Part 5 of 6 Parts
The Following Message Has Been Transcribed For
Clarity, Continuity Of Thought, And Punctuation By
The LEM Transcribing & Editing Team.
We are continuing with the life series tonight and we are going to be finishing up the category of evidences of the life of God. We are taking the scripture references from the cyclopaedic index of the open bible if you will like to follow along. And I am going to see how this goes. If I feel the Lord leads me to do it we will go on to the next category tonight which is evidences of the growth, growth of the life of God in us. Right now we are finishing up evidences of the presence of the spiritual life of God in us and we are on Galatians 5:16 and Galatians 5:25.
Galatians 5:16 This I say then walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. KJV
Galatians 5:25 If we live in the Spirit let us also then walk in the Spirit. This I say then walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. KJV
So let us take a look at this on the board. I am trying to find out what this means. We are talking about evidences of the spiritual growth of the believer. Now when we start out with our relationship with the Lord, we are an Adamic man and our personality is called the carnal mind. And he is our whole mind and our whole personality and when Christ enters in He enters in as the scripture says as a mustard seed and He starts to grow.
So first season James tells us we have two minds. James says the double minded man is unstable in all his ways. The man in whom Christ is begun to be formed or the man whose life is begun to be influenced by Christ is unstable, why? Because one minute he is thinking with the mind of Christ and the next minute he is going back to his old Adamic ways.
And it does not have to necessarily be a condition of backsliding. It could be just a momentary fleeting thought. So the scripture says walk in the spirit and we will not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. The lusts of the flesh are all in our carnal mind, in our Adamic personality.
So this scripture speaks of the warfare between our carnal mind and the mind of Christ. In the first season our carnal minds is stronger because the mind of Christ starts out as a mustard seed. He will eventually be a victory that will fill our whole spiritual being. The first season from the beginning our carnal mind is stronger than the Christ in us. And we go through a period where we read the scripture and we read the scripture and we pray and get the word of God into our heart. And what will that do? It gives us a choice.
If we are totally reprobate for an extreme example and we do not know that stealing is wrong. We were never taught that stealing is wrong and we read the bible and we read thou shall not steal. Now when the opportunity to steal is presented to us we have choice in our mind.
After we get the choice in our mind then we have to choose which one we are going to do. And many Christians have a big battle, they know the Lord. They have repented, they have a relationship with God but they still drink, they still beat their wives, they still verbally abuse their children, they are still in adultery if not physically in their mind. This is a big problem in the church.
A lot of Christians cannot figure out how this has happened and the way that it is happening is that we have two minds. And that carnal mind is very strong and it impulses thoughts and the vehicle that it uses to cause us to slip is lust. Walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. Do not yield to the promptings of your carnal mind.
It does not say anywhere in the scripture that the day you become a Christian the carnal mind will be silent. It does not say that, even Jesus was brought by the spirit up into temptation by Satan. The scripture said he was brought by the spirit to a place to high mountain where he was tempted by Satan.
Satan speaks to the believer. And we have been given strength in Christ to resist that whisper because another name for Satan is the whisperer. And if we are not aware of it, we may not even realise that he is whispering into our minds. We think it is our own idea but it is Satan in your mind whispering to you giving a suggestion to you subtlely. And we can choose to implement the power of God to resist him.
Unfortunately many Christians for many reasons some people do not want to wage the warfare, some people really do not want to give up the sin but they want to be in Christ but in their deepest of hearts they are really not ready to give it up. They are convinced in their minds that the whisper is of God. And this is the fulfilment of that man of sin sitting in the temple of God calling Himself God.
We have a situation amongst young believers that have not been trained in righteousness who have not been exercised in spiritual warfare who can be deceived by the pride of their own mind. The scripture tells us if we are deceived we are deceived by the pride of our own mind and sometimes they just outright do what they are not suppose to do. They know they are not supposed to do it and they do it anyway and the question is why? And the answer to the question is that their carnal mind is not dead at the moment that Christ begins to deal with them.
So verses in James said we have two minds. He said brethren salt water and bitter water should not come out of the same fountain. But the truth is that for the believer salt water and bitter water, the Spirit of Christ and the spirit of Adam come out of the same human being or the same mind. But the scripture says here, Paul says that we have a choice. If we choose to walk in the Spirit we will not fulfil the lust of our carnal mind which is our flesh.
So he said, brother wage the warfare. When the thought comes into your mind, wage the warfare, fight the good fight of faith. Have you started fighting yet? Have you given up fighting? Are you engaged in the warfare? Because if there is no warfare in your mind brethren the chances are you are responding to your Adamic soul which is your carnal mind.
Paul said that you can walk in the spirit and you will not fulfil the lust of the flesh. Now, a lot of Christians say well I am under the blood. I cannot sin because I am under the blood but brethren that is tied in with the scripture you are under the blood if you resist the thought in your mind. If you yield to it and you do it you are not under the blood of Christ. I remind you that sin is in your mind.
Let us make it real simple. If you have thought of adultery and you do not do the adultery and you resist it and you confess that it is sin and you hate it and you will not do it (you know Jesus said if a man looks at a woman to lust after her he has already done it), the sin of adultery is in your mind, but if you resist it if you hate it, if you fight against it, that sin is under the blood. But if you yield to it even in your mind that sin is not under the blood brethren it is not under the blood. And the Lord will deal with your life.
So the scripture says walk under the spirit, follow the anointing of Christ. Yield to the Christ in you and resist and step on and tread under foot your carnal mind and you shall not fulfil its lust but we must police our own soul. We must be on top of him watching for him being ever vigilant that sin should not creep into our heart because now we have been given the power to overcome.
When we were in the world when we were sinners there was no power to overcome sin but now that we have Christ the Lord requires us to use that authority to overcome sin. Where? In our own mind because brethren if we have not overcome sin in our own mind there is no way we going to overcome it in some else's mind. Why? Because the sin in that person's mind will come to us and it will seduce us. It will seduce our own heart to agree with it.
So the answer is not to change the other person but to change ourselves and be a witness in righteousness from the person. And do not let them influence you on an unrighteous way but let your righteousness influence them. Let your righteousness convict them and let them go away convicted. And let them go away with an understanding that it is possible when we have Christ to resist the lusts of our flesh and to be victorious in every area. And that does not mean you have to be victorious every moment, it is a battle. You may not be victorious the first time you resist but if you will persevere, if you will keep on going back, going back where? To the battle, every time this adoption comes in your mind wage war against it, resist it, fight it, call upon Jesus to help you. You must take the victory, if you fight you must take the victory, the battle is assured if you fight, Glory to God.
So that was verse 16 for I say then walk in the Spirit yield to Christ and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh which is your carnal mind.
What it does not say here is that it is a battle to walk in the spirit and not fulfil the lust of your flesh because the lust of your flesh is a spiritual force that is very powerful and it must be military, militaristically resisted it. We have found many scriptures that support this that the carnal mind has a military strength and that is the reason we cannot overcome it before Christ enters into our lives. And Christ has given us, has imparted to us a military strength in righteousness that is stronger than the military strength of our carnal mind but a battle is involved. Glory to God
Verse 25 if you live in Spirit let us also walk in the Spirit. If we live in the Spirit let us also walk in the spirit. Well it is very common for the Christians to say we have the spirit of God and our life is in the spirit. Paul is saying if that is true of you let me see you walk in it. And as we have found many times in the scripture these verses sound so simple and so innocent but if you really pray about them you will find out that it is a very deep statement.
Paul said if it is true I heard you say praise God and I saw you dance in the spirit and I saw you run around the church, now prove it the sister just said now prove it. Well if that is a sign that your whole life is in the spirit let me see your fruit. And we have a lot of people in the church that do all those things and there is nothing wrong with it and they walk out and they are in sin and they are justified all kinds of sin in their lives.
If you do not know it there is fornication in the church. There is fornication in the church, there is adultery in the church, there is alcoholism in the church. There is wife abuse and child abuse and forms of sexual perversion in the church. There is envy in the church, there is witchcraft in the church. So Paul says if you are yielding to these sins do not tell me you are living in the spirit because you praise God in church you have received a lie and I do not tell you this to condemn you. I tell you the truth that you should not be deceived that in the hour that Jesus Christ appears you should not be one of those saying Lord Lord we cast out demons in your name why are we locked out? Because if you hear these tapes, if this preaching comes to your ears, you are responsible for what you have heard, Glory to God.
We are going to the next verse. We are still in the evidences of the spiritual life of God. And we are going on now to Galatians 5 22 bearing the fruit of the spirit.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness and faith. KJV
The evidence that Christ is inside of you is the fruit. Brethren I do not know how to emphasise this strongly enough. The evidence that Christ is the motivating force of a human beings life is not his ability to cast out demons, neither is his ability to preach a message, neither is it his administrative talent in ministration of a physical church.
The proof that Christ is the motivating factor of a man is the fruit of the spirit in his life outside of the pulpit and off the floor of the church. But the fruit of the Spirit brethren is love and that is the Agape love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Which does no harm to anyone but it is gentle and it is kind and it is forgiving and it is tender hearted. Joy that is joy in Christ, joy in Christ that is not a false joy that is trumped up from your carnal mind. But a true joy not necessarily screaming and yelling. We had a beautiful praise service tonight but that was just a momentary manifestation and it was very Adamic nothing wrong with it but it was very Adamic.
The true joy is the quiet joy that you see in a human being as they walk through their life. It does not need music to pump it up. It does not need preaching to pump it up. It does not need something good to happen to pump it up. It is just a quiet joy in the heart that comes from a knowledge of Christ. And understanding that He is with you and that He is ruling and that He is going to take care of you. It is the joy that comes from the spirit and it is a totally different joy from what we experience tonight.
And it is nice to have the joy that we have tonight once in a while but in all honesty brethren do you think you can live with that 24 hours a day? Do you think you can live with that 10 hours a day, 7days a week? All that emotion and all that excitement and it is fun once in a while but could you live your life 10 hours a day in that? It is not a life, this what we experienced tonight was good in its place but it is not a life sustaining joy. Does anybody not know what I am talking about?
We need a joy that makes us happy when we are washing clothes. We need a joy that makes us happy when we are doing the most unpleasant chore. We need a joy that makes us happy when we are at a job that we really do not like. The joy of His Spirit abides no matter what your circumstances are. What we experienced tonight was fun but if it continues 10 hours a day it will become destructive. Can anybody not agree with that? You will not do your work. You will not fulfil your responsibilities. That was Adamic joy and it was good in its place but the joy of the spirit sustains you no matter what activity that you are involved in, no matter circumstance comes your way, it is a life sustaining joy that does not diminish.
It was not diminished with that carnal joy tonight, it did not oppose the spirit. The spirit joined in with it for that moment. The joy of Christ can partake of any activity that we are involved in but what we experienced tonight was an isolated incident that if it continues will have become destructive to our minds, Halleluiah. It will be under the category of pleasure. It will be under the category of eating a chocolate bar and having five chocolate bars every day 7 days a week you will surely get sick, Glory to God.
The fruit of the spirit peace, brethren peace is peace with God. The peace we are talking about here is peace with God. There is no way you can be at peace with other men until you are at peace with God. The way God brings you into peace with Him is to utterly overcome your carnal mind. So that is the only way to have peace with God, there is no compromise. God does not compromise with sin, God will not compromise with sin.
Our carnal mind is sin. The only way for us to have peace with God is for our carnal mind to go under the feet of Christ. And if our carnal mind is under the feet of Christ that means our mind is Christ. If we are at peace with God that means every conflict that we have with every other human being is going to be Christ in our minds dealing with that person. And eventually we will have at least a measure of peace because men are wicked and their mind is fallen. There will always be some manifestation of warfare but we will have the greatest measure of peace in our lives when we have peace with Christ. We will also have the greatest measure of peace with other men because Christ is the peace maker but He will wage war against sin but it will be a warfare in righteousness, Halleluiah.
Long suffering is the fruit of the spirit. Long suffering who do we suffer long with when we are in Christ? We suffer long with the people that are alienated from God in their minds. We suffer long with the people that really cannot help what they are doing, that are destructive. Whose mind is not thinking right but they have really submitted to God and are trying to help themselves. And we suffer with their carnal mind waiting for the deliverance to come and what is the deliverance? It is the impartation of the mind of Christ to them. We suffer with them, we struggle with them and we walk with them until their mind is delivered.
Brethren, Jesus does not suffer long with unrepentant sinner, with unrepentant sinners Jesus rebukes and sometimes He executes judgement. He suffers long with those who are repentant and who are crying because they see the wickedness of their own heart. You do not change overnight brethren. And Jesus will suffer long with you if your heart is turned towards Him.
Gentleness, the fruit of the spirit is gentleness. Now do not be deceived by this I have not looked up this word in the Greek but gentleness does not mean that you can never show anger. Jesus showed anger and He never sinned. He showed anger with the money changers. This word gentleness some Pharisees get hold of it and they think it means that if you are not where our carnal mind says is gentle that is not Christ in you.
If you rebuke they say it is not Christ in you. If you take a strong stand in righteousness they say it is not Christ in you that is not what this word is talking about. It is talking about a gentleness in Christ. It is talking about a spirit that does not attack out of its Adamic soul but the spirit of Christ will rebuke and He will rebuke very strongly and it may feel like a knife going through you. If that happens to you do not assume that it is not Christ. You can ask the Lord but do not assume that it is not Christ because it is not what you carnal mind thinks is a gentle spirit. Does anybody not understand that? Glory to God
The fruit of the spirit is goodness. Now goodness is not necessarily good works because we know that good works can be generated by selfish motives. We know that good works can be generated by religious spirits that are trying, that are coming forth in a person that are trying to justify themselves before God. So this is not talking about good works this is talking about goodness. This is talking about the goodness that comes forth from Christ.
Now brethren this is a very touchy, it is very important. And I have told you this before and I am going to put it on the tape again. Two people can be doing the exact same work and for one of them it is sin and for the other it is not. Why? Because one person was instructed by the Lord to do it and there were doing it out of obedience to Christ. And the other person did not hear from God but they were doing it as a religious work because they thought their carnal mind thought that that is what they were supposed to be doing as a Christian.
I want to tell you only what is done for Christ is going to count, only the one who did it out of obedience to Christ got a brownie point. You can be spending every waking moment doing what the carnal mind thinks of as good works and if the Lord has not told you to do it it is not going to count.
Now what does it mean? What do I mean when I say it is not going to count? What I mean is it is not going to count towards your getting into the kingdom. Why is it not going to count towards getting into the kingdom? Because the kingdom of God is within you, the kingdom of God is Christ in you and Christ is at war with your carnal mind.
So every acts of obedience to Christ is a death blow to your carnal mind. That is why it counts for Christ. Every act of obedience to Christ is a death blow to your carnal mind that is why it counts get rid of you religious concepts.
If you are doing this good deed that is genuinely helping somebody but Christ has not told you to do it but your carnal mind which is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has told you to do it, then you are doing it out of obedience to your carnal mind even though it is a physical kind thing. You have done it out of obedience to your carnal mind and your obedience to your carnal mind is strengthening you carnal mind. Does anybody not know what I am talking about?
The name of the game is obedience to Christ and brethren we cannot be obedient unless we can understand what He wants us to do. And there is no salvation in good deeds. There is salvation in obedience to Christ which strengthens the Christ in us and weakens the carnal mind in us.
Salvation is in Christ. Life is in the Son and if we are going to live out of the Son we must deny our carnal mind. We just talked about that in the other scripture in Galatians. If you live in the Spirit walk in the Spirit, this is not a game of religious works, this is Armageddon. It is the battle of the two minds and if you are obeying your carnal mind if he is telling you to work in the hospitals and help little old ladies across the street that is wonderful but it will not build Christ in you. It will strengthen your carnal mind why? Because to him who you are obedient he is the one that you serve he is your god. The one that you yield your members to, the one that you obey he is your god. Does anybody not understand? This is very important.
So if you cannot hear from Christ the number one thing to do is start praying to hear from Christ that is very important. And to ask Him to help you to understand what it is that He wants you to do. He is faithful, He is faithful to the Father because the Father wants to live through you. He wants to live through you more than you want him to live through you.
There are many very well meaning believers that just do not have this understanding. There are people that want Christ with all their hearts and their soul but they have not heard this message and they think that they are coming closer to Him by good works. I am not telling you not to do good works but if you are serious about getting into the kingdom the only way in is by transferring our very live substance which is our human spirit out our Adamic soul into the soul of Christ. We have got to take this journey that is typified by the Hebrew children coming out of Egypt. And it is a journey that is fraught with difficulties. It is a battle, it is a warfare and if you are not in the battle you are not even in the running. There is a race that we are running, Glory to God. The end of the race is Christ and the prize is the crown of His Spiritual life, Halleluiah.
So the fruit of the spirit is goodness not good works, goodness. And goodness is only found in Christ. It is a good heart of desire to do good that comes out of Christ. And I talked about this maybe not recently, but I know I have talked about it in the past.
If we square root the motives of any act, any deed that is motivated by the carnal mind, if we are really honest with ourselves and get down to the basic root of it our motive must be selfish because our Adamic is selfish. What am I talking about? I will give you an example. It could be if a man is kind to his wife that is wonderful but down at the very root of it he wants a good relationship with her. He wants her to love him, he wants her to respect him not that there is anything wrong with this at all. What I am telling you is that at the bottom of his good deed is self preservation. When Christ tells you to do something when Christ is your motive, there is nothing in it for you just obedience to the Father. And if you talk to people that really live for Christ, usually people that are in the ministry because they are not hindered by a secular job. They will tell you that sometimes He tells them to do things that are stressful to them. It is stressful to them that their carnal friendly neighbours and fellow Christians look at them and say oh that could not have been God telling you to do that. We had this on the last message just like the prophet that went to Paul and said you know if you go there you are going to get put in bands.
God sends you into difficult situations. If you are living for God your life is a warfare. If your life is not a warfare I will go out on .. and say you are not living for God. And if I have just offended you I am sorry but you ask the Lord if it is not true because when you are living for God He will send you to places. He will tell you to do things that will cause turmoil in your personal life in your home, it will cause turmoil where you go, people will be mad at you. And you will have to be dealing with confrontation on a regular basis because the spirit of God stirs up trouble.
And if you think I have just contradicted myself with regards to the scripture about peace, I am telling you that I have not contradicted myself. The spirit of God brings trouble. He brings warfare and eventually He wins that war and when you become His spoil of war you have peace with Him. But this whole planet is in rebellion against God and this rebellion has not yet been put down. So the God of peace wages war wherever He goes. And if you are living for Him there is a trail of warfare that follows you wherever you go. And if you do not have that you are not living for Him.
There has to be conflict in your life if you are living for Him. And if I have hurt your feelings I am sorry but ask Him if it is not true because I am telling you the truth. And if you are not living for Him what does that mean? You live out the rest of your life and that will be the end of it. You are not going to burn in hell for ever. Do not lie to yourself. Do not tell yourself that you are living for Christ when you are not. No good thing can come out of a lie, face the truth. Sometimes I have someone tell me I do not want to wait for Christ. I have one woman she tells me this all the time. I do not want it okay she is honest. Halleluiah, so this is goodness that comes out of the heart of God that has no benefit to the person doing good.
You know if you want to help a little old lady cross the street well that makes you feel good, that makes you feel good but what about if the Lord says to you I want you to go help the spiritual leper. This human being whose mind is all messed up, who hates everybody that tries to help them, who attacks everybody that tries to help them and I want you to go and do good to them. I want you to minister to them I want you to love them. You are not going to feel good because every attempt you make to minister to them, they are going to lash out at you. And they are going to lie about you and they are going to hate you and they are going to do damage to your soul go and do good now that is the goodness of God. When you obey that is the goodness and the love of God. Anybody can help a little old lady cross the street did not Jesus say even the evil do good to their children. Do not go help the little old lady cross the street and tell me how good you are because even the evil people do that.
The fruit of the spirit faith, faith in God, you are trying the spirit on somebody, test their faith in God. What do they do in moments of crisis? Do they believe God when things look impossible, are they setting up their own standards and believe in God? Or are they going on a word from the Lord to them? I believe that we have a lot of Christians in the church today that will desire something, that like something and they say well I am believing God for it and lots of time it does not come to pass. Brethren that is not what I am talking about, we are to have faith or believe God for something that He has promised us. We must have a personal word from the Lord that He has promised it to us then we have faith waiting for it. You cannot say I believe in God for a Cadillac. You will probably never get it but if God has spoken to you and witnessed it to you and told you many times He is buying you a Cadillac well then you believe God for the Cadillac if that is what He has told you.
We have people all over the church world in all sorts of financial distress because they went and charged things on their credit cards and they are believing God, He never told them that He will give it to them. Halleluiah.
You believe God for what He has promised you. If you are a young person and you want a husband, there is nothing wrong in wanting a husband but do not be believing God for a husband unless He has promised one, because if you are believing God for a husband and He has not promised you one you may get one or you may not. And you may get one that God did not send.
Do not believe God for things that He did not promise you. I have gotten letters from people telling me that they had faith in God therefore I have to send them things. I do not have to send anybody anything because you are believing God for it. You cannot tell me what I have to give you because you have faith in God that I am going to give it to you. I got a letter from someone that told me that I have faith in god that you are going to give it to me so now you have to give it to me. That is what they told me and I wrote back to them and I said guess what I only give you what God tells me to give you and right now it is a rebuke. I do not give you anything because you believe that I am supposed to give it to you.
Faith in God brethren is based upon a promise of God to you and it has to be a personal word from Him to you. Now if you look in this bible and you read the scripture where it says if He who raised Christ from the dead dwells in your mortal body He will raise your mortal body from the dead. If you have been chronically ill all your life and you read that scripture and God never gave you a personal word, He may heal you but He may not heal you. And if you do not have this understanding you may lose your faith in God if He does not heal you.
Brethren it must be a personal to you. I had a glorious testimony once of a woman that had some kind of deformed child. I really do not remember what disease the child had but the child could not walk. And this woman was convinced that the Lord had told her He was going to heal this child. And every year she will buy this child a pair of shoes waiting for God to strengthen the child's legs and it went on for years and people laughed at her but she knew that she heard from God. And one year she put those shoes on the child and she said the whole room filled with His glory and she heard all kinds of sounds like the bones in the child's legs was snapping and the child stood up and walked.
God heals, I am not telling you that God does not heal but do not do that to yourself. Have faith in God that hopefully He will heal you. Hopefully He will give you a miracle but do not put yourself in that kind of bondage that if it does not happen to you God has rejected you, that if it does not happen to you that God has hated you, that if it has not happened to you your faith is not strong enough. Do not let anybody do that to you.
Petition God for anything you want or need, put it before Him and hope but do not put yourself in a position where you will have to be embarrassed or ashamed if He does not do what you asked Him to do. If He gives you a personal word do not let anyone take it away from you but do not make God's decisions for Him no good can come out of it. It will hurt your faith, it will hurt your walk and it will hurt the walk in the faith of other people and if you are not strong in the Lord it could make you weak and bitter.
Faith in God is based on what He has promised you. And I want to tell you I have experienced this. God came to me in a vision and promised me a house and within a couple of weeks I was half dead in the hospital and I want to tell you I forgot all about the vision. I hope I am never half dead in the hospital again but I want to tell you I understand now why He gave me that vision. I did not understand it, He was saying to me I know you are going to be half dead in the hospital but I am promising you a house and that means you are not going to die and I did not understand that. I thought I was going to die.
I want to tell you something if you have heard from God, if He has given you a promise or promises that has not yet being fulfilled no matter what happens in your life you must hold on to that and know that He will bring it to pass. If you are on the death bed and there are unfulfilled promises in your life you ought to know that you are not going to die. Have faith in God's word to you and His commitment to you in His relationship with you not in what your carnal mind has told you. Pride goes before a fall, or the Holy Spirit before. Pride goes before destruction and the Holy Spirit before a fall. If your carnal mind has told you that that is pride and destruction and a fall is right round the corner from you. You will be ashamed, become educated in God, learn the truth it will set you free.
So I do not know how much more time I am going to spend on this fruit meekness.
For someone to be meek does not mean that they cannot rebuke you when Christ rises up in them. Meekness is relating to God it is meekness before God. It is meekness before God and it can appear with a carnal person in a form of being very meek when that person is manifesting ungodly spirit and they are waiting for the Christ in them to instruct them as to how to deal with this problem. You might be meek before somebody but God rebukes sin and if you see someone rise up in righteousness against sin do not tell me that they are not meek because that is not what it means. Meekness means they do not respond out of their carnal minds they are meek before God. They are waiting for Christ to tell them how to respond to the problem. Halleluiah.
Temperance is self control in all areas of one's life against such there is no law. And they that are Christ they that belong to Christ has crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. So to say that you belong to Christ one hundred percent totally is to say that you serve Him one hundred percent and you never yield to your carnal mind. Now that is not true of anybody today that I know of only with the exception of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. So according to this scripture we cannot say we belong to Christ and when do you belong to somebody brethren? After the marriage you belong to them.
So those of us here are moving into a deeper and deeper and more intimate relationship with Christ. We are on a road or on a journey and we are becoming more and more intimate with Him but to be Christ is to be married to Him and when you are married to Him you are incapable of sin. When He totally possesses you and you serve no other you are incapable of sin. I wish I could say that were true but I cannot say that it is true. I had a dream once where I was in a dormitory and all of the beds where occupied by single women and I was in bed with this big strong, it is just a dream, He was a big strong muscle man like a body builder. And I was in bed with him and I was lying in his arm. There was no intercourse but he was in my bed and he has his arms around me very protective and no one else in the room had a man. Now the interpretation of the dream was for whatever the situation was in my life at that time I was the only one that had this degree of a mature relationship with Christ to the point that I was intimate with Him to the point that He was in my bed and then He was very much protecting me but I was not yet married to Him.
So the church is filled with people that are not even in bed in Him. But to say that we are His we cannot say that until He is completed joined with us, completely excluded the carnal mind and all the parts there of out of our life. The church is in an illusion they are deceived, they think they are okay, there is nothing to do but go out and spread the words to others. It is not true Jesus clearly said clear up your own act first. Glory to God, okay we are going to move on.
We are still dealing with the spiritual life of God and the evidences thereof. Philippians 4 3 and that evidence is that our name must be in God's book. Evidences of the life of God one of them is that our names must be in God's book.
Philippians 4:3 And I entreat you also, true yokefellow, help those women which labour with me in the gospel with Clement also, and with my other fellow labourers whose names are in the book of life. KJV
So by this scripture we establish or the scripture establishes that there is sure a thing as a book of life and that some believers have their name in it. What is the book of life? The book of life brethren is the soul of Christ.
We found scriptures in the book of Revelation specifically at the beginning we were told that there is a roll with seals on it and Jesus is the only one strong enough to open it. That word is an old English way of saying book. It was written on the inside and the outside.
Brethren we are the books. We are the living epistles with the writing of God appearing on our soul. Either the writing of God is written on us or the writing of Satan is written on us. Our souls are made out of clay and it is engraved with the writing of the spirit that is possessing us. If we are in Christ we have two souls. We have the Adamic soul which is the engraving of Satan and we have Christ which is the engraving of the Father.
So to be written in the book of life we must have Christ with the engraving of the Father and we must be at least in the process of living out of Him. If we have Christ and we are not living out of Him it is the same thing as God looks at it in the same way as if you do not have Him. And we have that with our first scripture if you have Him you have got to show it, live out of Him.
So the book of life is Christ and we are told in the back of the book of Revelation I think it is Revelation 20 I am not sure of the chapter that the books were opened. Every human being on the face of the earth is about to be opened, what does that mean? We are about to be revealed. It is about to be revealed what is inside of our heart. And what is going to expose us? The presence of Christ is going to reveal what is really in our hearts because we found other scriptures in the book of Revelation where it clearly states that the Adamic man is dishonest everyone to some degree. And we are covering up all of us because the heart of man is desperately wicked who can know it.
There is no exception of the carnal minds of men covers up his infirmities and we have a whole list of them in the book of Revelation. He uses mind control, he uses witchcraft and he uses several other I do not know how to call it but we have tapes on it. All of the techniques pride is the biggest that men uses to cover up his spiritual infirmity and Jesus does not want it covered up. Jesus wants it exposed and dealt with but we have a whole church full of people that are still living by the rules of this world system. And the rules of this world system are if you see a wickedness in yourself do not tell anybody, do not yield to it, do not talk about it cover it over. Why? Because in this world system we do not have the strength to root it out of us.
Well make it simple again, if we have a tendency towards adultery now you cannot make that go away. You can just jump on it with both feet and refuse to do it and suffer with this thing for the rest of your life but in Christ it could be rooted out of you.
So we have a whole church full of people that Jesus wants to expose their soul so that He can deal with the problems and they are not responding to Him. They are responding to their old Adamic ways. They are covering themselves up. They are hiding it, they are denying it, it may not be in their conscious mind but the reality is that they are denying it. They are hiding it, they do not want you to see it and they are not getting delivered. And they are not transferring or in the process of transferring from their Adamic soul into Christ because the way we get into Christ is to deny our Adamic soul.
We must admit the sin is there. We must resist it, we must hate it and by the power of God we must transfer our way of dealing with it from a worldly way to the way that Christ will deal with it and he will root it out of us. But with very few exceptions the church world is resisting the Lord and if you are resisting the Lord in this area most likely your name is not written in the book of life.
Now I am not telling you that you are damned to hell open your heart and listen to what I am saying God wants you to be written in the book of life. He wants to get you out of the book of death and put you in the book of life.
And if I am not mistaking that in that scripture in Revelation 20 it says the books plural and the books were opened and then there was another book the book of life singular there is only one soul of Christ. Everybody that is in Christ is one in Christ but there are many books that are not in Christ. Why? Because Adam is divided Christ is not divided, Adam is divided. Christ is not divided there is only one book of life and either if you are written in it you are in it. But there are many books of death. Adam is divided we are individual, we are separated in our mind not only physically but in our minds.
Most people will reach a point where they are out for themselves. I am not condemning you this is the truth of our Adamic condition. So there is one book of life and to be in it you must be living out of Christ at least in some measure striving for it, working towards it, struggling with it, Glory to God.
So this is a sign of spiritual growth that we are written in the book of life. And there is another scripture here it is in Revelation 17:8. That is probably the one I am just talking about, Revelation 17:8.
Revelation 17:8 The beast that though sawest was and is not and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was and is not and yet is. KJV
This is a very mystical verse. It has been given to establish that there is a book of life. Maybe I will comment on it briefly, it really does not have anything to do with this message.
The beast that thou sawest was this is the manifestation of the Adamic soul that existed at the beginning. If you have listened to our series on Daniel 7 you may remember that the living soul at the beginning had wings and was in a pretty good condition. It was in a righteous state before God. And as we went on to study we say that those wings were plucked up. Which means the living soul fell.
So this beast he was in one particular form that no longer exists. Anybody not know what I am talking about? He was in a form that no longer exists, he was justified before God but he fell so he was. He is not in that condition anymore and he is not, he was and he is not that living soul that God formed out of the dust in the ground out of the ashes of the earth and breath the breathe of life into him he was but he is not anymore. Anybody have a problem with that?
And he shall ascend out of the bottomless pit why? How did he get down to the bottomless pit? He was a beast that was and now he is not anymore. What happened to him? He fell into the bottomless pit. The next phrase is he is going to ascend out of the bottomless pit that is why he is not anymore he fell into the bottomless pit.
And what is the bottomless pit? It is this fallen Adamic soul that we just if it is not hindered by the Lord by the mercy of God we just go lower and lower. Human beings just go lower and lower into utter moral condition of a reprobate mind. It is the bottomless pit there is no end to how low you can fall without the restraining mercy of God in your life.
So what is he saying there was a beast. The Lord formed the creation, he was, and he fell into the bottomless pit. Therefore he is not anymore and he has got to come up out of the bottomless pit. He has got to ascend out of the bottomless pit and he is going to go into perdition. He is going to go into doom but he is already dead and when God kills death the person or the spiritual life form dies to what it is he is already dead. The beast, humanity is already dead. It will die a second time to what it is now and it is dying to this condition of death. It will be raised back up into life. When you are alive and you die, you die to that life this is the dying to the existence of death. It is a reversal.
So the beast is ascending out of the bottomless pit and he is going into doom. He is going to be doomed to the life that he lives to the existence that he has now. And they that dwell in the earth that is the many membered of the beast called the living soul and they that dwell on the earth the many members of his existence shall wonder the ones whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world. When they see the beast they are going to wonder.
I have not looked that word up in the Greek but I will just take it as it sounds. They are going to be amazed the ones whose names were not written in the book of the life from the foundation of the world when they see the beast. I will really have to look that up in Greek what I am going to say for now is that the members of the living soul are going to be amazed when by the power of God they look into their own heart and get a good look at this beast.
It says here that the many members of the living soul are going to wonder when they see him and what are they going to see when the man of sin revealed. Can everybody say amen?
The ones whose names were not written in the book of life, carnal men, they are going to wonder when they see that beast that was and is not and yet is. They are going to be amazed at the wickedness of their own souls, Halleluiah. And not only the wickedness of their own souls as they get cleansed and start to ascend they are going to be amazed at the wickedness in men's souls in everybody's souls. We were praying tonight if you recall all I could do is laugh at the prayers that certain people were praying against us. I am amazed that is going to be the reaction when your eyes are opened and you can actually see the workings of this beast you are going to be amazed. He is incredible, he is an incredible beast, he is a wonder but it is a negative wonder. It is just like the scripture says certain scriptures that children went out to play and when I looked at a particular in the account of the making of the golden calf it says the Hebrew children went out to play. If you look up that word in the Hebrew it means to play war games and they played the war games with real weapons people were killed. That is what the word play means.
So here when it says the people are going to wonder, I am telling you they are going to wonder at what they see in the hearts of men. It is going to amaze them but it is going to be a negative amazement and a lot of people that have had their eyes opened in some measure and start to see into the hearts of men some of them get very upset.
A lot of people have some very religious concepts of what it is like to be a true Christian and they think it is all good works and goody goody but I am telling you that is not true because right now the Lord Jesus Christ is intending to clean up this planet and you cannot clean it up if you will not see the dirt. When everybody is all cleaned up, if you want to be goody goody that is fine, but right now this humanity this human race filthy and the church is filthy and the Lord is moving to gather together a company who is going to clean it up and you cannot clean it up if you will not look at it and you will not admit that it there. You have got to look at it without condemnation but it must be looked at.
Brethren, if you have raised children and you have looked away every time they needed to be disciplined what condition will your children be in today. We see families across the nation today whose children have never been disciplined because that is what the parents believe it is the right way to raise them and the children are uncontrollable. Their lives depending on how severe the case is their life can be ruined. They grow up totally undisciplined. They cannot hold a job they cannot get along with anybody. They do not know how to love a woman or love a husband their lives is ruined because their parents did not discipline them.
Brethren the Lord Jesus Christ is in the process of disciplining his church and He is doing it through a company of men. And the sin must be looked at, it must be looked at, and it must be dealt with in Christ. Halleluiah.
COMMENTS: So we have another name the clean up company.
PASTOR VITALE: Someone just said we have another name the clean up company. I relate this to the scripture in Ezekiel where it says and certain men will travel across the land and wherever they see a man's bones they will put a marker on it until the people come to deal with it.
Brethren bone typifies spirit. This scripture is referring to the sons of God that have eyes to see sin wherever it appears. And when they see a man's bone when they see the spirit of a natural man which is sin and it is very state of being, they will expose it. They will mark it and they will leave it, now remember the people that see it are not dealing with it. We cannot deal with the sin, Christ is dealing with the sin. Now He may deal with it through us but it cannot be at our own initiation. We are to see the sin and we are to mark it and leave it for the people for God sends to deal with it. Maybe it is going to be you but maybe it is not going to be you. But right now in this company we are sent to look at it, to see it, to call it what it is and to put a mark on it. It is a spiritual mark that you put on it and what does that mean? it means that once it is marked God must deal with it. God must deal with it to the glory the end of it will be deliverance for the person but if we do not mark it if we sweep it under the rug it will not be dealt with, they will not be delivered.
We must start thinking with the mind of Christ. The carnal wants to cover up but the mind of Christ exposes and bring life out of a destructive characteristics or quality in a human being. Glory to God.
He is going to clean up this church and He is going to clean up this planet He is going to do it and if He is calling you to His company and you will not come He will do it through others but He is going to do it. It is a dirty job it is a dirty job but someone has to do it and if He has called you to it you are one of the people that He wants to do it. And I highly recommend that you do not turn your back on Him. I am not going to prophesy any doom on you but I do know that people prosper the most when they are obedient to God. You were just saying that earlier this evening.
As dirty or distasteful as it appears to be, it will go best for you if you obey God. I am not saying He is going to burn you in hell for ever. I do not believe that but it will be best for you if He has called you to it do it.
You know the ministry He has given me here has many facets to it. I enjoy some facets of this ministry more than I enjoy others. And some of the things that he has given me to do I dislike intensely but I know that I must do whatever He gives me to do. And He gives me to do things sometimes that to the carnal mind appears to be ungodly and that is what bothers me the most and that is pride in me because I want men to think well of me. But all that I can tell you is if He has called you to it, it will be best for you for your own best interest and for the interest of your family and your loved ones to receive the call and to do it. Glory to God.
Well I think we will start with the next category which is evidences of the growth of the spiritual life of God. And the first scripture there is that the spiritual life of God begin in birth and the reference is John 3 verses 3 to 8.
John 3:3-8 Jesus answered and said unto Him verily, verily I say unto thee. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto Him how can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered verily verily I say unto thee. Except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. KJV
Now why can you not enter into the kingdom if God if you are not born of the spirit? If you are not born of the spirit then there is no kingdom of God. To be born of the spirit means to have Christ formed in you. If Christ is not formed in you the kingdom of God is not within you.
So what Jesus is really saying in a mystical way is to enter into the kingdom of God you must have the kingdom of God within you. To have a baby you must be pregnant.
Many things in the scriptures are said in a way that you really need your mind enlighten to understand them because you think you understand it and then you look at it with the mind of Christ and say who would ever thought of that before. Did anyone here ever think of that before? That you cannot see the kingdom of God unless you are born of the spirit because if you are not born of the spirit there is no kingdom of God in you. No one ever thought of it that way before.
It is very common in the scripture you really have to pray about every verse that you read. Ask the Lord what are you talking about?
So we are told there is a kingdom of God. We are told that we must be born again. It is a spiritual experience of Christ being formed in us.
And I just want to review something I think it was Thursday night that we went over it because it really relates to this and it has to do with the scripture not the scripture but the term the body and what I said to you is that when you are a carnal man or a body is a vessel we drew it as a cup. A body is a vessel and it is something that holds liquid and this physical body is the cup that holds the water of our Adamic soul. Does anybody not know that the soul realm is typified by water, does anybody not know that?
The life of the flesh is in the blood. If we puncture this cup our blood runs out and we die because our soul is in our blood, our Adamic soul is in our blood. So it is in a vessel that is containing it, which is our body but when Christ begins to be formed in us He comes forth inside of the Adamic soul.
We have found other scriptures where we are told that the great skin is the carnal mind and the fruit if the grape is Christ. Christ is at the inner most centre of our being and when He comes forth He pushes against the Adamic soul and that is why the fruit of the grape has more more substance to it than the grape skin because as He comes forth He presses against this Adamic soul until eventually it is going to be mostly Christ in there. And just as a thin band of the Adamic soul that is typified as the grape skin why? Because when Christ comes forth He becomes the number one part of our spiritual being. He becomes the primary most important part of our spiritual being and He starts as a mustard seed but eventually He starts pushing the Adamic soul out. And all of a sudden we have two cups. We have a cup which is the body and a cup which is the Adamic soul. The body is holding the water of the Adamic soul well then what do we call the Adamic soul that Christ is inside of? It becomes the body of the Christ, I will say it again.
The physical body is the cup that holds our Adamic soul, the soul of Christ comes forth within the Adamic soul. You cannot say the physical body is the body of Christ because there is something between the body of Christ and the Christ. This physical body is not holding Christ the Adamic soul is holding Christ. Do you know what I am talking about?
The body of Christ is not your physical body it is your Adamic soul and if you check this out in the scriptures pray about it I am telling you that it is true. Check it out I am telling that it is true from the time that Christ that the scripture talks about Christ being formed in you whenever the word body is used it is no longer referring to this physical body. Whenever Paul says body or body of Christ or anything to do with that which contains the spiritual life of Christ he is talking about your Adamic soul.
It is a similar thing if you are a student in the Greek you may have found out that there is something similar has happened with the word temple. That is the beginning of the scriptures every time the word temple is used it is a Greek word that refers to the physical temple which existed in Jerusalem. But after a certain point in the scripture it is a different Greek word that is translated temple and it is a Greek word that means a spiritual temple. It is the same principle it is the same word it is the word that is translated body but when Paul starts dealing with Christ the spiritual life of Christ and when he is talking about a body he is not talking about your physical body he is talking about your Adamic soul. He is talking about your Adamic soul. Any questions on this area? Okay.
COMMENTS: I am glad you said that there is a difference between Christ and the body it is Adam right?
PASTOR VITALE: It is the Adamic soul.
COMMENT: The Adamic soul and when He pushes that Adam out that body is going to be Christ body? Right?
PASTOR VITALE: right.
COMMENT: Because Adam has got to say over this physical what is here until he is done away with is that right?
PASTOR VITALE: I am not sure would you ask me again please.
COMMENT: Did Adam is what you are saying something between Christ and the body.
PASTOR VITALE: and the physical body.
COMMENTS: And the physical body and it is Adam and Adam has got a say over this body right now but he is not going to have a say over it he is not going to be able to appear in it Adam is that right? When Christ pushes out the stronger He gets the more He pushes us out out to the skin what is going to happen? He is going to em
PASTOR VITALE: He is going to go beyond the skin.
COMMENTS: Adam is going to go beyond the skin?
PASTOR VITALE: No Christ is going beyond the skin.
COMMENTS: Because the picture shows it as that Christ is inside pushing outward and that He is coming out to the outside of the body. So is Adam going to I do not know the word for it he is going to be pushed out of the body?
PASTOR VITALE: No he is going to be pushed in, but of course this is not what I was just talking about but I will answer your question. My whole point here I will like you to understand this. My whole point here is that from the time that Christ begins to be formed when the scripture talks about the body it is no longer talking about this physical body. This physical body is the body of the Adamic soul but the body of the soul of Christ is the Adamic soul, Christ is within the Adamic soul. We have this on Thursday night when Paul said when the spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, it will quicken your mortal body and we ask the question well do you have an immortal body? Why will Paul say mortal body? The fact that he said the mortal body must mean that there must be an immortal body. And then we said that he was really talking about the Adamic soul and what he was saying was that if the spirit that dwells in you is dwelling in you, if the spirit that raised Christ from the dead is dwelling in you you now have two souls and your immortal soul which is Christ is going to raise your mortal soul from the dead.
COMMENT: So it is still going to be there it is going to be raised from the dead.
PASTOR VITALE: It is going to be raised from the dead through death. Christ is going to kill it. It is going to be the death of the death and it is going to be raised from the dead.
COMMENTS: So he is not going to be on the outside he is going to be on the inside and he is going to be changed?
PASTOR VITALE: Adam? Yes he is going to look like this. Christ you see first He presses out and He is making the Adamic soul get thinner and thinner and we will put the body back here, the physical body back here and Christ by His spirit is going to vibrate out pass the Adamic body and then after He does that He is going to turn us inside out.
COMMENT: Is that the second death?
PASTOR VITALE: The second death is the death of the Adamic soul but what I am showing you now is the circumcision of the stony heart. He is going to cut Adam away and Christ is going to be on the outside He is going to penetrate Adam. Christ is going to be outside and the physical body and the Adamic soul is going to be on the inside, and Christ is going to be totally in charge of the whole creation that is the circumcision of the stony heart. When Christ goes outside He has to cut out in a way to get outside. Look at the diagram that I gave you it is the second stage of resurrection, the second stage of the resurrection. Did that answer your question?
You were not here for the last meeting do you understand this? Okay
COMMENTS: He is still going to do that with this body then? He is going to come out from around them and he is going to preserve them?
PASTOR VITALE: Well I guess he is going to push on the inside. It is true that He is going to preserve this body but not in the form that He is in now. At the point that Christ comes outside and the body is forced inside this is very important the body which is now a life sustaining member if this body is damaged severely enough we die even if Christ is in the process of being formed in us we will die.
It is now a life sustaining member but at the point of the glorification this is the circumcision of the flesh actually I am sorry this is the third stage of resurrection. It is the circumcision and the slaying of the flesh it is the second and third stage of resurrection. At that point when the body is forced in it becomes the form it is no longer a life sustaining organ and that is very important. It will be the form of the creation but it is being preserved in that sense that it is being forced inwards but it is not being preserved as a life sustaining organ because I use to believe that that this body was going to be glorified and it was still going to be on the outside and it was going to be a permanent life sustaining organ that will not die but that is not true.
The life sustaining organ becomes Christ in the outer realm.
Heaven is coming down to earth. The power and the Spirit of almighty God is going to fill this earth with His life and that is what is going to preserve it and stop everything here from dying. He is going to be present in every area of our world and it will become heaven what is now hell shall be converted to heaven because of the presence of His life. I have one more thing to say because the presence of His life shall permeate every cell of everything that exists in this world system. Human bodies, human minds, furniture, carpets, plants His life is going to be totally and completely joined with it so much so it will be likened to a garment which is dyed. He is going to come down and saturate this whole world system with His life and it will never die.
COMMENTS: So I am thinking that He is going to do what He intended to do from the very beginning that this bodies this animal bodies really belong to Him and He is going to appear and well what He intends to do in the beginning Adam fell and now Adam is in here and now Adam has been pushed out and Christ is coming forth and He is still going to have this body after all. Is that right thinking?
PASTOR VITALE: Adam did it, Adam got inside the animal body and failed to rule it. The horse got on top of Adam and took authority over him and that is typified in Revelations chapter 7 where the harlot is riding on the beast. The creation of God has become the servant of this animal flesh and Christ is coming in and He is doing what Adam failed to do.
COMMENT: When you just explained about Jesus going to permeate, is that going to be call the new earth?
PASTOR VITALE: It is the new earth which has a name it is called heaven, Halleluiah.
COMMENTS: The sum is to have the full understanding of that of the harlot riding the beast. It is much better than to try to read that without the understanding. It is like the carnal mind takes hold that and it is like what is this talking about? But you know the understanding is just much more beautiful the real understanding about it.
PASTOR VITALE: You cannot try to understand this with your carnal mind, it must the scripture must be perverted if you are trying to understand it with your carnal mind. That is why especially when it comes to prophesy it is best to just leave it alone if it is not God giving it to you but that is one of the biggest problems of the carnal mind as I could see it. Or the carnal mind of the Christian is that he just does not want to wait for God he wants to press it and he wants to understand everything. And you know if God is not giving you the understanding then your carnal mind is giving you the understanding and especially in the areas of prophesy. It has been a disaster in the church because the carnal Christian under an anointing of God can preach on faith and the message of the cross and the love of God there has been topics given to the carnal Christians to preach. There is this fear that God has anointed them to preach it but they go beyond their bounds and they do not understand that they have no authority in this area and they preach error. Do you have any question? Halleluiah.
Okay it is just one tape an hour and twenty seven minutes so I think we will make our short night tonight. Anybody else have a question before we turn the microphone over to XXXX? Anybody else have a question?
DA
26/05/10
