, and she would want to marry somebody else, and this man would give himself to her, like do whatever he could because he loved her so much, he would sacrifice his life which is give unto her whatever it is without him expecting anything. He knows he is not going to get anything in return, but still he does it because he loves her. Is that real, would that be considered real love on his part?
PASTOR VITALE: From a natural man, it would be considered sick, but if you stop to think about it, this is the relationship of God to the human race. There would be no existence at all if God did not permit it, and He, the human race is His wife, and she is out there living with another man. His name is Satan, the unconscious part of the carnal mind, and she has produced his child, the carnal mind, and God is getting nothing from His creation at all.
He is keeping her alive, and He is feeding her and providing food and water, and many blessings in this earth realm, and she is out there living with another man, and He loves us enough to keep us alive, until such time as He can minister to us, because we are insane. We are spiritually insane, that we are doing this thing. He is keeping us alive until He can deliver us. That is the relationship between God and the creation.
COMMENT: He knows that we are doing what we are doing, but still He gives to us. Boy, that is real love.
PASTOR VITALE: That is real love. He is getting nothing back from us at all. We call Him names, we curse Him out, and He is a byword. Even the Christians that say they are Christians hate Him, and He still loves us, and He has not destroyed us. He has not let any pride get Him. If there was pride involved, He would cut us off from the face of the earth and say, "How dare you treat me like this."
That is what a man would say, "How dare you treat me like this, I am not going to be made a fool out of," but God is not a man. He has shown me that we have great strength to increase one another. He even showed me...I was working with somebody one time, they were not doing a particularly good job, I started to get aggravated, and the Lord said to me, "You could make them or break them." He said, "You could get aggravated with them, or you could ask me to help them to do a better job." I prayed the prayer, and I am telling you, they changed overnight, 100%, they became a super duper worker.
We have this ability with our children, with our husbands, with every relationship that we have. We can get mad at them, and be aggravated with them, and curse them out, or we could pray for God to help them to do what they have to do, or we could pray for God to make them be everything that they need to be.
The reaction of the natural man is to say, "How dare you treat me like this, you dirty so and so." That is just the carnal mind, but Christ does not do that. No matter how they fail us, or how they let us down, Christ says, "Father forgive them for their sins and help them to do better," and it is amazing what He can do in people, because we destroy with our minds. We destroy with our minds.
One of the biggest problems today is the divorce problem, young people get married thinking if it does not work out, I will get a divorce. You have already destroyed your marriage before you started. Thinking like that, you have already destroyed your marriage, negative thinking. I do not believe in positive thinking, but the Scripture does say, "Think only on the high things, think on things that are good and fine, do not dwell in negative images." Hallelujah. Anybody else?
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