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Ephesians 2,"And you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins. Wherein in time past, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved. And hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
That in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. For by grace, ye are saved, through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works let any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Wherefore remember that ye being in time past gentiles in the flesh who are called the Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands. That at that time, ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world.
But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace who hath made both one and hath broken down the partition of the middle wall between us. Having abolished in His flesh, the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances. For to make in himself of twain, one new man, so making peace. And that He might reconcile both unto God, in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. And came and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh. For through Him, we both have access by one spirit unto the Father.
Now therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God. And are built upon the foundation of the apostle and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord. In whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the spirit." Praise the Lord.
Before we start, I would like to make a comment on Ephesians 1. We are not doing this as a series, I am making each chapter a different number. I really do not know if the Lord will let us go through the whole book of Ephesians or not. In a prior tape called "Ephesians Chapter 1," in verse 19 where it says, "To usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power," I listened to the tape, and I do not think that I made it clear that, that mighty power is specifically the power that will raise us from the dead.
As we listen to that tape, as you review that tape, you will hear that I say, "God has mercy and kindness for everybody in the world. God is no respecter of persons, He will judge sin, every sin shall have its just recompense, but God loves the whole world. He died for the whole world. To those who believe, is the mighty working of His power to be raised from the dead."
To be raised from the dead, you must believe. What must you believe? We found out in the last message that what you have to believe is the message or the Gospel of Truth. It does not say that you have to believe the Gospel of the Cross. It does not say you have to believe the story or the truth about what happened to Jesus on the cross. You have to believe the truth that will set you free. What is that?
It is the spiritual truth of your condition. To be raised from the dead, you have to know that you are dead. If you think that the resurrection of the dead means this body after it dies, you will not be raised from the dead because that is not the truth. That is a lie. The resurrection of the dead is of your dead human spirit.
When your human spirit is raised from the dead, it will quicken your mortal body which is your soul. You shall ascend, and the Lord shall meet you in the air and forever you shall be with the Lord. I just wanted to make that point. The might power of the Lord towards usward is to those who believe, and it is the power that will raise us from the dead.
Brethren, that power that is going to raise us from the dead, it is not coming from outer space. It is not coming from out there, it is not coming from your pastor, it is not coming from me. There is nothing I could do brethren, Christ is going to raise you from the dead. In this hour, He is doing it in a different way than He did it when Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth. Why? Because when Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth, He was giving signs and wonders that were attesting to the glory and the power of God. He was giving visible signs that would build your faith and help you to believe.
In this hour, what are we doing that is different from what He did? Does anybody know? We are going to be doing the greater works. He said we are going to be doing greater works than He did. That means there has to be something different about what we are doing than what He did. It has got to be just a shade different. It is all the power of God, one spirit, different administrations. There has got to be a shade different.
What He did, let me repeat, let me make that clear, He raised people from the dead, and they died again. He raised them from the dead, they lived another 20 or 30 years and then they died.
Jesus Christ is the only one that was glorified, He is the only one that was raised from the dead, and ascended into the heavenlies. Paul was raised from the dead, and he could not die, he was offered up. They could not have killed him any more than they could have killed Jesus of Nazareth. We found out that Lazarus was raised to full stature too and probably John, but they all died. Why, because they were born out of season. This is the season now for men to be raised from the dead. That means, it could be just a little different technique, and this is the difference in the technique:
When Jesus raised those men from the dead, the power came from the outside. It came from the man, Jesus of Nazareth. Just like you are used to being healed, and power in a man will go on someone and heal him. That is how they were raised from the dead. It is not happening that way this time. They way it is happening this time is that the power is going inside of you, like a mustard seed. It must engraft in your soul, and you will be raised from the dead from the dynamo that is going to be born in you. You are not going to be raised from the dead because a man outside of you is going to lay hands on you.
You are going to be raised from the dead, because Christ is going to be revealed in you and the great mighty power that He has given to you. You will be raised from the dead from the inside out, spirit first, then your soul, and then your body. Spirit, soul, and body not body, soul, and spirit. Amen? Okay. Glory to God.
Let us try this chapter 2. Let me just go over, I keep bouncing back. I am sorry. Let me just go over Verses 22 and 23 of Chapter 1.
"And He hath put all things under his feet, and gave him the head over all," he is the head over all, spirit, soul and body, "to the Church which is His body," he has given the Church which is His body, "the fullness of Him that filleth all in all." The fullness, that is what He has given. It is given to Him, and it is given the Church which is His body, the fullness of the Spirit of God, which filleth all in all.
"And you hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." Those words, "hath he quickened" are not in the original Greek. The Scripture says, "And you who were dead in trespasses and sins." The word "trespasses" is Strong's #3900, and it means a lapse or deviation from truth and uprightness. It means a misdeed. Brethren, a trespass is going too far, it is crossing over the line. It is talking about something that up to a certain point is acceptable, and then you cross over the line, and it becomes a trespass.
We know that people own private property, if you go on their property without permission, you are trespassing. We are property, we are property.
Brethren, if you touch God's anointed, you are a trespasser. If you go beyond your authority, you touch God's anointed, you are a trespasser. If you judge before the time, you are a trespasser. You have gone beyond your limits, you have gone too far. Sin, on the other hand, is a missing of the mark. It is a lack of being perfect. Sin is a lack of being perfect. The entire creation is lost in sin. Why? Because Adam, our original ancestor, fell and in him we all fell into sin.
Sin is our state of being. If it were possible, which it is not, if it were possible for us to never do a sinful thing or think a sinful thought, which is impossible, but if it were possible, we would still be sinners. Why, because of our condition.
Let me remind you of our condition, brethren. This is the hour of truth, the truth is going to set you free, brethren. This is our condition, this is the condition of every fallen man. Satan has caused you to appear in this world system. He has joined with Eve, which is the female seed of God, who was waiting to be fertilized by the Father. Satan got there first. In order to appear in this world system, there must be a father, a mother, and an offspring. What is the name of the offspring over here?
COMMENTS: The carnal mind.
PASTOR VITALE: The carnal mind. That is your condition. If you are a human being as we know human beings today, if you are not in the condition that Jesus of Nazareth was in, this is your condition. If it were possible for you to never think a sinful thought, you are still a sinner.
This unholy union must be broken up like a leg that is broken and knitted together in the wrong form, in the wrong order. It has got to be broken up and you have to be changed. It is called conversion. This is what you are being changed to. The Father is going to be the male in your mind. He is going to form a union with His female seed, Eve. What is the name of the offspring?
COMMENTS: Christ.
PASTOR VITALE: Until you could say that every thought, word, and deed that you think, speak, and do is coming out of the mind of Christ, brethren, you sin. You sin by existing in this condition. The fact that you have a carnal mind that is not totally controlled by Christ makes you a sinner. Does anybody not know what I am talking about?
There is now no more condemnation in Christ Jesus. Before you had Christ, this was a condemnation unto death, but there is now no more condemnation in Christ Jesus. Let the truth set you free. For a season you will have two minds. This mind, let this mind that was in Christ be in you.
Why would you want this mind that was in Christ to be in you? He has a work to do. Do you think He is here to give you words of knowledge? Do you think He is here to prophecy so that you can be a great one in the Church? Brethren, the mind of Christ is given unto us to slay the enmity in our flesh, known as the carnal mind. That is why He is given unto us. Why is the Holy Spirit given unto us? So we can receive Christ. We receive the Holy Spirit so that we can receive Christ. We receive Christ so that we can kill the enmity in our flesh, brethren.
As we will find out as we go on in this chapter, there are two minds. The Scripture says that of the two minds that are in you, pick any man, in the man, Jesus of Nazareth...let us deal with that first. What the man, Jesus of Nazareth, did was, of these two minds, He made one new mind. We are going to see it, we are going to talk about it in this chapter. He made one new mind.
It is much clearer in the Interlinear than it is in the King James. It says, He made His two minds into one new mind in Him. The name of that new mind is the creation of God. It abolished death, rendered it powerless.
He did not cast it out, brethren, but took total authority over it, crushed it, suffocated it, and dismantled it. We are told in one of the Epistles of Peter, that it was melted down. What does that mean? It means that all these three elements were forced to separate. It cannot work anymore, brethren. It is like if someone wants to stop a car from going, what do you do? You take the distributor cap and hide, you take something out of the car. It is not going to work anymore, brethren. Until it is dismantled, you are still a sinner, under grace.
A sinner under grace, what does that mean? It means that you are a sinner, and your nature is sin, but you have been granted, you have been given the free gift of Christ, which is power to overcome sin. Jesus called it the "talent." He said, I am going to give you a talent, I am going to give you silver. A talent is silver. I am going to give you something valuable. What are you going to do with it?
The man that hid the talent, Christ, under the earth of his carnal mind, Jesus said, "You are going to lose even that which you had." If you had the Holy Spirit, you are going to lose it. If you have Christ, and you do not use it, brethren, you are going to lose it.
If you do not use it for what? If you do not use it, if you do not exercise it. If you do not use it to make real the Scripture in your life that sin shall not have dominion over you, because you are wielding the power of Christ. If you do not wield it brethren, you are going to lose it. I am not here tonight to frighten you. You are not going to burn in hell forever, but if you do not use it, you are going to lose it. If you do not use your muscles, you lose them. You have to exercise what you have. Does Paul not talk about exercising unto righteousness? He talks about exercising your senses to discern good from evil. If you do not use it, you are going to lose it.
Jesus said, "Either you are for me or against me." Either you go forward in Christ, either He increases in you, and your carnal mind decreases or Christ dies. Yes, Christ in an individual can die. Christ, in general, is going to appear in this creation. He is going to take over this whole creation. The Scripture talks about menstrous rags. If He does not appear in you, the Scripture says, "If Christ does not appear in you in full stature, you are a menstrous rag."
What does that mean? You are a spiritual egg that has not produced an offspring, and you will go out as a woman's menstrual cycle, an egg that is wasted. That does not mean that He is not going to appear, it means He is not going to appear in you.
Again, I am not here to frighten you, but you must hear the truth because the truth is not being preached today. God has picked me to tell you the truth and I tell you the truth. I encourage you to open your hearts and receive the word of the Lord, because in the truth is salvation. That is what Jesus said, "The truth is going to set you free." It is a wonderful message. It is a wonderful, glorious message of liberty in Christ Jesus, but there is a warfare to be fought.
There is a false doctrine in the Church today, brethren, and it is saying that you do not have to fight, that Jesus is going to do everything, and it is not true. Jesus has done everything in that He has given you power. Power that will enable you to overcome all of the power of the enemy when you fight.
If you fight, you cannot be destroyed. If it is taking you a while to gather up your strength in Christ. If it looks like you are going to be destroyed, even though you have been serving God, I do not care what it looks like, brethren, the Lord will save you from death, time and time and time again until you are built up enough in Christ to start taking the victory in Christ.
He knows your heart. Do not look at people's exterior. Do not look at the jobs they have, and do not look at their condition in this world and make a judgment that you are okay, and they are not, or that they are okay and you are not. Do not believe things the way they look. The way things look are very deceiving. There are a lot of people who are standing, who are not going to be standing in the hour of the final shaking. There are many people that the Church is condemning that are going to be exalted in the hour of the appearance of Christ. We must fight.
There is a false doctrine in the Church that says we are puppets, that says we are robots, that we do nothing and that Jesus and Satan are having it out. It is not true. It is not true, it is a lie. We are very active participants in this warfare. The truth is that Satan is our unconscious mind, so either we are serving Christ, or we are serving Satan. We are not infantile robots that are doing nothing. Either Christ is being revealed through you or fallen Adam, ruled by Satan, is being revealed through you.
Are you going to pick up the gauntlet of Christ and start to influence and start to affect, who is being revealed through you? Are you going to start to taking control over your own life and start making some choices about whether it is Satan's personality in the form of the carnal mind, or whether it is Christ that is being revealed through you.
Brethren, if you do not do anything, it is the carnal mind being revealed through you. If you do not do anything, it is your carnal mind being revealed through you. I am not talking about physical works. The end time warfare is in the mind. In the mind.
I am not knocking anybody that does good works. It is a wonderful thing to do good works. God will bless you for it, you will reap what you sow. We are down to the nitty gritty. It is the end of all things, brethren. We are at the end of the age. It is time to have our mind converted. Everybody was born with the carnal mind.
We were all born with the mark of the beast, you already have it. It is not a question of running away from the tattoo guys or the guillotine. It is a question of getting the mind of Christ sealed on your mind in place of the mind of the beast, the seal of the beast which you were born with.
We are talking about the thoughts of the mind. We are talking about denying the thoughts of the carnal mind and replacing them with the corresponding thought or reaction of Christ. That requires an ability to recognize who is thinking through your mind. If you cannot do it, He will help you to do it. Just tell Him that you hear the word, and you want the ability to do it. He will do it. Do not let fear stop you from fighting the war. There are a lot of believers, lovely people, but they are so scared that they think or their carnal mind convinces them, if they do not fight then Jesus is going to save them. Brethren, it is not true.
You have to fight. He is going to push you out of the nest. You have got to fly, you cannot be a robot, you cannot be a zombie, you cannot be passive. You have to press in. If you fight, you will win. If you fight you will win. Just make the effort, He will not let you be destroyed. You must recognize that sin is thoughts in your mind, and that you are responsible for what you think, not just for what you say.
Our God tries the motives and the intents of a man's heart. If He perceives it to be the carnal mind, He wants you to know it, and He will reveal it to you. He requires you to say, "Lord, I did not know, help me to recognize it." He is not condemning you, no one is condemning you.
You are in training to discern between good and evil. The Scripture clearly states that this is a sign of maturity, those whose mind is exercised so that they can discern between good and evil. The good is Christ and the evil is the carnal mind. Sometimes, the carnal mind does good works. The Lord still wants us to discern between Christ and the carnal mind.
Eve was deceived at the beginning of time, she thought it was the Father coming to her, but it was not. The woman was deceived. Brethren, if you are living in your carnal mind, you shall be deceived. You want to know how it is possible for the very elect to be deceived, some of the very elect still listen to their carnal mind.
Stability, safety, deliverance, protection is in Christ. We must live out of His mind. We must identify the thoughts of the carnal mind and slay them. The moment they manifest, slay them with the Word of Christ. That is the challenge. He will help you to do it. He will help you to do it. He is telling you about it, because He wants to help you to do it. If you are feeling fear, if you are manifesting fear, I rebuke it in the name of Jesus. The Lord is going to bring you through but denying it is not the answer. It is time to face it. There is sin in our mind.
If our reaction to this is fear, it is just our carnal mind keeping us from the message. Jesus is full well able to slay the enmity in your flesh, but we must separate from that enmity. What is our flesh? It is our mind. We must separate from the enmity in our own mind for Him to slay it. If the wheat and the tares are together and the Lord slays it, He will kill Christ, as well as He will kill the carnal mind. You can kill Christ in an individual. You cannot kill Christ, the glorified Spirit of Jesus Christ. As He is a seedling in a human being, He can be destroyed in that human being.
There must be a separation between the carnal mind and Christ. This is called Sanctification. It is the coming out of the world. Some people think that sanctification is stopping fornicating, and stopping drinking, and stopping smoking, and stopping carousing, and things like that. They think it is coming out of worldly activities.
Some people get into very religious bondage. They think sanctification has to do with the way you dress and whether or not you wear make up, whether or not you dance, but that is not sanctification, brethren. Why? Because the world is in our mind. The world is inside of us as well as outside of us.
Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You expend all this effort cleaning the cup and the outside of the cup and the platter, but inside of you, you are dead men's bones." What He was saying was that the dead bones that are inside of you is your human spirit that has not been raised from the dead. What good is all of this religious activity that makes you look holy, but inside your human spirit is still dead, the bones of Christ in you are still dead. The bones that Ezekiel prophesied to. Then he said, "Oh bones, live again." There are bones in all of us, the bones of Christ that must arise again.
No matter how religious or how holy you look like on the outside, brethren, it is not doing you any good if your human spirit is not being quickened. Everyone that speaks in tongues does not have a human spirit that has been quickened. It is not true. The Holy Spirit flows over you and through you, and His work is to quicken your human spirit, but it does not happen to everybody.
Brethren, I know people that speak in tongues and their human spirit has not been quickened. Glory to God. God wants to quicken your human spirit. He wants to do it. He wants to raise you from the dead. It is His purpose, it is His intention, it is His desire. That is why He is raising up people to preach the truth to you.
The reaction of the carnal mind when they hear this message is usually fear, "Am not going to make it, I will never be able to do it." That is your carnal mind cutting you off from the life that the Lord wants to impart to you. You must take dominion over him. You must take dominion over him. If you are having trouble recognizing your carnal mind, then the Lord will send someone to point it out and say to you, " That was your carnal mind." There is no condemnation in that either, it is helping you to recognize it. Glory to God.
We were on Verse 1, "Who were dead in trespasses and sins." Brethren, we are all dead, the whole creation is dead. We are in the process of being raised from the dead, but we are all dead. To be carnally minded is death. The whole creation, everyone except the man, Jesus of Nazareth, and as I mentioned earlier, Paul and probably John, were the only ones who were not carnally minded. Everyone else is dead. We are striving, fighting to be raised from the dead. We are that man that is laying on the ground, and the emergency ambulance runs over and puts the, whatever they call it, that instrument on your heart, that pounds your heart to raise you from the dead.
We are in that process right now, but because to God one day, one day to God is like a thousand years to man, it is taking all of these years. Do you know that it is only the third day since the creation died? Do you know that? That it is only the third day since the creation died. That is not so long to raise somebody from the dead. He waited four days to, was it not four days that He waited to raise Lazarus? Four days?
It is not that long, but it is long to us, because we are trapped down here in eternal torment. It is pretty painful down here, but God is going as fast as He can go. We fell down brethren. We fell down, the earth separated and we fell down into the pit alive. Hallelujah.
Verse 2, "Wherein in time past, ye walked according to the course of this world." Again, the world is in your mind. This Scripture is talking about the world in your mind, that is the carnal mind. You walked according to the thinking of this world. Brethren, no matter what is going on outside, you could be living in the most reprobate, sinful, city that ever lived, there is no way that you could be tempted to join it, or join it's activities, if the mind that produced all of this reprobate activity was not also in you. If Jesus could say, "Let this mind that was in Christ Jesus be in you," Satan could say, "Let this mind that is in fallen adam be in you."
It is the fallen mind in you that is tempted by the external activities. Jesus said, "Satan cometh, and he had nothing in me." I was in old order deliverance or five years, and it was always preached He had no demons. It is much deeper than that. His carnal mind was paralyzed, incapable of functioning, totally controlled by the Christ, incapable of sin, He had become a servant of the Christ.
Why would the Christ need the carnal mind to be a servant to Him? The elements of the carnal mind contribute to the formation of this flesh. He was never meant to have any existence of His own. The carnal mind, Satan was never meant to have an existence of their own. They are part of the elements that are making the invisible God, visible.
Jesus had a carnal mind that He inherited from His mother Mary. It was not living its own existence, it was serving the Christ. It had nothing to say, it was silent in the Church. It did not teach its husband, who was Christ, in the man, Jesus.
You want to know how a preacher can be the husband of one wife when it is a female preacher? Brethren, there is no male or female in Christ Jesus. If it is Christ preaching through you, you are a man, and your one wife is your carnal mind. To be the husband of one wife means that you are not double-minded. You have one carnal mind, and she is in submission to you because if your carnal mind is not in submission to you, you cannot preach by Christ.
If your carnal mind is talking in the Church when you are trying to preach, you know what that means? It means she is trying to preach while you are preaching. The problem is you just have one mouth. If your wife is talking in the Church, that means every other sentence that you say is Christ and every other sentence is your carnal mind. The woman should be silent in the Church.
Neither can a carnally-minded person teach the man. The man is wherever Christ is appearing. The woman is wherever the carnal mind is appearing. Brethren, open up your brain.
Really, it is ridiculous, to think that if you have a man and a woman in a room, and the man just came to the Lord a week ago, that he is more qualified to preach than a woman who has been studying for twenty years. That is a religious bondage, a literal interpretation of the Word that will kill you. The letter killeth. Brethren, that is why large elements of the world reject Christianity. They listen to some of the things we say, it just does not make any sense, and they walk away.
Of course, what I just talked about is not active in marriage. Marriage is a physical relationship. The man is the head. The man is the head in the marriage. The man is the head of the woman in the marriage. Hallelujah. We are talking about spiritual things here. Glory to God.
"Wherein in time past, you walked according to the course of this world..." According to your carnal mind. "...according to the prince of the power of the air..." Satan, who is the head of your carnal mind. Check this out, you walked according to this world. Your carnal mind and you walked according to the prince of the power of the air. It is like saying if you are in Christ, you walk according to Christ and the Father. Christ and the Father. The carnal mind and Satan, the world and the prince of the power of the air.
"Who is the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." In the children of disobedience. Brethren, even if you speak in tongues, there are Christians everywhere, yielding to their carnal mind. Jesus calls them the children of disobedience.
It is time to find out that we are the children of the Kingdom. Jesus has much to tell us, but people cannot bear it. The Christians cannot bear it. The hour is come that He is starting to force feed us. He is picking, He is selecting people, and He is not letting them say "No" to Him, because it is time to get pushed out of the nest. It is time to grow up.
Brethren, do you know I have personally been in several services where the man of God has made an announcement that the Lord just spoke to him. The man of God said, "The Lord just said to me, let the children pray." They called all the little children in the church, up to pray for the people that were really desperate for prayer.
Brethren, we are the children of the Kingdom. The children in the service are not physical children but those members of the congregation in whom Christ is being formed and is now a little child. It does not mean the physical children. I was present in a service once, where a person was greatly distressed, they were in great need of prayer and for that service, the pastor had the twelve year old children praying. The man was almost in tears.
We must start to understand these Scriptures with the mind of Christ, or we shall die in our sins. The resurrection of the dead is in the Mind of Christ being imparted to us and our living out of it. We must change our thinking. That thinking must line up with Christ if we are to rise from the dead.
Verse 3, "Among whom also we all had our conversation in time past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath." There it is in the Scripture. Lots of people get upset with me when I say that Satan has generated us, and that Christ is an invading spiritual force which is entering into another man's labors.
Satan has brought forth this whole world system. He has brought forth these physical bodies. This is all Satan's labor. Jesus Christ is taking it over. We are by nature the children of wrath and then when Christ comes to us, He starts to give us His mind.
We are Satan's children, brethren. You are in the image of Satan, and that is why we must be adopted. We are bastards. We are the offspring of Eve, the Father's wife and Satan. The Father God is adopting His beloved bastard children, that is us. "Among whom also we have had our conversation..." Our lifestyle. "...in time past, in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires of our flesh."
We have lived in the lusts of our flesh, and we have yielded to it, "and also the lusts of the mind." The difference between the flesh and the mind? The flesh is Strong's #4561, and it is talking about what can be stripped off the bones. That is referring to physical appetites, appetites of the body. They are to be resisted, brethren, they are to be controlled by Christ.
Whatever your bodily appetite is, it is not to rule you. Even in marriage, you are not to be ruled by your sexual desires, but the mind of Christ is to rule your sexual desires and to channel it through love for your wife or for your husband. We are not wild animals, we are the creation of God. The body is not for yourselves, it is for the Lord. We are not as the animals, that we are to be ruled by our flesh. For what God has said is legal and the marriage bed is undefiled, it is to be under the control of Christ in you. What does that mean?
It means that the act of sex in marriage is not to punish, it is not to control, it is not to hurt. It is supposed to be an expression of love between two people. It is not supposed to be a tranquilizer because you had a bad day at the office. That is not what it is supposed to be. If you are using it for those purposes, it is idolatry and it is sin. You do not hear that taught much either.
We have desires of the flesh and desires of the mind. The mind is Strong's #1271. It is speaking about the faculty of feeling , understanding, desiring. We are comparing the desires of the body, the desires of the flesh to the desires of the mind.
There is lust of the mind, lust for power, lust for domination, lust for wealth. Lust of the mind in any people is much stronger than lust of the flesh. A lot of people have that flesh pretty much under control, but their mind is constantly lusting for what their brother has, for their brother's wife, for their brother's job, for their brother's position, for their brother's gifts. Lust, lust, lust, lust. It is to be resisted.
Verse 4, "But God who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us," that is pretty clear. God is rich in mercy, and He loves us with a great love. That is the whole world, brethren. God loves the whole world. He died for the whole world. I have one real problem with the God who died for the whole world and said, "If your brother hits you, turn the other cheek" and "Bless those that hate you and pray for those who despitefully use you." I have a real big problem believing that, that God is casting unlimited multitudes into a torturous existence forever. I have one real problem with that, brethren. I really find that to be a contradiction.
I believe the Scripture states that every sin shall have its just recompense, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand. That is not a just recompense to reject Christ, to make a mistake and a temporal condition of this lifetime in the condition of our fallen minds, and to burn forever without recourse in torment. That is not an eye for an eye, brethren. That is not a just recompense. It cannot be.
Verse 5, "Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved." We are dead in our sins, and while we were yet dead in our sins, He has quickened us together with Christ. How does He quicken us together with Christ? Let us just go over that briefly. We really have to start to understand these things, brethren. I hope you realize that I draw these diagrams differently from time to time because I am trying to make a point. Actually, nothing that I draw is accurate because I do not know what it looks like, I am just trying to give you an example.
He has quickened us together with Christ. We did this at the last meeting. I would like you to make an exhibit on this for me, remind me to talk to you about it. This is what we look like in our carnal mind. We have a human spirit, she is in here. She is joined to Satan and the carnal mind, she is the harlot. She is in a condition of spiritual white slavery. She cannot get free. She is involved in a continuos spiritual adultery. Christ comes into her life, and now she has two minds. She is double minded and unstable in all her ways.
Remember that Eve is the harlot, the human spirit is the harlot, and she is now in Christ as well as in the carnal mind. How do I know that? Because the Holy Spirit came in and joined with her female parts even while she is married to Satan and has a child, the carnal mind. The Holy Spirit came right in, into her fertile parts, and now she is joined to Satan and the carnal mind as well as the Father and Christ.
She is a harlot, she has two children. She has the child of the bond woman which is the carnal mind, and she has the child of promise which is Christ. She is the harlot. She goes with whoever approaches her, she is the girl that cannot say "no." There is a song like that, do you know that song? There is a song like that. "I am just a girl who cannot say no." Right? Is that how it goes? She cannot say "no," so there are two men in her life, and she has produced a child from both of them.
Brethren, it is all over our country today. I saw a 15 year old girl on TV not too long ago, she had 3 children from 3 different men, two of which men were first cousins. I want to tell you something, I bless that girl and I pray for her salvation, but she is a harlot. You know that is a dirty word in this country today. You are not supposed to say bad things about people.
I want to tell you something, she is a harlot. I do not condemn her for it. I say repent and receive the grace of God and clean up your act. That is a harlot, 3 children for 3 different men, 2 of which are first cousins, passing you around, that is what a harlot is. The word is in the dictionary, it has to mean something. Nobody is allowed to say bad things today.
Let me read you the Scripture again, "We are quickened together with Christ." This is how we are quickened together with Christ. That part of our human spirit that is in Christ is being raised from the dead. This is a process and little by little, Lord willing, if the plan is going properly, Eve is being drawn out of the carnal mind and drawn deeper and deeper into Christ. The deeper Eve is into Christ, the more you are living out of your Christ mind.
In that last moment, in that last day, Christ is going to rise up. He is flames of fire, and He is going to shoot great flames of fire all over this carnal mind. Whatever of Eve is left in here is going to get out. She is going to be completely in Christ, and the carnal mind is going to be cast into the Lake of Fire and destroyed.
This is how we are quickened together with Christ. Our human spirit is believing into Him. "He who believeth in me shall never die." Look it up in the Greek, "He who believeth into me." He who believeth to the point that their human spirit starts to reach out towards Christ shall never die. Why? Because you will transfer into Christ, and you shall be raised from the dead and forever you shall be with the Lord. Hallelujah.
We are quickened together with Christ. "By grace ye are saved." We are saved by grace and what is grace? It has been taught to you it is unmerited favor. What is the unmerited favor that God has given us? When that was first taught to me, I said, "That sounds nice, grace is unmerited favor," but I never really...what does it mean? He is going to give me a car? What does it mean? I need a job and He is going to give me a job? No. What He has given us that we do not deserve, brethren, is Christ. We do not deserve Him. The Scripture says that they hated Him and if He is in you, they are going to hate you. He is hated wherever He appears.
We found out when we did Daniel 7 that He is called the despised little horn. He is hated wherever the carnal mind perceives His difference from them. Wherever He is manifesting and He is perceived to be different than the carnal minds of men, He is hated. The grace that is saving us is that Christ has been given to us when we do not deserve it. We prove it over and over and over again that we do not deserve it, because typically man and Christians alike reject Him over and over and over and over again. If it is Christ that is being rejected, He goes back and He goes back and He goes back, and He does not stop going back until His love wins them over. Amen.
Reconcile that for me with Him casting you into hell forever. Brethren, it is not rational. It is a doctrine that has come from the fallen mind of man. I am telling you right now, everyone that is hearing this message is called to the ministry of the Son, but do not expect them to love you. Expect to be hated. Expect to be misunderstood. Expect to be lied about. Expect Christ, the love of God, to prevail over every onslaught that they will attack you with but not in a day.
You have to labor with them. You labor with them while they are hating you, while they are calling you names, while they are thinking evil of you, while they are saying that the power on you is witchcraft and not Christ. When you are loving them, the love of God will prevail over the lie.
Verse 6, "And hath raised up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." This is pretty much saying what I have just talked about. We have been raised up in that our human spirit has been raised up. On this board I drew it side-by-side, but the scriptural principle is that the carnal mind is low and Christ is high. As we enter into Christ, we are being raised up.
Ask God to help you to understand this in a spiritual way. I am putting it on the board, but this is carnal. We are talking about spiritual things. Ask God the Lord to help you. I just pray for them all Father, that you help them translate it into the spiritual and not be stuck down here on this board, on this 1-dimensional board.
We have been raised up because our human spirit entered into Christ. That is how we are raised up. We have been raised up together with Christ, we are being absorbed into Christ and made to sit together in heavenly places with Him. Remember, Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, so we are made to partake of His being at the right hand of the Father. That is how we are sitting together in the heavenly place which is Christ Jesus.
Verse 7, "That in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus." Just recently, I said to somebody, I probably said it on a tape, I was not even sure that there was going to be more than one age. We know that Jesus is the new age, but I checked this out in the Greek and that is plural, ages.
To the best of my knowledge, all that I could tell you is that Jesus is the next age, and the age after that must be the age that we enter into the glorified creation, after Jesus puts down every enemy under foot, even the last enemy which is death, and then He offers up the creation to the Father. The Father shall be all in all, that is the glorification.
Apparently, my understanding now is that the scripture is referring to that as another age which sounds right.
"That in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus." As I just said, we are going to be raised up to full stature, and we are going to be glorified. That word "exceeding" is Strong's #5235. It means "to throw over" or "to go beyond anything." It is going to be beyond anything the carnal mind could accomplish or could imagine. The riches, the spiritual riches that He is promising us is beyond anything that the carnal mind could possibly give us or probably even think of or imagine. It is beyond what we could think of.
We have many discussions here, people tend to get upset about what is going to happen to them in the next life. They think they are going to be missing something. The carnal mind thinks it is going to be losing something. Everybody is worried that their life is not going to be carried over, that it is not going to be worthwhile or valid.
I have been telling you all along, I do not have very many details, but it has got to be better than this. It has got to be better than this. It has got to be better than the very most that the most blessed person in this world could hope to achieve if they were born into the richest family with the greatest intelligence and had the best education. What Jesus has for us has to be better than that. I do not have any more details right now. You are not going to lose anything, brethren. You are going to increase.
Verse 8, "For by grace ye are saved, through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." We are saved by the free gift which is Christ Jesus through faith. We have to believe in Him. We are saved by what Christ Jesus has imparted to the whole world, but only those that believe through faith are going to inherit the promise. Brethren, it has got to come down from the realm of the spirit, and it has to be made real in your heart. It has got to be made real in your mind, or you have not inherited it.
Brethren, if you have a rich uncle and he left you 10 million dollars, and the lawyer cannot locate you, what good is it doing you?
I read a story about that once. Some woman died in poverty, I think it was her son had left her...she was a wealthy woman. He had left her all kinds of money. The lawyers were sending her letter after letter, and she could not read. She was just stuffing the letters under her bed. She was living in total poverty. When she died they came in, they found her dead, and they saw the letters, and they contacted the lawyers. She was a multi-millionaire.
Brethren, this inheritance is not doing you any good unless it starts to grow inside of you. I am sorry to shock you, but it is not doing you any more good than it is doing the unbeliever that is out there in all kinds of sin if it is not growing inside of you. All of your religious works are worthless. I do not care how good you look, I do not care how nice you sing, I do not care how well you preach. I do not care how much knowledge you have.
Do not go quoting me scriptures. I know people that quote me whole chapters of the Scripture. It does not matter, brethren. Is Christ controlling your life, or is He not controlling your life?
Do not quote me scriptures, do not show me your dove pins, do not show me how much you know, I am not impressed. Let me see the power of God move through you. That is the only thing that impresses me. Let us see the power, let us see Christ coming through you.
Do not take me wrong. If you are doing good works, I am not knocking it, but you reach a point where you must go beyond. Your good works are not wasted. You are going to reap what you sow. It is going to reap blessings in your life. Brethren, if the Lord permit, let us go on to perfection. We cannot enter into perfection with good works.
Up unto the time that God has not granted you permission to go on to perfection, and the very best that you could do is good works, He is just blessing you over and over and over. He is still going to bless you as you become of age, but He is going to start getting a little tough with you if you cannot quite understand what He is saying to you. If He says to you, "Come on, let us go on to perfection, I want things to change a little," and you can understand it and you go with Him, fine. If you cannot understand Him, which most people cannot, He has got to give you a little nudge here or there. Sometimes, it is very unpleasant, but He is saving your life. He is saving your life, it is the love of God that is saying, "Come on, come on."
In times past, God spoke through the prophets but, in this day, He is speaking through the Son. He is speaking through the Son. Very soon, the first fruits company will stand up in full stature, and you must be able to recognize that it is Christ in them. If you do not, you are going to lose your contact with God, because He is going to be speaking through the Son. You must learn to recognize it. Time is short. Do not panic, just pray. Be fearless. Be fearless in the face of any evil that Satan could do to you, just ask God to help you. Tell Him you hear the message and you want it. You cannot do anymore than that. Jesus.
"For by grace ye are saved." You have the Christ Jesus without in any way deserving it, forget it. All of us in our carnal minds are killers of God, haters of God, but He gave us Christ Jesus anyway. Through faith, through believing in Him, we are going to be saved. Not of ourselves, brethren, it is the gift of God. Not of yourselves, brethren, it is the gift of God. Let he who thinks he is standing, beware lest he fall. Brethren, no man stands by himself. It is God that keeps us from falling. If it looks to you like one man is not falling and another man is, be careful that you do not judge out of your carnal mind. Do not be deceived by what you see.
I want to tell you a hard word. Everything I tell you is a hard word. I want to tell you something. Do you know that God is capable of keeping a man standing, a man that may not deserve to be kept standing? A man that is in sin, that is in outright sin, God will keep him standing, because that man has the necessary qualities to maintain a ministry that is feeding and blessing and caring for thousands of people. You look at that man and you say, "Does he not have it together. He is standing and I am not."
I want to tell you that he is going to be standing until God takes care of everyone of those people under him, and then his hour is going to come for God to deal with his sin. We will see how long he stands. Do you hear what I am saying? God sets men up, and He puts men down. No man stands himself up, do not believe it, do not believe it. You hear me, do not believe it.
Verse 9, "It is not of works lest any man should boast." It is not of works lest any man should boast. Brethren, God help us, it is all over the Church world. "He did not do it, he did not make it." Brethren, you have to do the best you can. I am not promoting weakness, but there is such a thing as being overcome. There is such a thing as being overcome. There is a false doctrine in the Church that says that someone who keeps slipping and falling and floundering is doing it because there is something missing or lacking in them. It may be true but it may not be true. You have to be very careful who you are saying that about.
If it is not true of them, you have judged out of your carnal mind, and you will surely reap what you have sown. It is witchcraft, and you have condemned those for whom Christ has died. I never hear it preached. I hear it preached that there are backsliders. I have never heard it preached that some people are overcome, that they have weaknesses that are so strong that they keep being overcome until Christ gets there with the emergency unit and shores them up. I have had dreams where He sends people with the ambulance.
Everybody that comes to Christ, does not come to Christ in the same spiritual condition. Some people come to Christ, and they are standing, they just need a little help. Some people come to Christ, and they are half-dead. It takes the Lord longer to fix up the people that were half-dead when they came to Christ than it takes Him to fix up the people that were really pretty much standing when they came. There is no basis of comparison here, brethren.
Verse 10, "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in Him." For we are His workmanship, that is the work of His hands, created in Christ Jesus. This word "created" is Strong's #2936, and it means, "to found a city." I want to suggest to you, what this is really saying is that we are His workmanship, the ones in which He has placed His foundation. The ones in which He has placed his foundation.
Brethren, we have a moth-eaten foundation that has brought us into existence. It is more moth-eaten in some people than in others. Some people are standing on that foundation in this world. There are plenty of people that do not believe and are standing on that foundation, but it is a foundation of sand. We have people in the Church whose foundation is utterly rotted through and corrupted, and every time they try to walk, their foot goes through the rotted plank of wood.
Jesus is giving a new foundation, both to the one whose planks are rotted and the ones whose planks are still whole. Why? Because the day is coming that no matter how whole your wood planks are that you are walking on, they are going to collapse. Jesus is the new foundation. If you are slipping and sliding a little bit, just hang on, He is building His foundation in you.
For we are His workmanship, His work in whom He is placing the foundation of Himself, and that is His good work towards us which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Walk in what? Walk in the good works of Christ after He builds His new foundation in us that is not rotten so that our legs do not go through the rotted wood. The wood is all going to burn up. When the fire of Christ comes into this physical world, everything that is of wood is going to burn up. Only the golden foundation of Christ will stand.
Verse 11, "Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past, Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands." The circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that is talking about the circumcision which is made by men. It is talking about the physical circumcision of the physical man. Paul is talking about the Jews here, and he said that the Jews are calling you or calling us the uncircumcision. That is what they call us, brethren, meaning the ones that are not in a covenant relationship with God. That is what they say. I have an ongoing dialogue with a Hassidic Rabbi, and that is what he tells me. He tells me it is not the Spirit of God, it is a deception, it is another spirit. You are not in a covenant relationship with God. That is what they believe. They are calling us the uncircumcision, the uncovenanted ones.
"Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past, Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands. That at that time, ye were without Christ..." Your flesh was not circumcised, and you were also without Christ. "...being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel." That word "commonwealth" is Strong's #4174, and it means "citizenship." You were not a citizen of the nation of Israel, and you were "strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world."
Please note that the word, "covenants" is plural. God has made several covenants with man. He made a covenant with Noah, He made a covenant with Abraham, He made a covenant with Jacob. God is a covenant-making God, hallelujah. Before we came into covenant with Him, we were strangers from that covenant. Because we were not in covenant relationship with the Lord, we had no hope. No hope of what? No hope of being raised from the dead or raised...listen to me, brethren, no hope of being raised out of this cycle, this endless cycle of birth and death through our offspring. Through our offspring, through our offspring.
When we bring children into the world, we are birthing them into this continuous, endless, cycle of birth and death. Through our children, we reproduce ourselves, and we continue in this endless cycle of birth and death through our offspring. We had no hope of being delivered from that. We were "without God in the world." We said here earlier that God has mercy on the world. Yes, God has mercy on the world but, brethren, the world does not have access to the throne. They do not have access to the throne. The Lord may answer someone's prayer, and He may not. He is a sovereign God.
We have access to the throne if we are in right standing with Him, He hears our prayers. That is how we can intercede for the world. We have an "in" with God, and it is the truth. The closer your walk with the Lord and the more consecrated your walk with the Lord, the more in a position you are to help people, because that is the closer that you are to the Father. If you really want to help other people, the best thing you could do is clean up your own act and do whatever you have to do to get as close to God as you could possibly be so that your prayers have power. Why? Because you are at the right hand of the Father. Brethren, everybody is not equally close to the Father. If you believe that, you believe a lie, it is not true. Hallelujah.
Verse 13, "But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." Through Christ Jesus, brethren. It does not say through the Holy Spirit, check it out. "But now in Christ Jesus," that is the engrafted word, that is the Christ that is being formed in you through Him. "Ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." Hallelujah.
Verse 14, "For He is our peace, who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us." "For He is our peace," brethren, this is a largely misquoted scripture. Jesus is our peace, He is our peace between us and the Father. Brethren, we were at enmity, we are in many areas...if you are not completely converted, if you are not in full stature, there are still areas in your thought patterns that are at enmity with God. Man is at war with God. Fallen man is in rebellious warfare continuously towards God.
Jesus Christ is our peace, if we bring every thought and every imagination into captivity. If we try every thought and slay every thought that is of the carnal mind, and we live out of our Christ mind, there has been made peace between us and the Father. When you are at peace with God, you will be at peace with all men. You cannot have peace with men, unless you are at peace with the Father. Why? Because if you do not have peace with the Father, it means you are thinking out of your carnal mind, and your carnal mind is a warmonger. Not only towards, God but towards other men. Amen. The peace is with God.
"For He is our peace, who hath made both one," what does that mean? What both has He made one? Anybody?
COMMENTS: (Inaudible).
PASTOR VITALE: Amen. He has laid hold of the warmonger that is in your mind, and He has slain it with Himself. Jesus Christ the nail, Jesus Christ the needle, Jesus Christ the sharp piercing instrument, Jesus Christ the sword. He has penetrated your carnal mind (Lord willing) and of the two minds, He has made one glorified mind. That is the promise. He did it in the man Jesus, and He wants to do it in you. Your carnal mind is fighting Him every step of the way, but He is going to do it anyway because He is God. He is going to do it anyway.
The more rebellious you are and the more prideful you are, it may take Him a little longer, but He will get you. He will get you, because He loves you. He loves you, and He knows your weaknesses. He knows your failings, and He knows your fears. He is going to get you. Hallelujah.
"For He is our peace, who hath made both minds." Out of the 2 minds, He has made one mind, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. This word "broken" is Strong's #3089. It can be translated, "to loose any person or thing that has been tied up, to unbind or release from bonds, to set free, to discharge from prison." Who is in prison, brethren?
COMMENTS: We are.
PASTOR VITALE: What part of us is in prison? Eve is in prison. Amen.
"To dissolve," what is being dissolved, somebody? The carnal mind, Satan and Eve are being broken apart, they are being dissolved. "To reduce to constituent parts," the carnal mind is being broken down to the basic building blocks which is Satan, the carnal mind and Eve. "To melt," remember Peter's exhortation that our carnal mind is being melted with great heat which is Christ. "To dissolve, to put off or to open the seal of a book," you may recognize that scripture from the early chapters of the book of Revelation.
He hath broken down the middle wall, He has dissolved, He has set someone free, He has broken down to the constituent parts, the middle wall of partition, brethren, that which is between us and God? What is between us and God? The carnal mind. The carnal mind. That which He has broken down, that which He has broken into pieces, that which He has dissolved, that one which He has set free, that one that is killing us, is the carnal mind.
It is the carnal mind that is called the middle wall of partition. The carnal mind has separated us from God because we are at enmity with God in our minds. Not in our Christ mind, but in the fallen mind, in the carnal mind. He has broken down, Glory to God, He has dissolved it already in the man Jesus, and it is just a matter of time until He does it in you.
Verse 15, "Having abolished in His flesh, the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances." "Having abolished in His flesh." This word "abolished" is Strong's #2673, and it means "to render idle or unemployed, to put to an end, to annul." He has abolished that which is in His flesh that is enmity. Enmity against who? Enmity against God. Brethren, this is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not tell me He did not have a carnal mind. He inherited a carnal mind from His mother, Mary, but He did not live by it. He lived by Christ.
If you want to bring it down to a level where we can understand it, right here in this world, in this existence, right where it is, brethren, you do not live by your body. You do not do what your body tells you to do, the Christ, or even if you do not have Christ, just your upbringing, your moral, decent upbringing knows that there are things you do not do, and you restrain yourself. Jesus, on a much higher level, restrained His carnal mind totally. He paralyzed it, crushed it, refused to let it influence Him in anyway.
Jesus had a carnal mind, it is right here in the book of Ephesians. He had an enmity in His flesh, but He abolished it, He annulled, He made it unemployed, He rendered it idle and powerless, it could not function.
"Even the law of commandments contained in the ordinances." The law of commandments, brethren, is in the carnal mind. I am not going to spend too much time on that right now. We found it in the book of Revelation. The law is for the fallen man, because a Godly man that is capable of keeping the law does not need a law. Paul said that the law is not for a righteous man, the law is for the fallen man. When he is talking about the ordinances and the law of commandments, he is again speaking about the carnal mind.
The law is for the carnally-minded man, because the carnally minded man is a criminal, spiritual criminal. No matter how good his life looks, no matter how good his works are, brethren, every pastor or preacher in the pulpit today is a spiritual criminal until we are totally converted and living only out of Christ, God sees us as spiritual criminals. Brethren, we have to get our act together. We have to start seeing things the way God sees them.
God sees all of us as spiritual criminals, but He has had mercy on us. That is why it is so ludicrous for someone who is doing well in this world to look down on someone that is not doing well. I do not care how well you are doing, you are just as much a spiritual criminal as the guy that robbed the bank. People have trouble understanding that. It is like the "pot calling the kettle black." It is just a matter of degree. Did you ever hear that saying in the world? Years ago, they used to kid around with a woman and say, "Would you prostitute yourself for a million dollars?" She would say, "Oh well, for a million dollars." They would say, "Well now, we are just arguing price."
Does anyone not know what I am talking about? Brethren, everybody is a sinner. You could be a million dollar sinner, or you could be a low down sinner, for lack of a better word. Everybody is a sinner, I do not care how much you look like you have got it together, you are just arguing price. You are a prostitute, we are all spiritual prostitutes, we are all in adultery, we are all manifestations of the harlot. Some of us are high class prostitutes, and some of us are street walkers. That is the way it is. Just arguing price.
He abolished the enmity in His flesh, do not tell me He did not have a carnal mind. It is right there. He abolished the law of commandments, which was applied to that enmity in His flesh. How did He abolish the law of commandments? He killed the carnal mind. The law was one with the carnal mind. He slew the enmity, and when He slew the enmity, He slew the law.
Brethren, the whole Church world goes around saying, "I am not under the law, I am under grace." What an error, brethren, what an error.
You are under the law for every second and every thought that you think out of your carnal mind. You are under the law. There is no law in Christ Jesus. The law is abolished when the enmity in your flesh is slain. We have been delivered from the law that the Jews were under, the Levitical sacrifices, the law of Moses, we have been delivered from that. We are under the law of the Holy Spirit, who will convict you of your sins. Our sacrifice now is not a bullock, but it is the Lord Jesus Christ.
You are not without law, brethren. The only one that is without law is a righteous man, and no one is righteous so you are all under the law. Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind and your soul and love your brother as you would love yourself." No one is doing that today and judgments are falling, and the Church world is calling it Satan. It is not Satan, it is the judgments of God, because we are not righteous.
"Having abolished in His flesh the enmity," I just want to read you that from the Interlinear. The Interlinear says, "Having broken the enmity in the flesh of Him." There is no doubt in the Interlinear. He broke the enmity in the flesh of Him. I am sorry, He abolished the enmity in the flesh of Him. In His own flesh. He also abolished the law of commandments that went along with the carnal mind. "For to make in Himself of twain," twain meaning two, of the two minds, He made within Himself, "one new man, so making peace."
Peace, brethren, is in the destruction of your carnal mind. The Interlinear says that out of the two minds, He created into Himself, one new man. He had two minds just like we do, brethren. He had a carnal mind, and He had a Christ mind, and because He did it, because He totally overtook His carnal mind and slew it, we too shall do it.
Someone asked me today, I think it was today, about that Scripture that says, "As He is in this world, so are we." What does that mean, brethren? I have not checked it out in the Greek, but probably the tenses are wrong. The tenses are wrong very frequently in the King James.
What it is saying is, "As He was in the world, so are we." He had a carnal mind, and He had a Christ mind. He had to wage a warfare. As He was in this world, the experience that He had in this world is the experience we are having. It is not preached that way. It is not preached that way, but I want to tell you something, brethren. I rebuke all religious spirits here, what a glorious, wonderful message, that as He was in this world, so are we. That He was just a man, and that God gave Him two minds. By the strength of Christ, He slew His carnal mind.
Because He did it, that means we are going to do it too. How can you relate to someone that did not have this battle? How can you relate to someone that was just born perfect? As He was in this world, so are we.
The peace is through the destruction of your carnal mind. "For to make in Himself of twain, one new man, so making peace" with God. There will be no peace until your carnal mind is destroyed. There is an element in the Church that is saying, "Your carnal mind has had a really rough life, start being kind to your carnal mind, be nice to it." There is an element in the Church preaching this. Brethren, you could be destroyed if you fall for that.
Your carnal mind is a raging, venomous, wild, angry, beast. If you do not come out fighting, he is going to swallow you up like the wolf in Red Riding Hood. If you come out swinging, you will have David's victory. God wants to give you David's victory, it is His good pleasure to give you David's victory. You have got to fight, you have got to fight. You have to press in, you have got to do it, and He will drag you through. Glory to God.
Verse 16, "That He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross." That He might reconcile what? That He might reconcile both, both of what? Brethren, that He might reconcile both minds unto God. He had two minds, and He reconciled them both unto God in one body. It says, "by the cross," but the Interlinear says, I believe it says, "in the cross." Brethren, there are two minds that both want to use your body. They want to use your members. They want to think through you, they want to speak through you, they want to do through you.
We have two minds, and the only peace, the only reconciliation, is through the slaying of your carnal mind. That is what Jesus did in His own humanity, in His own vessel, the man Jesus of Nazareth. He reconciled the both minds unto God. What does that mean? He brought both minds into submission to God, Christ already being in submission. He brought both minds, He brought the carnal mind in the same position, down on its knees before the Father, thus bringing reconciliation.
There is no peace, brethren, without defeating your carnal mind. Do not be Saul. Do not be Saul. God spoke to Saul, He said, "Kill every man, woman, and child, and every animal and beast." When they came back from the battle, the Scripture says that Samuel said he could hear the bleating of goats and the lowing of cattle, and his heart fell within him, because he knew that Saul did not obey God. He was tempted by the spoil. He wanted the riches. How could you destroy something so beautiful? Did not want to throw out or did not want to lose the cursed piece of jewelry.
Samuel said, "What are you doing here? You brought back the king alive, you brought back the people, you brought back the cattle." Saul says, "I am going to bring it to make sacrifice unto the Lord." Does that not sound good? He brought back the king in chains, totally submissive, he brought back all the cattle to make sacrifice to the Lord. Somebody's carnal mind says, "Look at that Samuel, rebuking him. What is wrong with that Samuel calling Saul wicked and telling him that he did not do right by God. Does that Samuel not appreciate anything? Look at how badly he is treating that man." Watch your carnal mind, brethren, watch your carnal mind.
God said, "Kill every man, woman, child and animal." Do not look at the way things look. Jesus said, "I judge no man." Does that not sound like a contradiction to you, "I judge no man, but yet if I judge, I judge righteous judgment." What is He talking about? He said, "I judge no man out of my carnal mind, but if I do judge, believe it, it is out of Christ." That is what He said. That is what He said. Hallelujah.
Verse 17, I guess I did not finish Verse 16, "And that He might reconcile both unto God in one body..." That is His body that was raised from the dead, "...by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." Is that clear? He reconciled the two in one body by slaying the carnal mind.
Verse 17, "And came and preached peace to you which were afar off and to them that were nigh." Check this out. After He slew the enmity in His flesh which was when He was raised from the dead, He came and preached peace to you. How did He preach peace to you? He was raised from the dead, and He ascended back unto the Father. How did He come and preach peace to you after the ascension? Anybody?
He preached through the apostles. He preached through the apostles. Christ speaks through men. Some men preach, and it is their carnal mind, but Christ has been preaching through selected men for 2000 years. "He who denies that Christ has come in the flesh is an anti-Christ." Christ is preaching today, and He is challenging us to discern between the preacher that is preaching Christ and the preacher that is preaching anti-Christ. Anti-Christ means "instead of Christ." It is talking about the carnal mind.
Sometimes that is not too hard. What is really hard is when you get a preacher that sometimes they preach out of Christ, and sometimes they preach out of anti-Christ. That is a real challenge.
God is challenging us to discern the spirit each and every time. To not be afraid but to put things we are taught before God and get a second witness from Him. Hallelujah. "And came and preached peace to you." Now, the Church world will tell you He preached peace, the worldly kind of peace. No, the peace that Christ preaches is the peace that comes through the destruction of your carnal mind. Can anybody not see that?
Listen to this. He reconciled the two minds in one body on the cross, Verse 16, slaying the enmity in His flesh, and after He rose from the dead and ascended, He came and He preached the peace of His cross to the Gentiles and to the Jews, those who were far off and those who were near.
Brethren, He is preaching the peace of His cross. When Christ preaches, He is preaching the destruction of your carnal mind. Any other message of peace is a lie. It is a message of peace that is not from Christ. If they are preaching peace through the rapture, it is not Christ. If they are preaching peace through whatever means they are preaching. There is only one way to achieve peace, your carnal mind must die. Any other message about peace is a message that is a doctrine that has come forth from the carnal minds of men. If you receive it and, you count on it, you will surely die in your sins.
Verse 18, "For through Him, we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father." For through Christ both the Jew and the Gentile have access by one Spirit." What Spirit? What spirit, somebody, what spirit, anybody? No? Spirit of Christ. Through the Spirit of Christ, both the Jew and the Gentile have access to the Father. Hallelujah.
Verse 19, "Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God." Now therefore ye are, the Gentiles, are no more strangers or foreigners. They are no more without a covenant with God, but they are fellow citizens of spiritual Israel, with all of the saints, that are both from natural Israel and from spiritual Israel, that are of the household of God, in Christ. If Christ is being formed in you, you are of the household of God.
"And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone." Brethren, His life in you is the new foundation for the New Jerusalem to be built in you. We just recently did these verses in a recent message so I do not want to take too much time on it. I will remind you that the man Jesus Christ of Nazareth was the sum total of every experience that Christ had, had in the flesh to date. We know that two of those experiences were Elijah and Moses that appeared with Him on the Mount of Transfiguration.
If Jesus Christ of Nazareth was the sum total of every experience that Christ had, had in the flesh to date and the spiritual life of Jesus, the glorified life of Christ is now in you as a foundation, every experience that Christ has had in the flesh as an apostle or as a prophet is resident in the mind of Christ in you for you to draw upon.
I am going to say it again. Every experience that Christ has had in the flesh to date, every apostle that He was in, every prophet that He was in, was in the man Jesus of Nazareth, who was glorified and who is now in you.
All of the wisdom and all of the experience, and every good thing that was in their life is available to you. You just have to pierce into it. It is inside of us. It is like a balloon that is inside of us with life. We have to get inside that balloon or burst the balloon and let it go through our whole being. That is how we are being built. "And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets." We are being built upon that foundation, because all of their experiences in Christ are in us, we just have to tap in.
"Jesus Christ Himself being the chief of the corner." I will just remind you of this briefly. The chief of the corner, the head of the corner. The Lord has shown us that the natural man is an earth man who dwells along the line of the earth, and he keeps going round and round and round in circles. His deliverance or his resurrection is to go up. He has to stop going round and round and round. Because he is down here in eternal torment, to get out he has got to go up.
The way that he is going to go up is that the Lord who is up here in heaven has descended. He has come down and He has met the earth at a right angle. This is Christ, He has joined Himself in your mind to the earth of your carnal mind, and He has formed a right triangle.
I know the Church world tells you that the triangle looks like this, but it is not true. The triangle of the spiritual man is the right triangle. When you have a right triangle, this is called the angle. The angle is on the inside of the intersection of the two lines. The outside of the intersection of the two lines is called the corner. Jesus Christ is the head of the corner. He is the God of the spiritual man and of the earth man. He is the God of the Christ mind, and He is the God of the carnal mind. He is the head of the corner. He is the head of the two-souled man.
Brethren, the carnal mind is not your head. If you have Christ, your carnal mind is not your head. If you have Christ, you are a spiritual man. If your wife is leading you around by the nose, you better stand up and start acting like a man. The carnal mind is not the head of the spiritual man. You whip that thing into shape.
"In whom all the building..." What building? The New Jerusalem. "...fitly framed together groweth unto an Holy Temple in the Lord." Brethren, as we, each of us, get into Christ, the more we get into Christ in our own heart, the more He is going to fit us together in our own heart as human beings in the body of Christ. Everybody has a place. God is in control of everybody's life. He knows where He wants you. He knows who He wants your friends to be. He knows what He is doing with you.
A lot of us today are not where God wants us because we are really not responding to Him, we are just doing our own thing. We have a lot of problems in our life, and we think it is Satan but lots of the time, it is just the Lord saying, "I never told you to go that way, get back, get back." It is like a horse-back rider kicking his horse, "Go to the left, you are going the wrong way."
"In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an Holy Temple in the Lord. In whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit." Brethren, I will just say this, I am not going to spend much time on that. I will say this, the temple of God is our fallen adamic soul. The Spirit of God dwells in a temple and it is our soul. It is not this body. The whole human race is one in the realm of the soul.
We know that we are the body of Christ, and we are joined in the Spirit. In the soul realm, it is the same thing.
Paul said that it is a great mystery but a man and his wife they are one flesh. This whole human race is joined in the realm of the soul. When everybody that is in Christ brings their soul into submission, that fallen adamic soul is going to be the temple of God, and it is going to be a house for the Spirit. That is what this Scripture is talking about. "In whom all the building fitly framed together..." Talking about souls now, not bodies, bodies are not fitly framed together but souls are. "...into an Holy Temple in the Lord. In whom ye also are builded together..." In the soul. "...for a habitation of God through the Spirit."
All of our spirits will be joined. "For he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." If you are joined to the Lord, and your spirit is Christ, and my spirit is Christ, and you are joined to the Lord and your spirit is Christ, we all have one spirit. When that spirit brings that soul into submission, we all going to have one... when the rebellion is put down, and the soul is serving Christ, we are all going to be one in the soul realm also. Everything is going to in order.
I just wanted to take one minute here to read you what the Lord had given us in this last message on the same verses. I guess it is on verse 22, "And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone." The word "stone" when applied to Jesus is speaking about His function as the first building block as the body of Christ.
What does this mean? I am suggesting to you, brethren, that these scriptures are speaking about the spiritual life of Christ which has had many experiences in the flesh, two of which we know are Elijah and Moses, which wove Himself together with the carnal mind which was in the man Jesus.
He thus became the seed, or the zygote, or the first cell of the creation of God. He is the only one to date that is in the very image of the Father. Paul was, but Paul was offered up. Paul does not exist anymore. He is the only one, Jesus, that is in the very image of the Father. He is the first cell of the body of Christ. A drop of Him is in each of us, and He is absorbing us into Himself.
The Concordant Greek text says that Jesus was the extreme corner or the first human vessel in which the spiritual life of Christ which had already had many experiences in the flesh of the apostles and the prophets of God, that life was laid into Jesus. He was the first man that, that life was laid into, or connected to, or woven together with the carnal mind of the man in which He was appearing. Let me say that one more time.
There is an existence, a spiritual life of Christ that has appeared in many apostles and many prophets. All of those experiences appeared, the sum total of them, appeared in the man Jesus of Nazareth. Just like as we have a life experience today, we are the sum total of every experience that we have had to date. The man, Jesus of Nazareth, was the sum total of every experience Christ had, had in the flesh of every apostle and every prophet. The man Jesus was the first man in which that mind of Christ was woven together with the carnal mind.
In all of the prophets, in all of the apostles, Christ appeared, but the carnal mind was not joined to Christ. In the man, Jesus of Nazareth, the carnal mind was joined to Christ. Therefore, He is the first stone, He is the first building block of the body of Christ, of a company of men whose carnal minds will be, not only suppressed and paralyzed, but woven together with the mind of Christ. Hallelujah. Any questions?
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