The Following Message Has Been Transcribed For
Clarity, Continuity Of Thought, And Punctuation By
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We will have some questions and answers tonight. Thank you Jesus. Anybody have a question they would like to ask on anything? Would you please take the microphone XXXXX. Make sure it is on.
COMMENT: Matthew 17:20, It says "I tell you the truth, you have faith as small as a mustard seed. You can say to this mountain move from here to there and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." Can you help me to understand it?
PASTOR VITALE: OK. What chapter did you say it was again? Matthew?
COMMENT: Matthew 17, Verse 20, 22.
PASTOR VITALE: Matthew 17, Verse 20. And Jesus said unto them, "because of your unbelief." Oh, they are talking about why they could not cast the demon out. Now Jesus is saying, "because of your unbelief, for verily I say unto you, if you have the faith as a grain of a mustard seed you shall say unto this mountain, remove hence ye onto yonder place." OK. Let us take it as we go. Well, let us back up to verse.... just for the people listening to the tape.
Let us back up to Verse 18. "And Jesus rebuked the devil, and he departed out of him, and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said, "Why could we not cast him out?" And Jesus said, "Because of your unbelief." That is a very good question. That is a very good question, because this is a very misunderstood area in the church.
What Jesus was saying to them.... well let me start with this. I will put it on the board for you. What is belief? What is belief? What we commonly hear taught in the church is that if you believe with your carnal mind.
And what is your carnal mind? Your carnal mind is the mind you are born with. It does not.... I am not saying anything bad about you when I say you have a carnal mind. Everybody was born with a carnal mind. And most people do not get the mind of Christ until, at least, they are several years old. The average person, when they are an adult. So when I talk about your carnal mind, I am not insulting you in anyway. It is just your humanity, that is all it is.
So most people who read this Scripture think that if you believe with your humanity, it is going to give you spiritual power. But that is not what Jesus is saying. What He was saying is this circle is your carnal mind. When the mind of Christ comes on to you, you have to believe with the mind of Christ. There is something inside of your carnal mind. Do you know what it is? Anybody? What is inside your carnal mind that has the ability to believe? Your spirit. The human spirit.
There is a spirit in man, and when this spirit reaches out beyond the mind that it is born with, and reaches into Jesus, when you believe into Him, it is a literal transition of your....let me say it to you this way. Your spirit can come out of your body. Do you know that? Spirit can go outside your body. So we are trapped in this mind, and all of humanity is trapped in this mind. And Jesus is saying, "Now there is another mind available to you."
And that which is in you is really you. This body is not really you, your personality is not really you. You are spirit, you are really spirit, and your spirit originally came out of God. Your spirit originally came out of God, and it is trapped in your body because you are fallen. The creation fell, and Jesus is saying, "Forget your body, forget your carnal mind." But when the spirit that is in you responds to Christ, when you believe to such a degree that you take up residence, your spirit vibrates out of your mind and enters into Christ. When you believe into Christ, you will have spiritual power. Do you understand what I said?
So we have a church world that is all into mind control and positive thinking, because they read this Scripture, and they think it means that if they walk around saying, "I believe, I believe, I believe," it is going to give them spiritual power, but it is not true.
And I remember when I first came to the Lord. I was dying, I was sick unto the point of death, and I would have done anything that anyone in the church told me to do to get well. And one night, the church I was going to brought in a visiting minister from the south, and she would preach, and she would pass out in the spirit when she was preaching. And everybody would run up and touch her, because they were told that there was such a heavy anointing on her that if she passed out, if you touched her you got healed.
And what did I know? I was a young disciple. I rose up every time she was slain in the spirit. I would charge....I wanted to get healed. I was desperate, I was dying and I knew it. I went charging to the front of the church, and I touched her. I did not know it was idolatry. It is idolatry, if you do not know that.
Who is the healer? Christ is the healer. Amen. And the pastor of that church who brought her in, and it was the deacons of the church that had a meeting, and called him and said, "If your bring that person back into the church again, you should know that not one of them were present." So, in this instance, there was a pastor who was not fulfilling his responsibility to Christ, because what did I know? He subjected his whole congregation to that, and he will have to answer to God for it.
But let us go on with this study. So Jesus said, you could not cast out the demon because your belief in me was not mature enough to the point that you pierced into my life. Because our life is where? It is in Christ. There is a Scripture that says our life is in Christ. Our healing is in Christ. Our spiritual power over every devil and circumstance that is trying to destroy us is in Christ. We can believe with our carnal mind for a hundred years, and there is no power in it. There is no power of God in it. You have to get into Christ.
And we have a Scripture in the book of Revelation where Jesus is saying, "And those who pierce me shall see me." And the church world preaches that those who crucify Him will see Him. No. Those who pierce into His life shall see with His eyes and shall see Him as He is. Do you understand what I am talking about?
So you have to believe with the mind of Christ. Jesus said, "You could not cast him out because you were believing with your carnal mind." Now I want to tell you, I have been preaching this here for five years. I could tell you, I could come to you right now and say, "I know that you want deliverance or, in particular, I believe it, I believe God has the power to cast it out of you. I believe all power and authority is in Christ," and I could go lay hands on you, and that thing may come out, and that thing may not come out.
So you have to be believing with the mind of Christ. And before you can believe with the mind of Christ, first He has to start to grow in your heart. And then after He starts to grow in your heart, you have to....your spirit has to rise up out of your carnal mind which is a jail. Your carnal mind is a spiritual jail. This whole creation is fallen. We are all in a spiritual jail. So your true reality, which is your spirit, has to rise up when Christ calls to it, and Christ is calling to you right now to go forth and pierce into His life. That is where your help is.
See, He said to His disciples, "You could not cast them out because you were trying to do it with your carnal mind. For verily I say unto you. If you have the faith as a grain of a mustard seed, ye shall".... well let us stop right there.
There is another Scripture that says the what is as a grain of a mustard seed? Anybody know? What is as a grain of a mustard seed? The kingdom of God is as a grain of a mustard seed. So the Scripture is a big jigsaw puzzle. When the Lord starts talking like that, if you want to study, you can go into your concordance and see what else the Lord had to say about a mustard seed. Well, in another place He said the mustard seed symbolizes the kingdom of God.
So let me stop here just to say this. Did you know that Jesus spoke in parables? Did you know that? Jesus spoke in parables. Parables are stories. You know what a parable is? You know what a parable is? OK. Jesus spoke in parables. He was answering the disciples' questions with a parable. So first He says, "You could not do it because you did not believe." And then He says "If you have the faith of the kingdom of God." A grain of mustard seed is the kingdom of God." And that is what I just told you. You could not cast it out because of you unbelief, but if you had the mind of Christ....Are you following me?
COMMENT: If their spirit was risen up.
PASTOR VITALE: Right, and if it entered into the mind of Christ, you could have done it. That is what He is telling them. That is what I just put on the board, but it is in a parable form. So He says, "If you have the faith of a grain of mustard seed, or if you have the faith as the kingdom of God, you shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place." Now a mountain in the Scripture, if you are talking about spiritual things, is talking about.... does anyone know what a mountain symbolizes? It symbolizes a spiritual.... did you want to answer? Well, it is not just a mountain in general. It typifies the people.
We are told in Revelation 21, that John was taken to that New Holy Jerusalem, and it was in a high and glorious mountain. So mountains typify nations. So Jesus is saying, "If you have the grain of mustard seed which is the kingdom of God, you are going to say unto this nation." And who is the nation? It is the nation, it is the carnal mind, the demons in the carnal mind. He is saying, "If you have the kingdom of God, you will say unto the carnal mind, remove to yonder place." You will say, "Come out." That is what He is saying to the demon, to the nation that does not belong in the mind of God's people. He said, "If you do it with the mind of Christ, you will say, 'Come out,' and it shall come out. It shall remove, it shall come out. And nothing shall be impossible unto you if you have the mind of Christ. If you have pierced into the mind of Christ, and your prayer is coming out of the mind of Christ, nothing shall be impossible unto you."
Verse 21. "How be it this kind not goeth out but by prayer and fasting." So we find a lot of people in the church fasting from food and reading the Bible. But I want to tell you that God honors that, God honors everything that we do when that is all that we know to do. But there is a depth of this Word in which is power, the like of which is not known unto man. The like of which...that there is power available that the natural man has never seen. It is the power of God. It is greater than the power of any witchcraft found anywhere in the world, Africa or otherwise.
COMMENT: Is that a revelation?
PASTOR VITALE: Pardon me? Please put it the microphone. Where is the microphone. Because people are listening.... I think it is right there, by you. People need to hear your questions.
COMMENT: I said, was that a revelation?
PASTOR VITALE: What do you mean, what I just said to you? That God has power? Well, yes it is a revelation. God has great power, greater than any power existing in the earth. The power of God is the greatest power in the universe.
So Jesus said, "This kind goeth out, but by prayer and fasting." Now, we see in the church that we have demons being cast out....by two different sources of power. We find in the church, the natural man whose heart is carnal, which that is no crime, that is how you are born, his heart is carnal, and he comes to the Lord, and he hears this message, and he believes it, and he is in a church were the pastor is casting out the demons, and there is an anointing on that church to cast out demons, and he goes up, and he tries, and he prays, and the demon comes out.
And we call that Old Order deliverance. A man who has a carnal mind, but who has heard this message and believes God, and the Lord honors his prayer when he rebukes a demon and he tells it to come out.
And we have a second kind of man in the church. A man, who has the seed of God engrafted, a man who has the mind of Christ, who goes to cast out that demon, because the Father, who is in the mind of Christ, has sent him to cast it out. So Jesus says, "This kind comes out only by the man who is in Christ." How do I get that? By prayer and fasting. The true prayer is by communication with God, that He is giving you instructions to do it. This kind only comes out because the Lord has communicated with you, and you have communicated with the Lord, and there has been specific instruction from God to go cast this demon out.
"And by fasting." Now the Scripture, nowhere says that the only kind of fast is from food. If you do a study in the Scripture, it is very clear there are many kinds of fasting. Fasting is an affliction to your soul. It means depriving yourself of something that gives you comfort. Food is not the only thing that gives you comfort. And I want to tell you, I have done a deep study on this, and that what Jesus is talking about here was the New Order man who was in continuous prayer.
There is a Scripture that says, "Pray without ceasing," who is in continuous prayer, therefore, an open channel to receive the instruction of the Lord, and he was fasting from this soulish realm. He gave up the pleasures of this life to serve God. And there will be certain demons... the man with the carnal mind and some faith in God, from his carnal mind can cast out, but some demons are too tough for the carnally- minded man with some faith in God. There is more power needed.
And if the person has that kind of demon like....did you read about the Gadarene demoniac? Do you know about him? There is a man in the Bible, they call him the Gadarene demoniac. He was so demonized that we are told that he lived in the tombs with the dead people. He was naked, he ran around naked, and he used to cut himself with stones. He was suicidal.
Now a man like this is not likely to get deliverance from a carnally-minded Christian who is trying to do a good work. That kind of a problem only comes out by prayer, continuous communication and instruction from the Lord, and a person who is fasting from the soulish pleasures of this world, and has given his entire... made a commitment, committed his life..entire life to God. That is what He is saying.
And I have to tell you that I have seen very dedicated deliverance workers who are carnal men fast for forty days, sit there reading a Bible during the deliverance, and sometimes they come out, and sometimes they do not. But this kind only comes out through the servant of the Lord who has given up the pleasures of this world and is spending so much time with Christ, that such a large portion of his spirit abides in the mind of Christ that, that power is flowing through him.
PASTOR VITALE: Praise the Lord. Did I answer your question? Anybody else have a question? We are doing questions and answers tonight.
COMMENT: I have a question. I was thinking about something in the car. I do not understand why this is so. I mean, they used to say that demons are fallen angels, and we had an understanding that they could move outside of time because they were not trapped always within a human body. I still have the understanding that they are not bound to a human body, and I do not understand why....I would think that anything that surpasses the realm of time should be God, but knowing that evil spirits can travel through the spirit, like, for instance, if my mind rose up and attacked somebody, it could emanate from me, those spirits, and attack that person if they are on the other side of the world. I do not understand why that evil....if we were trapped in the realm of time because of our evilness, why can our evil still emanate? Do you understand my question?
PASTOR VITALE: If we are trapped in the realm of time. In other words, if you are saying the evil that is in fallen man, if God has bound it up, how come it still has that authority to travel beyond the realm of time?
COMMENT: Yes, and I am thinking anything that is not bound to time should just be God's realm.
PASTOR VITALE: Well, the answer to that question is that.....I understand what you are saying, and maybe the Lord will give me the words to make it clearer to you as I talk. They really are still bound by time. We have a spiritual realm of the soul, and they travel, and they move in the unconscious mind. The soul realm, which is fallen, is this visible world we see, but there is also an unseen world in this fallen world, and that is where they are. They are not....OK, let me put it on the board for you.
There is an intermediary realm. Because what you are saying is that if they are moving outside of time then they should...then they are in the realm of eternity. Is that what you are saying?
COMMENT: Yes.
PASTOR VITALE: OK. Well, eternity is infinite, it has no beginning, it has no end. But since our blackboard has a beginning and an end, I am just going to draw a squiggly line. And this is the eternal realm of God off this board. OK? And we will just draw it by squiggly lines. God is infinite and the realm of time is within God, but within this realm of time there is a spirit in man, an intermediary area. It is not eternity, but it is a spiritual realm that is separated from this world by a veil which is in the mind, and they travel in this world in the realm of the spirit.
It is the second Heaven. There are two Heavens, the eternal spirit of God and the heaven known as the unconscious mind or the spiritual realm of the soul, and that is where the soul is. It is really the same time, although I see what you are saying. The problem in the understanding is that because they are bypassing time and space by going to the other side of the world. That is what you are saying. You are thinking it is eternity, but it is not.
And I do not have any more words to answer you right now. I understand your question, that is the best I could do at this time.
COMMENT: But I do not understand why the human spirit is punished more than the evil spirits. We are more....we are lower than the evil spirits in the sense that we are trapped in these bodies. Evil spirits are not bound with in these bodies, they travel.
PASTOR VITALE: But we are the evil spirits. Evil spirits are the thoughts of men.
COMMENT: Right.
PASTOR VITALE: We are the evil spirits. So, therefore, we are not trapped. We are the evil spirits. Evil spirits are human thoughts.
COMMENT: The spirit is trapped within the human body though, right?
PASTOR VITALE: The human spirit is married to Satan, and she is producing these thoughts. They are us. So this is a fantasy in the church world that we are good, and the devil is bad. We are the devil.
COMMENT: Oh yes. I agree, but I am saying....
PASTOR VITALE: It is our human spirit. A demon is the offspring of Satan's adultery with Eve, our human spirit.
COMMENT: Yes.
PASTOR VITALE: A demon is a child of our human spirit.
COMMENT: And we are in the image of that.
PASTOR VITALE: We are in the image of Satan.
COMMENT: Satan's thoughts coupled with Eve? Right?
PASTOR VITALE: Right. See they do not separate in this world. When a woman has a baby, the baby leaves the mother and leads a separate life, but not so in the realm of the spirit. In the realm of the spirit, our spirit, whose name is Eve is married to Satan, and she is permanently....for as long as this age exists, she is joined to him. If she were to separate from him, this world will disappear.
And she has an offspring. What is the name of the offspring? The carnal mind. And our human spirit is engaged in an adulterous union with Satan, and she is also engaged in an incestuous union with her own offspring, the carnal mind. Paul says that uncleanness is producing inequity onto inequity. The offspring, and the adultery of Satan and the human spirit, is the carnal mind.
The offspring of the human spirit, and the incest between the human spirit and the carnal mind is demons, and they are all attached. She is also committing incest with the demons, and they are all attached in our mind. So when this demon takes off to harass somebody, he is not alone. Just like a child has the physical and emotional characteristics of its parents, this demon goes forth and Satan goes with him, and the human spirit goes with him, and the carnal mind goes with him.
COMMENT: But our body does not go. Like for instance, I was thinking to be in a high realm and to be able travel in the spirit you have to be in high realms of Christ, unless it is a sovereign occasion. So if I think that I am going to be somewhere and I had the power to be there, if I thought the thought, well that is a high realm. Evil spirits do that. If they thought the evil thought, they could travel to that place. Right?
PASTOR VITALE: Well Christ does that too. I do not understand. We are the evil spirits. We are the evil spirits. It is our mind, our carnal mind. Evil spirits are resident in our mind.
COMMENT: But in the realm of the spirit that we are going to travel. Right?
PASTOR VITALE: Yes.
COMMENT: That if we were at that place where our mind can tell our body to disappear and appear somewhere else, then we would be in a higher realm in the spirit. Well, it looks as though the evil spirits are there, that they are not bound to the human body.
PASTOR VITALE: Well, they are not bound to the human body, but their roots are in the mind which is in the body. I guess I do not understand your question.
COMMENT: So we have this disadvantage in a sense that we are trapped in the flesh, whereas they are not.
PASTOR VITALE: They are us. There is no difference between them and us. They are our mind. Maybe this is what you are saying. Are you saying our minds can go but our bodies cannot?
COMMENT: Yes.
PASTOR VITALE: And who were you comparing this too? I am really having trouble with your question.
COMMENT: Who am I comparing it to? Nobody. What do you mean?
PASTOR VITALE: I just do not understand your question. Our mind is us. Now how are we at a disadvantage? I do not understand. If you are saying that our mind can go but our bodies cannot? Is that what you are saying?
COMMENT: Yes. And that there was mention of....we talk about this all the time. Like, we feel somebody's emotions or thoughts, and it does not matter where they are in the world.
PASTOR VITALE: That is right.
COMMENT: You feel it. They could be overseas. They could be down the street, or they could be in the next room or whatever, and it is possible to feel their emotions or thoughts.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes.
COMMENT: We are trapped. The real us is trapped in there. Right?
PASTOR VITALE: No. The real us.... well the real us is trapped in an ungodly marriage with Satan and the carnal mind. You cannot separate us from the demons.
COMMENT: OK. Yes, I see that.
PASTOR VITALE: Did I answer your question?
COMMENT: Yes, I guess. The same thing can happen if I thought a thought in Christ or something positive could also travel in the realm of the spirit.
PASTOR VITALE: Oh yes. That is what prayer is. You could pray for someone. I prayed for someone in Florida the other day, and they had a miracle. You could pray for someone in Nigeria or anywhere. Yes, that same thing happens in Christ when your human spirit lines up with Christ. Or lines up with the.... I do not want to get into that now. Sure that is.... prayer does the same thing. We are both Christ and the carnal mind.
So you said something about being at a disadvantage. I do not understand. I do not understand your question. How are we at a disadvantage. I did not understand your question.
COMMENT: Well, I see the difference in what you are saying that the demons are not separate from us. I am just thinking that the disadvantage is just that we are limited being in the flesh. That is the disadvantage, but not comparing it with the demons. Just period, we are limited in the flesh.
PASTOR VITALE: Oh yes. Yes, we are disadvantaged not having the power to remove this body.
COMMENT: It is worse. No power to move this body and that the body is temporary.
PASTOR VITALE: Oh yes.
COMMENT: That both are very much a disadvantage.
PASTOR VITALE: Oh yes.
COMMENT: That was another question in my mind, that they say the evil spirits go through the ages.
PASTOR VITALE: Oh that is not true.
COMMENT: And that these human bodies expire. That does not make any sense to me.
PASTOR VITALE: What goes on through the ages is the carnal mind until Christ kills it. The carnal mind continues through the ages. He keeps taking on new forms.
COMMENT: So what is this saying? That, well that spirit just passed on through the seed of that woman or the seed of that man. That just passed on, that spirit passed on, that curse passed on and was in the baby?
PASTOR VITALE: Yes. There is a fallen soul in this world. He is fallen, OK? And he is in the earth, and he is going to remain in the earth until Christ kills him. But because he is a corrupting spirit, he kills the bodies that he is dwelling in. So the way this world is set up, is that a man, or a man and a woman will produce a child, and that corruptible soul which has been existing in that man and woman just moves on to the offspring. It is like saying his dress wore out, and he took on a new dress. He just takes up residence in the children.
It is not a demon. I know that is how they teach, it but it is not a demon. It is just a measure of this.. there is just one man in the earth. His name is Adam, and he is in eternal torment. And he is a spirit so he is all spread out through all the people in the world, and he is more malignant in some people than in other people. It is like you can have a sore on your arm and your leg is fine. It is just more destructive in some branches of humanity than other branches of humanity.
So in that branch of humanity where that man and woman got together, they produced a child. You can actually say that he has them....unless it is God intervening, he has them produce his new garment. They are free to die. So the way this world goes, the average man and woman produces the new garment for the prince of the power of the air, and they live another 50 years, 60 years, or 70 years and they pass on. And for the time that the mother and father and the child are alive, that measure of the prince of the power of the air is present in all three of them.
And when the parents die, the body falls away, and whatever is left of the prince of the power of air just flows into the remaining offspring. He just puts on that new dress. This body is just a garment. The Scripture is very clear about it. And the soul is a garment too. We have.... our spirit has an undergarment and an over garment, our soul and our body, and the problem that makes us think that we are our personality is that our human spirit is dead. Our true identity is dead.
But as Christ starts to raise from the dead in us, and our true nature begins to reveal himself in us, he is at war with the personality we have been given by the corruptible living soul. And that is the Armageddon, that is the war of the ages. Our true nature, Christ, is whipping the nature of the fallen soul. It is us, our true us, rising from the dead. Did I answer your question?
COMMENT: Pastor Sheila, I was listening to a tape from Nigeria, I do not know which one it was. And you were talking about that woman who had a ministry across the United States somewhere, and she was talking about her son dying. She knows she is more spiritual because she hears from her son. And then you were telling the people over there that she says she knows she hears from them, and they let their presence known when they turn on the vacuum cleaner on. That is not really angels. It is demons. If she is sound asleep, and she is awakened by the noise of the vacuum cleaner, is her mind doing that when she is asleep? To make the vacuum cleaner work. Because there is no such thing as a demon....
PASTOR VITALE: Right. It is her mind.
COMMENT: The mind is doing that? If anybody else was in the house would they hear it too?
PASTOR VITALE: Yes. They turn the vacuum cleaner on.
COMMENT: Who are they?
PASTOR VITALE: Her mind.
COMMENT: Her mind is doing it?
PASTOR VITALE: Yes.
COMMENT: Oh, I thought is was imaginary.
PASTOR VITALE: Oh no, the vacuum cleaner goes on.
COMMENT: Wow.
PASTOR VITALE: The vacuum cleaner goes on. The mind can kill people. I was speaking to somebody who gave me a testimony today, actually it was.... this is what he told me, XXXX XXXX's testimony that God used XXXX XXXXX to open up the Philippines to evangelism, and God sent XXXX XXXXX to the Philippines and he was there for a long time. Hardly anybody came. Just could not get that ministry off the ground. And one day the Lord came to him and said, "There is an old airplane hanger for rent." You know how big an airplane hanger is? "I want you to go rent it." And XXXX XXXXX said, "Lord we have three people." This sounds like us right? Maybe this is prophetic. "We have like three people at the meetings. What am I going to do with an airplane hanger?" And the Lord said, "Go rent it."
So he felt it was God, believed it was God, and he obeyed God. He went and rented it, and he said "Now what Lord?" And it seems that there was in that area in the Philippines, a young.... I think the person who gave me this testimony said she was very young. She was 13 years old, but she had such demonic powers flowing through her, that she did not even eat. The demons kept her alive without eating, and she was known through out the area.
People were terrified of her. She would say to somebody, "Die," and they would die. They would just lay down and die. I have been told this in Africa. These people exist. They exist with that kind of spiritual power, of course ungodly spiritual power. And the Lord said to him, "Go to that young girl and cast the demon out of her." And XXXX XXXX said "WHAT!?" He said "Lord I do not want to do that, she just says die and these people just lay down and die."
But he prayed, and he was convinced it was the Lord, and he went to this young girl, and he rebuked the demon. It came out, she got delivered, and the whole Philippines were open to Evangelism. I can not remember if he said she came to the Lord or not. I do not remember, but her power broke over the Philippines.
COMMENT: Speaking of rebuke. I have a question where Jesus predicted his death. When Peter took Him aside and he rebuked....he was rebuking Jesus, am I understanding this?
PASTOR VITALE: Peter rebuked Jesus.
COMMENT: Now was that a demon that arose in this man that said, "I have enough authority to even rebuke Jesus."
PASTOR VITALE: No, no that is the Old English. What it really means....it happens all the time, people who speak out of the mind of Christ, people who love them, but whose mind is carnal, do not understand what they are saying. Jesus said to Peter, "I am going to be crucified." Peter loved Him, but also we have to say Peter had a little selfishness there. He did not want to lose Him. He said, "No Lord, do not say you are going to be crucified." People say that to me all the time, "What did you say that for?" He said it because it was the truth of God coming out of the mind of Christ, and Peter who did not want to lose Him, said, "No Lord, do not say that."
COMMENT: He was selfish?
PASTOR VITALE: Yes.
COMMENT: Also, I will continue with Peter again. Matthew 16, Verse 20, "Then He warned His disciples not to tell anyone He was the Christ." Why would He want His disciples...I have read this but I still do not understand Peter's confession of Christ.
PASTOR VITALE: Because they were trying to kill Him, and the date of Jesus' death was set. God, the Father had said, "You will be crucified." And God, the Father, predicted it, that Jesus would be crucified on such and such a date. So Jesus said to His disciples, "Do not tell the Pharisees who I am because I do not want them killing me before the time. I do not want any grief, I do not want any trouble." If they would have killed Him before the time, if they would have succeeded in doing that, the Father would have had to raise Him from the dead in the way that Lazarus was raised from the dead, in the same condition that he was in before he died.
COMMENT: Who was Lazarus?
PASTOR VITALE: Well, that is another story. OK. Lazarus was a man who died, and Jesus raised him from the dead, but he died again after He raised him from the dead. He lived out his life, and he died of natural causes.
So if Jesus had been killed by the Pharisees before the crucifixion, He would have had to have been raised from the dead so that He could have been crucified. Because when He was crucified and raised from the dead, He was not raised in the same condition He was in when He died. He was raised in a glorified condition.
So He said to the disciples, do not go spreading this around because they are just going to try to kill me, and I do not need the aggravation. That is what He said to them. Amen. Praise God.
COMMENT: I would like to know why that woman had so much power, and there was no one in Christ that had that much power. I know that was in the book of Acts, that Peter or whoever said it had the power from Christ, and said, "Now the judgment of the Lord has come upon you, and your life will be taken." And they just laid down and died.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes.
COMMENT: And the bodies were carried out, right, in the book of Acts. Now this woman has got this kind of power?
PASTOR VITALE: Had. Glory to God.
COMMENT: And she would say, "Die," and they would die. She had.... she is delivered now, but that there is a person that had that power today. Where is that person in Christ today that has that kind of power?
PASTOR VITALE: I do not know anyone that has that kind of power today.
COMMENT: Why? Is it trapped in the realm of darkness, this kind of power?
PASTOR VITALE: It is not trapped in the realm of darkness. That is a full-blown manifestation of the carnal mind at its worst. The carnal mind is in full stature or was in full stature in that woman.
COMMENT: Why is it that in the book of Acts they had so much power, and there is no power today like that?
PASTOR VITALE: Because in the book of Acts, they were given power on the day.... the apostles were given the power on the day of Pentecost for a season. And the end.... there was an experience in the world, Jesus was crucified, Jesus rose from the dead, ascended, poured out His spirit on the apostles OK? And they went out witnessing to the fact that He was raised from the dead.
And they began to sow the seed of His glorified life, and ever since that day the job of the church has been to sow the seed of His glorified life. And we are going to see a great harvest. There is going to be a whole company of men with that kind of power standing up real soon, but we have to wait for the seeds to come to full maturity.
COMMENT: But why not were there apostles through the ages that had that power? What happened to it? It was like.... it is like it just went away. Why?
PASTOR VITALE: Because the seed was buried in the ground, and for a while after you bury your seed, all you see is the ground. You have to wait for springtime for the plants to start to come forth. We are already experiencing springtime.
The plants of Christ are coming forth, but we are looking forward to a great harvest. We are going to see that kind of power. The seed was buried in the ground. Christ, in all those apostles, was buried in the ground, and now we are waiting for it to come upon the whole earth. Did I answer your question? Praise the Lord. Soon it is going to happen, at any moment.
COMMENT: Where are the Scriptures for this particular thing you just told me?
PASTOR VITALE: Where are the Scriptures? Well, there is a lot of talk about the harvest.
COMMENT: Yes, there is a lot of talk about the harvest and the parable about the seed being buried in the ground and all, but how do we know it is talking about that particular thing?
PASTOR VITALE: Jesus said, I am.... they asked to see Jesus and He said, "I am the corn of wheat that was buried in the ground." Are you familiar with that?
COMMENT: Yes, but that is a parable.
PASTOR VITALE: The Greeks came to see Jesus, and He said, "If you want to see me, you have to look for me in the harvest." That is what He was saying to them. "You have to look for me in the harvest." This is the harvest season. We are going to see the real harvest soon, and I am not convinced that all the apostles were in full stature. I am just convinced that Paul was in full stature and possibly John. I do not think the others were. I do not think Peter was, but they were much higher than we are, and that is why they had that kind of power.
COMMENT: When Jesus spoke to Peter and said, "When thou art converted," that means he did become ...he was converted?
PASTOR VITALE: The question is what does "converted" mean? You have to be careful not to draw conclusions. People think that means you are in full stature. But it does not mean.... what it means to me, I will tell you what it means to me, is that to be converted, the mind of Christ has to be engrafted to your soul, and it has to start growing in you to the point that more than 50% of the time you are living out of the mind of Christ. At the moment you are living 51% out of the mind of Christ, you are converted, and then you keep increasing, and increasing, and increasing until full stature. That is my opinion of what it means.
COMMENT: What would have to happen in that particular Scripture when the Lord said that....Jesus spoke that and said, "When thou are converted." We have to look up that converted and see what number it was.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, but pretty much, I had looked it up..... yes, that is true but pretty much what it means is when you are strengthened, when the mind of Christ becomes powerful in your life. That is what it means. Anybody else? Oh, I thought you had a question. Praise the Lord.
I was looking at an interesting..... God gave me a revelation on that Scripture today, and I cannot remember where it was. It was in the book of Matthew, about Jesus lifting up the Serpent in the wilderness. Does anybody remember where that is?
COMMENT: I did have a question.
PASTOR VITALE: OK. I will take your question. See, I knew you had one.
COMMENT: Thank you Jesus. When we do begin to have the mind of Christ, we will have....the thoughts that Christ thinks, we will think. Right?
PASTOR VITALE: Yes.
COMMENT: So is this true that our blood will change? That, you know, they say there is sin in our blood. Is this true that our blood and ourselves will change?
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, but that is not until the glorification. In my opinion, the glorification is the third stage of the resurrection, and it is approximately 1500 years off. Right now, we are waiting for the first stage. We are waiting for the first resurrection.
COMMENT: Well, how is it possible....I guess I am thinking that we would have to.... actually, ourselves and our blood has to change in order for us to be able to pass through the crowd like Jesus did and then He disappeared.
PASTOR VITALE: Well, to tell you the truth I do not know what He did. I have prayed about that for years, and I do not know whether He physically disappeared, or whether His mind was so strong He blinded them to Him. I am inclined to believe, although I do not have a word from the Lord about it, I am inclined to believe that it was a Godly mind-control, that He just blinded their eyes, and He just walked out. That is my opinion, for whatever it is worth. The Scriptures say He hid Himself from them. It doe not say he flew away in the spirit or anything like that. He hid Himself.
COMMENT: And going back in the Greek, it does not give any information?
PASTOR VITALE: No. He hid Himself. So to hide yourself, to me what that means to me is, to cover yourself over. He put a covering over Himself. The spiritual covering, He blinded their eyes. That is how..... I would not argue with you about it, but that is what I think right now.
COMMENT: So how is it that Philip was translated physically?
PASTOR VITALE: Well, God can do anything. God can do anything.
COMMENT: But that does not mean his blood was crystallized.
PASTOR VITALE: Oh no.
COMMENT: And was totally purified and no sin....
PASTOR VITALE: Not until the glorification.
COMMENT: But when the blood is totally purified, then you can appear or not appear. Is that connected?
PASTOR VITALE: Well, let me put it to you this way. When your blood is purified, you are in a glorified state. You appear and disappear in the glorified state. You will appear and disappear.
COMMENT: At will?
PASTOR VITALE: At will. Now remember, Elijah appeared and disappeared, but God....
COMMENT: He was not perfect.
PASTOR VITALE: It was a gift. He was not perfect. God can do anything.
COMMENT: Philip did it.
PASTOR VITALE: Philip did it once. We do not have any....we do not know if it was a repetitive situation.
COMMENT: Maybe the difference is, it was when God chooses and the person is totally glorified. They are Him, is that it?
PASTOR VITALE: Yes. Exactly.
COMMENT: And then they just do it at their will, because their will is one with Him.
PASTOR VITALE: They are one with God. Exactly. When it is a gift, when it is a gift, it is God's timing. It is His choice.
COMMENT: So to experience that when you are in this fallen condition...
PASTOR VITALE: It is very exciting.
COMMENT: That is something if you experience that, and God said, "I want you to go to Africa," for some reason. And He just got me there, but yet I am still in this fallen body. And the next day, I could be totally down and thinking Satanic thought and everything.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, exactly.
COMMENT: And I am still in that battle and yet experience that?
PASTOR VITALE: That is exciting.
COMMENT: That is really wild.
PASTOR VITALE: I heard a few testimonies along those lines five or six years ago and I prayed. I wanted that experience. I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed, and the Lord said I would experience it, but that was six or seven years ago, and it did not happen yet.
COMMENT: Now if a person experiences something like this, do they have to be living in a certain realm of righteousness already?
PASTOR VITALE: Not if it is a gift.
COMMENT: I mean like, say if the person just went out and did some kind of a major sin, would God turn around and say, "Well, I want you to preach in Africa tomorrow and I am sending you there," and He just takes you up because it is possible?
PASTOR VITALE: Anything is possible with God.
COMMENT: Or do you have to be living in a realm of Holiness?
PASTOR VITALE: It is up to God, He can do anything He wants. I cannot even say I have an opinion on it. God is sovereign. He sends anyone He wants and, most likely in a situation like that, His motive for picking a particular person would be that they are qualified, because there are no perfect preachers in the earth today.
So if God had a little man, a little peasant man, on the other side of the world that had great faith in Jesus and had a problem, and he was fasting, and praying, and calling on the name of the Lord, and God wanted to get some information to him, and there was nobody on the other side of the world with that information, there is not a doubt in my mind that if the only man that was available to preach had just been in adultery the night before, that God would not use him. I do not doubt it for a second that God would not use him, but not that He is glorifying his sin, but that he is answering that man's prayer.
COMMENT: He is answering that man's prayer. Amen. I understand that.
PASTOR VITALE: See, you have to get the mind of Christ. He is not a punishing God, and He will not let His pride interfere with His ministry. He is not a Pharisees saying, "How could you?" No, He is meeting the needs of His people. He is so far beyond that, that when we look at ourselves, and you really see yourself, there is nothing to do but cry. How fallen we are! There is nothing to do but cry. That is how great He is.
COMMENT: Yes.
PASTOR VITALE: That is why I always say, I always say to be very careful not to judge the Lord's servants. That for so long as I can discern the Holy Ghost on a man, I leave him alone. I will leave him alone. If I know for a fact that he was in adultery last night, if I go into his church, and the anointing is on him, it is none of my business. It is God's business. I might say to the Lord, "Father, I know for a fact this man was in adultery. I see the anointing here. I am upset over it, do you want me to stay in the church or do you want me to leave?" I would pray that, but if God told me to stay, I would stay. And you have to forgive him. If God has forgiven him, how could you not forgive him?
But when the anointing lifts off the church, you better get out of there. Better get out.
COMMENT: Yes, I understand that. I was told by a person that once you have the knowledge that minister is in adultery, you do not stay in that church.
PASTOR VITALE: That is not true. I rebuke that teaching in the spirit. You do whatever Jesus Christ tells you to do. I am not mad at you, I am mad at this teaching in the church.
COMMENT: I know.
PASTOR VITALE: This Pharisaical teaching is going to kill you, who ever follows it, and it is going to hurt somebody else out there, because I want to tell you, if there is somebody in that church that is sitting under that adulterous minister, and God has sent you to minister to them, and you do not go because your Pharisaical mind says, "I will not sit under a man that I know did that," that person is without ministry.
COMMENT: Yes.
PASTOR VITALE: Now, God will raise up somebody else. Wait a minute. God will raise up somebody else, but it could take....He is in eternity, it could take a year to raise up somebody else. So your Pharisaical attitude has hurt your brother. That teaching really gets me mad.
COMMENT: What if you are that in need of deliverance, in dire need of deliverance or healing, and you are going to a church where the minister is in adultery, and you were ignorant of it, and all of a sudden you found out, could you still go to that church and that minister lay hands on you and pray for you and you would get deliverance from the spirit of God? Or now that you have the knowledge, or even before was there still like seduction coming in the church because of it? Because they have this thing about the teaching about when there is sin in the head....it is all through the church, and that kind of thing....can you still go and get valid deliverance from that minister? Is it possible? With the Holy Ghost, that you could?
PASTOR VITALE: I give you that same answer. You are not supposed to be making these decisions. You do whatever Jesus tells you to. And when I was in that church I was raised up in, there was a woman in that church, and I know that people in the ministry were not too cool at that point. They were talking behind her back, laughing behind her back. She was so demonized this woman, but she had an anointing that would knock your socks off.
There was a mixture in her. Heavy-duty witchcraft. Prophesied by a spirit of divination in the church. I was one of the few, if not the only one, who discerned it. There were a couple others. I never talked to anyone about it. He never stopped her from prophesying, whatever that means. One night I had a problem, and the Lord said to me, "Go ask that woman to pray for you." I said, "Lord you want me to ask this highly demonized woman to pray for me?" The Lord said, "You asked me for deliverance, you asked me who should pray for you, her." I went up to her, and I have a small head, and she had big hands. She wrapped her hands around my head, you almost could not see me, and she prayed, and I want to tell you, I saw that click in the church.
They thought I was out of my mind. I had a good reputation in that church. In that church I was one of the major prayers there, one of the major ministers there. They looked at me like I was absolutely out of my mind. I want to tell you, I got delivered, and I want to tell you that woman with her highly demonized condition was praying to God over the persecution she was receiving in that church, and God told me to go there to relieve her. I did not get hurt. I got delivered. You seek God and you do what he tells you in every circumstance, and you will find Jesus is always "flying in the face" of tradition.
You have all this Pharisaical teaching, you should do this and you should do that, and you should do this. And if you really get down and ask the Lord what He wants you to do, just to blow this Pharisaical teaching apart, He will have you do the exact opposite of this teaching. He wants you to obey Him. Did I answer your question?
COMMENT: Yes.
PASTOR VITALE: It is very important information.
COMMENT: It is a little different, a woman who is demonized and hoping for deliverance but not choosing to live in sin, but somebody who knows they are doing wrong and is in an authority position and choosing to sin.
PASTOR VITALE: You do not do anything if it is not instruction from the Lord. OK, now let me say this to you. If you genuinely are praying and asking God for direction, and you have prayed over a period of months and you have not heard from Him, and you see it, it is in front of your face, and it is grieving your spirit, what I would do..... and He has not talked to you, what I would do is, I would say, "Lord, I have received no instructions from you. This is what I see. Now, it is my judgement, based on righteousness, to leave. Now you have not told me to stay. I am going." I hope that answered your question.
COMMENT: Yes.
PASTOR VITALE: OK.
COMMENT: Sheila, what I am saying now is in reference when we were talking about different people that God would send them somewhere. Well, I read an article on a story on one man's life, and he was in the middle of preaching, and God sent him somewhere and when he finally came back, he had no idea, but there was no time in God, he was still in that position preaching when he came back. And God needed his help. I do not know what country it was. And he came back, and no one knew what happened in the church. But it could have been a minute, but it seemed like it was a long time getting there and back.
PASTOR VITALE: He apparently surpassed the realm of time. But I heard a testimony in Nigeria, about a minister who God took within the realm of time. He walked in the house, his wife said, "Dinner will be ready in 15 minutes." He said, "OK, I am going around the side of the house. I am going to fix the barn." And he went around the side of the barn, and the Lord took him. He was gone for a month. He came back a month later. He walked into the house and said, "Is dinner ready?"
COMMENT: Wow.
PASTOR VITALE: So God can do whatever He wants.
COMMENT: That was different.
PASTOR VITALE: That was different that he went in the realm of time. God could take you out of the realm.... You see that man.... The testimony you just gave that no body knew the difference. His soul went, his body remained in the church. But this man, his body went, all of him went.
COMMENT: No transition.
PASTOR VITALE: Yeah. God could do it anyway He wants. See I know somebody, I know somebody who was trapped in what you were talking about. That they saw the adultery for a long time. And for three years. For five years, They were saying, "God did not tell me to go. God did not tell me to go." So it has to be a combination of ways that you seek God. If God was not speaking, He could have been seeking to see what her reaction would be. Do you understand what I am saying?
So you have to combine all of these methods. What it is, is learning how to flow in the spirit. Because I really did not understand what you were saying to me, but the Lord quickened it to me. So I hope I answered your question.
COMMENT: You did.
PASTOR VITALE: OK.
COMMENT: In Matthew again, the authority of Jesus. My question is why was He, why was the authority of Jesus questioned so much. When He preformed miracles to some degree in front of the people?
PASTOR VITALE: I did not understand your question. What was His authority?
COMMENT: No. Why was His authority questioned so much?
PASTOR VITALE: Oh, why was His authority questioned. Because Jesus said, that, "They hated me, and they will hate you." Because the carnal mind of man, even though as unconscious as it may be, when it comes up against the mind of Christ will oppose it and hate it, and the method it uses to oppose Christ is to challenge the person's authority, and to deny them and to call them.....say evil things about them. That is what the carnal mind of men does when he comes up against Christ. Unless God has His hand on you suppressing that carnal mind, it is a natural reaction of the carnal mind, because the carnal mind knows Christ is coming into this world to take it away from him.
Christ is taking this world and all of the people in it away from the carnal mind. So he attacks it. Do you understand what I am talking about? See, there is a mind in this world. It is one mind. The same unconscious mind is in every human being in this world, and he is living in the bodies of the people of this world.
Now, there is a new mind in this world, a new mind has come into this world, and He wants our bodies, and He wants our souls, and He wants to be Lord of this whole physical world out there. And He is saying to the mind, "Get out, get out of their mind. Get out of their soul, get out of their body, get out of this world. I am taking it away from you." Now the average individual does not understand it. But on the unconscious realm of every human being is that the carnal mind understands this and rises up to challenge any man. Not only Jesus, but any man in whom the mind of Christ is functioning.
COMMENT: Did any of His disciples, besides I think it was Peter, question His authority that you know of?
PASTOR VITALE: Did they question His authority? I do not have any recollection of their questioning His authority, but we are told in the Mount of Transfiguration that they had trouble understanding what He was trying to teach them. And He always.....and they were saying things that were not Godly. Like, they were fighting amongst themselves as to who was going to be the greatest. So He had to be continuously correcting them, but I do not have any recollection of anybody else challenging His authority.
And Peter was not really challenging His authority. He was, but it was not that he was saying, "I am an authority over you." He just did not like what He said. You can say it was a demon. I do not know, it could have just been his carnal mind. It does not have to be.....you see, demons and the carnal mind do the same thing, except when the problem comes to a point that it is really intense. Then it is usually demons involved.
But the carnal mind is the daddy of the demons, and they do the same thing. The carnal mind is the daddy of the demon. So sometimes it is hard to tell whether it is a demon or just the carnal mind. You have to deal with it for a while. See, you can cast all the spirits of pride out of you, but you still have pride because your carnal mind is pride. Pride has to be crucified to Christ.
COMMENT: Why do you emphasize pride so much in your ministry?
PASTOR VITALE: Because pride is the biggest enemy a man can have. It will oppose God at every turn. It will oppose everything God wants to do for you.
COMMENT: Some may say to you that pride is just a natural affection a man or a woman has. But you always use man. I always hear that, I think sometimes from you.... man. Why use that? You emphasize it at times.
PASTOR VITALE: I am not just saying....when I use that word, I am not saying "man" opposed to "women." I mean every human being. That is what I mean.... men and women. Do you feel persecuted XXXXX? I mean men and women when I say that. OK I am glad you asked that question if you thought I was persecuting you.
COMMENT: It says man in the Bible. It says the pride of man is an abomination to the Lord. It says in Proverbs and so when He says man in the King James He too is meaning, "people."
PASTOR VITALE: Yes.
COMMENT: It is saying man in general, not men, man. So it is not man or woman.
PASTOR VITALE: It is the man, Adam. God made the man, his name was Adam, and He made him male and female.
COMMENT: So it is neither male and female, and that says it all. Just the creation, He is saying.
PASTOR VITALE: Praise the Lord.
COMMENT: What are the seven woes?
PASTOR VITALE: What are the seven woes? There are three woes. There are seven seals. There are seven trumpets, and there are three woes. And they are all found in the book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, and what that means is that Jesus Christ is being revealed. And where is He being revealed? Do you know where He is being revealed? In your heart. In your heart and in your mind. That is right.
So in order for Him to be revealed, I was just talking about it. Satan owns this whole world. He owns the world, he owns the bodies of the men, and he owns the minds of the men. And Jesus is being revealed in your mind, right where the carnal mind ruled by Stan already is. So for Jesus Christ to be revealed in your mind, He has to wound your carnal mind. Can you understand that? He has to kill it. He has to kill it.
So everything that is happening in the book of Revelation is what Jesus intends to do to your carnal mind so that you maybe raised from the dead. When He kills your carnal mind and Christ becomes your mind, that is the first resurrection. And, of course, all of these things you read about in the book of Revelation are all spiritual. We have a lot of men that make all kinds of tragedies out of these words, but they are spiritual things that are happening to your carnal mind to weaken it.
COMMENT: Give me an example of a tragedy in what you say about the book of Revelation.
PASTOR VITALE: Well, yes some people talk about the locusts coming up, demons, people have all kinds.... I really do not talk much about it. Because I do not....the book of Revelation is a symbolic book. It talks about horses with fire coming out of their mouth, and a lot of people preach that there actually will be horses with fire coming out of their mouth burning men.
COMMENT: These things are what John saw, right? It is what John saw in the spirit?
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, that is what John saw, but they are all symbols because we cannot understand spiritual things. So it is a book of symbols. Everything in that book of Revelation is going to happen in your carnal mind so that Christ can become your mind so that you can be raised from the dead. It is a good thing . You have a question?
COMMENT: One of the apostles, Judas, criticizing Jesus about the money. He was in charge of the moneybag. Was that a question against Jesus?
PASTOR VITALE: I do not remember, it may be, it may be.
COMMENT1: I do not even know if I had this on.
COMMENT2: On the way over in the car I was reading, I am doing a lot of reading in Matthew for some reason, the parable of the ten virgins, and at the end of it, it says "Therefore, keep watch because you do no know the day or the hour." That means when He is going to appear before man, when this world is going to be all crumpled up? That is how I used to think.
PASTOR VITALE: Well, I do not think this world is about to be crumpled up at anytime....well, that is what they teach. That is what they teach.
COMMENT: They do?
PASTOR VITALE: That is what they teach you, but I do not believe that. I believe Jesus is appearing....He is coming in the minds of men.
COMMENT: It that true?
PASTOR VITALE: Yes. He is coming in the minds of men, and what is going to crumple up is the world that is your carnal mind. That is what is going to crumple up.
COMMENT: The confusion?
PASTOR VITALE: The confusion, all of your problems, driving spirits, whatever is bringing destruction in to your life, that is what is going to crumple up.
COMMENT: That is the (inaudible).
PASTOR VITALE: Yes.
COMMENT: If I repent of a certain sin, and, depending on the depth of the sin, that depends on how long it takes for that curse to be worked out of my life?
PASTOR VITALE: I really do not see it that way. I think depending on how long it has been on the family line. The length of time it needs to be worked out of your life depends upon the length of time it has been in the family. Because, in time, it puts down deep roots, greatly entrenched in one's thinking and one's behavior. And if your whole family is thinking and behaving in accordance with this curse, you not only have to overcome it in your mind, but you have to overcome it in the minds of your family because the family is a system, and the more dysfunctional your family is, the more you have to overcome.
Your whole family, because the whole family will rise up and try and stop you from changing this ungodly behavior pattern that everyone, or most of your family, does and has been doing for generations. They would not know they are doing it, but their unconscious mind will rise up and try to stop you from escaping. Did I answer your question?
COMMENT: Yes, but how come it takes so long? Like, if I was in a fornicating relationship with somebody, and I wanted to get out, and then I broke it off, how come it takes so long for you to get free of that person in your mind?
PASTOR VITALE: Because there is limited power in the church today. Limited power in the church.
COMMENT: I mean, it seems to take so long for the soul tie to dissolve. I mean, maybe you only had a few experiences, really through the body. You know what I am saying? I know it sounds like...do you know what I am saying? Why is it that the mind seems so slow to come out of it?
PASTOR VITALE: Well, it depends on the extent to which you were involved. If you had an ungodly soul tie, your souls became meshed together, they become one soul.
COMMENT: Yes.
PASTOR VITALE: The Scripture says a man and his wife are one soul. Well, you do not even have to go to bed with somebody. It makes it stronger if you go to bed with them, but you do not even have to go to bed with them. If you are intensely involved, that you are seeing this person every night, and all you could do is think about them, if you are having some kind of physical relationship, if you are that close, if you are in the back seat of the car every night, you know what I am talking about, your soul is completely meshed together. So you have to get your soul out of there.
COMMENT: So when you.... If you see it and try to get out of it, and you start to repent, and you start praying to the Lord, and you say, "Jesus please forgive me of this fornication, please cleanse me." And you pray the prayer, but you are still in torment in your soul for days and for weeks, it could go on for a long time.
PASTOR VITALE: Well, there are all kinds of factors, all kinds of factors. Are both people in agreement to let go? If both people are in agreement to break up, it is much easier. But if one person is not in agreement, and they will not let go of you, you need a lot of ministry to get away from that person. If they are lusting for you and wanting you and declaring into the Heavenlies that they are supposed to be your mate, whether you know it or not, that is witchcraft. It is like trying to get away from witchcraft. It is not easy.
COMMENT: Well, then you do need help from the brother and sisters.
PASTOR VITALE: Well, you do need help from the Lord.
COMMENT: Yes.
PASTOR VITALE: I would say yes, you would need, depending on where you are in Christ. But I would have to say if you were deep, if you were mature in Christ, you would not be in a relationship like that. You really do need support of brethren who will see you through and the last place you need to be is in a church that says. "I prayed for you once and now you are set free." That is the last place you need to be. You need a lot of support.
COMMENT: I remember one night I went to this church. I had no idea this was going to happen. And I had broken up with this person. It had been awhile, about a couple of months or maybe it was not that long.
Because they called me, but I said... the person said we are going to break it down easy, do not just cut it off, flat out, cut it off. First, I was in agreement, try to be friends, try to be in the Lord about this, and I sent to this church one night and I asked for prayer. I was just in total torment, and the people just happened to pray a deliverance prayer. It surprised me. I did not know this was going to happen.
But they prayed and prayed fire against this ungodly soul tie, and they really started going against warfare and that person called me the next day and said, "I thought this was supposed to be easy." As if they were relating to the prayer that came on them. And I was just amazed. I was amazed. But I was so ignorant to what was happening in my thoughts, I was doing the best that I could to deal with it. But it was like the prayer actually put fire in that thing and was breaking it up, and that soul was being ripped out of my being. And that person called me the next day and knew that something like that had happened.
PASTOR VITALE: They must have been a spiritual person. I knew somebody once who was divorced, her ex-husband was really harassing her and she was living in the house with her son. And some Minister prayed for her, the next day the house burned down and the fire started in the marital bed. The whole house burnt down.
COMMENT1: Wow.
COMMENT2: The other day I was asked a question that how could I believe in the Bible when a lot of these things that are written in the Bible probably were written just to make money off of. Like a lot of these scholars never existed. This person was telling me and a lot of these .... A lot of the history in the Bible is probably not true. Because a lot of it they can not go too, too far back, because it was before Christ. This was before Christ, some of it was man made. Why would people believe in it so much if this could in fact be true that some of this could be all just made up. The person was...I did not know how to answer that question. So could you help me?
PASTOR VITALE: The answer is that if your heart is truly seeking to know the truth, God will meet you. This is called a point of contact. If you are a man saying, "God do you truly exist? Are you there? If you are, will you talk to me? Will you communicate with me?" But you do not know anything about Him. This is His point of contact. So if you go with an honest heart to this book, the spirit of God will meet you in this book. and He will talk to your heart.
But if you go to this book with an attitude of your friend, saying, "Alright, show me that you are God." You will get silence, and that silence will reconfirm....that is an evil heart, that person has that is... pride. That is a high manifestation of pride. God calls it an evil heart towards God. And if you go to the Lord with that kind of heart, He will not answer you, you will walk away from the book, "you see everything I said was true, it was just written by man." Did I answer your question? Not really?
COMMENT: I guess so.
PASTOR VITALE: See most people they cannot hear the voice of the Lord until.... you have to be trained. Just like you go to school as a human person. You have to go to school, you have a mother or someone that raises you up, teaches you how to eat with a fork, brush your teeth in the morning. You need to be trained in the things of the Lord. So if you are a person and do not know how to hear from God or how to get in contact with God, this is where you go, and He will talk to you through it. He will witness to your heart. You will hear from God, you will pray and He will hear your prayer, and then you will know that it is true. That is just an evil mind of unbelief.
A lot of people talk like that, that is called the blaspheming spirit.
COMMENT: The same person would believe in witchcraft and voodoo and things in the darkness, then he would believe in something of a higher...
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, I know. Well, a lot of people are attracted to spiritual things. They are attracted to spiritual things but when you....
COMMENT: Why is that?
PASTOR VITALE: Because, basically, we are spiritual. We are really spirit. We are not this body. We just think so, because we are fallen, but we are really spirit. Our spirit is hiding behind this body and this carnal mind. Our true nature is spirit. So we crave spiritual things. But to enter into the spiritual things of God, you have to begin to enter into holiness. You do not have to be perfect, but your heart has to be right with God, and you have to be moving towards holiness.
To enter into the spiritual things of witchcraft you just go and do your thing. It is easy, it is easy. This is not easy, serving God, getting to a place where God gives you spiritual experiences, it is not easy. You have to turn your back on the things of the world. So a lot of people, they will not pay the price, but a lot of people ....you know there are a lot of people in witchcraft that convert. A lot of people in witchcraft do not know that there is any spiritual power in Christ because a lot of churches today have no power. They have no power.
A lot of witches have been converted when God has shown them His power. But we are just seeing Christians with power, just starting to appear. Very little bit now, but soon it is going to be obvious to the whole world that Christians have power. Right now, a lot of the workers of witchcraft laugh at us because the church is very immature, but it is maturing. It is maturing.
COMMENT: I believe in a lot of the things of darkness because.... I will give you a good example. On national TV once XXXX XXXXX was over in somewhere in Africa, and a voodoo doctor has predicted that at four o'clock this afternoon, this tree where you are holding this revival meeting will be hit by lightning. So they kept a camera on this thing, and sure enough a minute after four, a bolt of lightning just came out of the sky and hit the tree.
PASTOR VITALE: And then what happened?
COMMENT: They stood around the tree waving something.
PASTOR VITALE: And what did God do? You did not hear the rest of the testimony?
COMMENT: The man just disappeared.
PASTOR VITALE: He just disappeared.
COMMENT: Because when XXXX XXXXX, he in fact went to the tree and he saw it. He went to a village looking for this guy. Some would come out and say they were him who predicted this, but people who knew this doctor would stand up and say, "No that is not him, that is not him." And they would point at him. And they have not seen him and later on, they said they do not know what happened to him, he just vanished. But yet he is on the video predicting it, saying that this tree, he was bringing evil towards the ministry. I believe he was doing that, and he did....the lightning did hit the tree. It knocked the branches off.
PASTOR VITALE: Oh, they have a lot of power. They have a lot of power.
COMMENT: XXXXX XXXXXX emphasized it. This is no video camera trick. This is the truth. This is what is out there.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, they have a lot of power.
3/31/03kml
