Part 7 of 7 Parts
The Following Message Has Been Transcribed For
Clarity, Continuity Of Thought, And Punctuation By
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We're going on with The Gospel of Thomas tonight. I believe the Lord has confirmed to me that He wants us to go through this gospel and expose every lie that's in it. I remind you that the way we are exposing the lie is by preaching the truth. So this is not a negative message. It's a positive message. It's merely a jumping off point from which the Lord is bringing forth many deep spiritual truths of the Scripture. The double benefit of this kind of teaching is to equip you to recognize the lie and to be able to answer it because false doctrine is everywhere. It's covering the church wherever it is. It's very deeply imbedded right here in Lagos, Nigeria. The Lord has shown me this. A lot of the false doctrine has come in from American Christian teachers. (Laughter) Praise the Lord. So we shall continue with The Gospel of Thomas. We spent quite a bit of time exposing Satan's plan to break down the Christ in men, thus freeing the human spirit so that he could have her for himself and bring forth his offspring, the carnal mind. Now at the time of the fall, I think that I've already told you that the Christ mind which was in the creation at the time of the fall was what I call an imputed mind. The Christ mind imparted righteousness to Adam, but it was not earned righteousness. It was not righteousness that resulted from Adam overcoming evil. It was righteousness that was given to him because God just said, I desire to give it to him. The Lord said in another place, I will have mercy on whoever I choose to have mercy on. Yet, in another place, if I choose that he should remain in this flesh until I come again, what business is it of yours?
So we see that the man at the beginning of time had not overcome the evil which was present in his being. He was spirit and he was earth or soul. There was the potential for sin in his soul, in the earth of his soul. He had not overcome that evil, but the Lord gave him power over it, unearned righteousness. We see it today in the Pentecostal church. We see it in the Baptist church. We see it in any area where the Lord has made a covenant with man, based on the gift of God, without repentance. It's only in this late hour, in the program of God, that we see what I call an imparted anointing coming forth in the church, righteousness in a man because he has overcome the evil in his flesh; earned righteousness, righteousness which is being earned by the gift of God, which is the power which is in Christ Jesus. You see, the gift of God is the power, the gift of God is the weapon. But the man that picks up that weapon and overcomes the evil in his flesh, he is the one who has earned that righteousness because he has overcome it. He's the one who has earned eternal life, but he could have never done it if he first didn't receive the gift of God which is the power with which he did it.
It's called an imparted anointing and it renders the man in a condition where this righteousness is woven through his nature, woven through his personality. When we look at the miracles that have been done and are being done in the Pentecostal church, for example, these miracles are being done by the loaned authority of God. The man has not overcome the sin in his own soul nor is the power which he is wielding woven through his nature. So we see many Christians stumble over this. When they're in church one night and they see a man wielding the power of God doing mighty miracles and then the very next day, they walk into him on the street or come into his office and see an indiscretion taking place. Many have stumbled for lack of understanding, expecting that this man is the perfected image of Christ. It's most likely that he has told them that he is. But, nevertheless, it is not true. He is not the righteousness that enables him to perform the miracles. It is the righteousness of the resurrected Jesus Christ, which has been loaned to him. The implication in the word, loaned, is that Jesus Christ can take back His power anytime that He sees fit to take it back.
But the imparted anointing, which is woven through the nature of the man, is not taken back except for extreme circumstances, which I won't go into right now. But generally speaking, if the man continues on his path with God seeking righteousness, working the works of righteousness, that righteousness will not only be visible in the miracles of healing and deliverance that he does, but you should be able to drop into that man's office or that man's home or meet that man on the street at any time and expect to find a righteous (although not perfect at this time) lifestyle. What is the difference between a righteous (although not yet perfect) lifestyle and a lifestyle of complete righteousness? This is the difference. In the man that is going on to perfection, but is not yet perfected, first of all his behavioral sins are under control. You would have a right to expect no behavioral sin, no fornication, no lies, no dishonesty in business dealings. You would have a right to expect that. No adultery. However, there are the sins of the heart, which we, no matter how hard we're trying, until we're perfect, there will be some sins that we do not yet have dominion over. But these sins are to be under the blood. What does that mean? They must be confessed as sin, confessed as sin and repented of. You have a right to expect a man of God to be working to overcome.
What does that mean? If they sin against you, envy, pride, coveting, some form of mistreatment, a loss of temper, an ungodly anger; you have a right to expect that they will confess it to you, that they were not in Christ at that moment and to apologize. You have a right to expect that from somebody with an imparted anointing, who is not yet perfect. However, the danger in this kind of teaching is that you might perceive something as sin in a man of God and you might be wrong. So if you perceive sin, if you perceive that you have been sinned against, if you feel you have been personally damaged, you should be able to approach this man and tell him how you feel. If the man tells you that you have perceived him wrong or that your perception of the incident is not true, then there's nothing to do, except pray hopefully the man of God would say to you, I'm willing to pray with you about it, that the truth should be revealed as God sees the truth. The man of God should be willing to say, I'm not going to strive with you on this. I don't perceive it the way you perceive it, but I recognize that you perceive it that way. I will not take an authoritarian stand over you, but I will pray with you. I don't think that I'm wrong, but in the event that I've made a mistake, I will submit to the Lord, should He correct me. So you pray, you reconcile, and you leave it with God. The chances are, if you're the disciple, the chances are excellent that you have not perceived the situation correctly. So therefore, you must drop the issue until such time as the Lord chooses to deal with it.
What's distressing to some young disciples in situations like this is that the Lord might not choose to deal with it for two years. Perhaps it was a situation that you could not comprehend. The Lord may not answer you with an audible voice. He may let you grow into the understanding of the truth. He may let you have an experience where you are in a position of authority and the same incident happens in your life, but this time you're on the other side of the fence, and in this manner, understand, what God was doing and why the man of God did what he did. If the Lord chooses to teach you this way, you might have to wait two years or more for Him to answer you. Therefore, you must drop the issue. If you pressure or in any way attempt to pressure the man of God to change, when he's standing against you and saying, I cannot agree with your point of view and I must be true to the Christ in me unless He corrects me. If you continue to pressure against him, this is the sin of rebellion and the sin of pride. It's not to be done. Your part in this is to make a judgment as to whether or not God wants you sitting under this teacher. If God wants you sitting under this teacher and there is one incident that you are absolutely convinced they are wrong in, but you know God wants you there and they can't see your point of view, you are to pray your prayer that the truth of God should win out, no matter where the error is. You must be willing to confess that you might be wrong although you don't think you're wrong and pray for the truth, as God sees the truth (not as you see the truth, as God sees the truth) to be revealed to all parties in God's time. Then forget about it and go on with your walk with God and go on with your life. So this is how we deal with men of God who have an imparted anointing, who are not yet perfected. Glory to God.
I don't know where that came from. I'm trying to get back into this Gospel of Thomas. We spent quite a bit of time speaking about the carnal mind's plan to speak subliminally to your carnal mind, to give it instructions as to how to tear down the Christ in you. We find that this tearing down of the Christ in you is a direct reversal of the building up of the Christ in you. The building up of the Christ in you is the result of the union between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit which results in an offspring. The offspring of a male spirit and the female spirit which is in the soul is a mind. So we see that when the carnal mind comes to tear down the Christ in you, the first thing he does is he will try to kill the Christ in you by ripping or tearing Him apart. He wants to break up that union. The mind is in three parts. The mind of Christ is a union of the Holy Spirit, the human spirit, and the Christ that has been formed there, all joined together. So the carnal mind will come at the Christ mind with a spiritual warfare to rip it apart and lay hold of that human spirit in her fullness. He wants full possession of the power that is in the human spirit. This is how the Christ, at the beginning of time, fell. The Christ mind in him was not present as a result of overcoming experiences. It was a gift of God. But when the carnal mind was brought up, she was brought into being from seed. She had an experience that was from seed. Let me make that clearer. Satan had a complete union with the human spirit that produced a carnal mind which was growing out of, which was attached to, the soul. The mind of Christ that was in the immature Christ, at the beginning of time, was not attached to the soul. That's why the carnal mind could kill that immature mind of Christ. That's the bottom line.
We see right now in this Gospel of Thomas; we see the carnal mind going after the Christ mind, which is attaching itself, it's attaching itself to the soul of man. Let me say it again. I think someone has a question or they don't understand. Maybe I didn't make it clear. At the beginning of time, the Spirit of the Father came in. To be honest with you, I don't know what form it was in, in that time. It wasn't the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit is the glorified Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is in the earth today. It was some form of the Father. It came in and brought forth a mind of Christ, which was not a result of a complete penetration of the human spirit. We see a similar mind of Christ existing in natural Israel. There was a mind of Christ present. There was power present in Israel. But that mind of Christ that was formed was not in a construction which could produce eternal life. It was not in a construction that would enable it to attach itself permanently to the soul of man. I know that my details are not complete, but that's all the information that I have. But when it's the Holy Spirit that joins with the human spirit, the human spirit is completely penetrated by the Holy Spirit and therefore, the Christ mind which results from the union is growing out of the soul. It's putting roots down in the soul. The scriptural expression is, to be born from seed or to be brought forth from seed. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who was Christ, He is the only begotten Son of God. The Christ that was brought forth in that man was from seed.
The Spirit of God overshadowed Mary, penetrated into her, penetrated into the ovum that was fertilized and went right in to the human spirit of that microscopic ovum in a woman (it's a miracle that it happened) and joined with it. The Christ mind in that man was brought forth from seed. Every other person in this world in whom the mind of Christ is being formed today is a cutting of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the point that I'm trying to make, which I'm having a little trouble making, the point that I'm trying to make is, the mind of Christ at the beginning of time was not brought forth from seed. It was some kind of temporary arrangement that God said, I want this man to have the mind of Christ. I want him to have righteousness. The parable says, and God stood the man upright in the garden. He imputed righteousness to him. If you look up that word, the Hebrew word translated put, you'll see that's what it means; to impute. Further down in the same chapter, the word, put, appears again a second time. It's a different Hebrew word. So the first time God put the man; it means He imputed the righteousness to him. Not only did He not deserve it because of overcoming experiences, the fact is that he didn't have the overcoming experiences that weaves that mind together with the whole person.
So we see that the mind of Christ, at the beginning of time, is likened unto the imputed anointing, which is given without repentance, which can be lost, which can be removed, which is not interwoven with the man's very nature. You see, that mind of Christ was not interwoven with Adam's nature. How do I know that? When Adam was tempted, he chose to sin. Now if righteousness was truly interwoven with his nature, he would have chosen to not sin. That's why God said, I see the weakness in your flesh, Adam, you fell down into your female mind, you chose to sin, but I'm giving you the law. It's given unto a man, once, to die. And when I restore you to righteousness this time, your righteousness will be interwoven through your entire nature and that will be the strength that you need to say no to sin. One of the reasons that I gave you this whole big buildup is that I wanted to go over the verses in James with you: James 1:14 which talks about the conception of sin and points out to us that the sin in our heart at the present time is imparted. It's woven together with our very nature. We have sin in every part of our being. We have sin in every cell of our being. We do not have righteousness in every cell of our being right now, brethren. We have righteousness within us. We have righteousness on us. We have righteousness underneath us and over us and around us and in our mind and in our heart, but it's not completely woven through every cell of our being. How do I know? If righteousness was interwoven through every cell of our being, we would not sin. We would not sin.
So righteousness is in the process of being interwoven with our very genetic heritage. The problem is that there's another mind who got there first. This other mind is interwoven in every cell of our genetic heritage and she must be removed so that righteousness can be interwoven in every cell of our genetic heritage. So going over James 1:14 and 15; But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Now this is the formation of the carnal mind, brethren. This is the formation of the carnal mind from seed. I would like to suggest to you that the word lust is speaking about the human spirit. Have you ever noticed that Behemoth in the book of Job is speaking about man at the beginning of time, after the fall. His overriding characteristic is lust. Man without the mind of Christ has an overriding characteristic of lust. At the end of the fallen age, that lust has proliferated and we see Leviathan, the Dragon. We've gone from lust to a defensed war like condition of pride, which is not ready to give up the possession of God's possession under any circumstances and that carnal mind is brought up from seed. Man has experienced evil and evil is woven into every cell of our nature. It's being removed from our nature, spiritually speaking, a cell at a time; a cell at a time.
So I suggest to you that the word, lust, is speaking about the human spirit. She is the man's female parts. You may recall, I mentioned the motions of sin the other day. I spoke about righteous Adam being a superior man who had his wife within him and his wife was that part within him, which was capable of producing or conceiving or giving birth to the mind which was to rule in the creation. I don't know what man was like in those days. I don't know what the motions of sin felt like in those days. I know what it feels like now because I've experienced it. It's a very strange experience. When you're walking high in the spirit and you're in righteousness, sometimes for periods of time, I actually perceive the movement of sin in my mind. I can't describe to you how I experience it. It's not in my emotions. Most fallen men will experience the temptation to sin in your emotions. But to experience or to perceive the motions of sin; it's something that you perceive with the Christ mind. If you can hear the difference. Let me say it again. Fallen man recognizes sin because we are experiencing that sin or that temptation to do it is very real in our emotions. But there is such a thing as perceiving the motions of sin and that perception comes out of the Christ mind without polluting the Christ mind. So we're talking about the place from which we are viewing the sin. We are either viewing it from a position of being possessed of the sin or we are viewing the sin from a position of having dominion over that sin and seeing very clearly the motion of it which would motion to us and say, come on, don't you want to slip back into this. There's a difference. Does everybody see the difference?
So we see that lust is the human spirit. She is that part of the spiritual man's nature which is lusting to reproduce. She was made to reproduce. Reproduce what? The life of the male spirit that joins himself to her. She's programmed to reproduce, brethren. That's what she does. But the Scripture says that God said to the man, you are to keep the garden. You are to rule over the lusts in your flesh. She is not to rule over you. Of course, we have the same instruction today, even down here in hell. The rational man must rule over his lusts or you will enter into destruction, brethren. You cannot do whatever you want. You cannot take what belongs to someone else because you covet it. You must control yourself. You must have a revelation of right and wrong and live according to it. Just as a man, today, has passions and desires and temptations of all different kinds of lust; lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, the pride of life. So did the superior spiritual man have a form of lust. I don't know what he felt like. I don't know how he perceived it with his Christ mind. But the Bible says that the man was not deceived. It was the woman who was deceived.
The human spirit that was in the midst of him, she is the harlot, brethren. She responds to any male spirit. She couldn't tell the difference between Jehovah and Satan. But the man, you see, the Christ mind within the creation, he could tell the difference. So how come he didn't keep the garden? How come he didn't prevent his wife from being a harlot with the wrong man? Because he liked what she was feeling and he said, hmm, let me investigate this motion of sin, while he had dominion over it, while he still had the ability to say no, I will not partake of this experience. His disobedience to God and his lack of experience with sin and evil said, hmm, that looks interesting. Let me taste of this experience and the minute he fell in agreement with his passions, which he was suppose to be guarding, the serpent said to the "woman." He became a woman, all the while thinking that he had the power to take his manhood back again after he experienced the experience with the serpent. What he didn't know was that in that split second, that he gave up his manhood and let his whole being experience the experience that the serpent was offering him, the serpent took dominion, jumped up into the role of spiritual manhood and took dominion over the woman and has not let the creation go since.
I want to tell you that I had an experience this past year where I fell down out of my spiritual manhood. Some spirit got its teeth in my neck. I want to tell you I had one hard time getting those teeth out and it didn't happen overnight. I had to cry out to God. I had to repent. I had to even find out what happened to me. I didn't even realize what happened to me, but I knew something was very wrong. The Lord delivered me. I did not have the power to deliver myself. I actually had a perception of that spirit having me by the neck. The problem is that it got me because of a human weakness that was revealed in me. So we see this frantic race to lay hold of the human spirit, Eve, and have her bring forth the mind, which is the offspring of either the Spirit of God or Satan. When that spirit, which is a male spirit, completely entwines itself with Eve, that mind is then brought forth from seed and its nature is present in every cell of that human being. So on that basis I suggest to you that lust is typifying the human spirit. James says, when lust has conceived; the Greek word translated conceived, brethren, is Strong's #4815 and it doesn't mean conception. It means to seize or to capture. When lust is captured, when the human spirit is captured; what the Scripture is saying is she's just available. She's a harlot for any male spirit. That's why God said to Adam, keep or militarily guard the garden. Your wife has no power to say no to any male spirit who is determined to capture her.
So we see when lust is conceived or when the human spirit is captured, she brings forth sin. The Greek word translated, bringeth forth, is Strong's #5088. It means to produce (at this spot the audio is muffled). Sin is always brought forth from seed. There's never a temporary formation of sin. Satan always fully penetrates the human spirit, possesses her, captures her, seizes her and completely brings forth his carnal mind from seed. The word, sin, we're all familiar with that. Sin means to miss the mark. It means something that is not the righteousness of God. She bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished; the Greek word translated finished, Strong's# 5658 means to complete. We had a whole teaching the other day on completion. It came forth under the teaching of the single eye and the double eye. To have single sight means to be completed and we are completed in Christ. What it means to be completed is that the Spirit of the Father joins with our human spirit and brings forth Christ to a fullness of manhood which makes us undefeatable. So the book of James is speaking about the completion of the carnal mind; the carnal mind expressing itself through men to its fullest capacity. Now in this hour that capacity is limited because the soul which God made is still both good and evil and sin is restricted as to the extent to which he can fully express himself through mankind in this hour.
As we've been teaching here, the hour is coming that the soul which God created is growing up and the potential for her to be a full expression of either righteousness or evil is very close. This stage of our development, whereby we are both good and evil is closing out. It's just like saying your childhood is closing out. You're going to be thirteen next year, you're going to be a man, you're going into puberty; that's what's happening to this creation. So James says, when sin hath been captured, she is captured, and when she is completed, she bringeth forth death. So when lust, the human spirit is captured by the spirit of Satan, she conceives and he completes her and brings forth his mind. We're told, in another place, to be carnally minded is death. Satan brings forth his mind, thus completing the human spirit on the negative side. Her mind is not Christ or righteousness. Her mind is death. It is carnal. There are three Greek words translated death. The word death as used in James 1:14 is thanatos. It is Strong's #2288 and it means violent death. The reason this word is used is that when thanatos comes forth, she violently kills any manifestation of the Christ, which is present; violently kills the lamb of God. Glory to God.
I just wanted to give you some scriptural background of what we're talking about here, that the doctrine that I am teaching you is very scriptural, if you have ears to hear it. If Christ is being formed in you, you are the man and you have your woman within you and you have authority in Christ to either agree with her adultery with Satan or to disagree with her adultery with Satan. Now of course, we're not in full stature. We're not in the same condition that righteous Adam was in where he had not yet sinned and was standing in a pure state with imputed power because he had not yet experienced sin. Obviously, that is not our condition, but if Christ is being formed in you, you are the husband to your own spirit. Every time sin comes to tempt her (in you) rebuke it, because once you recognize this adultery, it's no longer you, but sin that dwelleth in you. Once the Christ mind in you stands back and stands apart from your old man and sees the sin and recognizes it and is against it, you are no longer your old man. That's sin that dwells in you and now you are Christ and you have the authority to speak to the lust that's in your own flesh. All kinds of lust, not just sexual lust, whatever sin is coming against you; rebuke it and rebuke your carnal mind and rebuke her liaison with your carnal mind. This is the warfare. We must resist in righteousness.
The teaching in the church today teaches passivity, that there's nothing I can do of myself. Well, that's true, but once Christ gives you the power, you must pick up your power in Christ. It's not that we have no will, brethren. It's a question of whether or not "we will" in our carnality or "we will" in our Christ mind. We're not to be passive. We're not to be sitting passively, waiting for some spirit to come and save us. We are the son of God. We are not a helpless woman, waiting to be rescued in the same way that we were captured. You see, we have become, in Christ, our rescuer or the rescuer of our own spirit, never forgetting that the Lord Jesus Christ is greater than we are. He has become the Father. We have become the son and we are saving our own spirit from the one who has subjected us unto sin. We're to take a strong stand and will in Christ. How do you know when your willpower is in Christ? That which you're willing to do is righteousness. What are the righteous works of God, brethren? They are the destruction of sin in your mind and in your behavior and in your life and in your person. We must resist sin.
I have had situations where I have been sorely afflicted. Frequently, when I'm afflicted with witchcraft curses, it puts me to bed. I'll lay down in the middle of the day and feel like I just can't function. I get very tired. I'll lay down crying out the whole time, Lord Jesus, I'm overcome. I'm not functioning. Get me up; raise me up. Lord, help me. I'll lay there. My body is overcome. My mind isn't functioning, but the Christ in me is functioning. The Christ in me is breaking curses and the Christ in me is crying out to Jesus to help me and I get up and I go back to work. This is a war and the teachers in the church that are teaching passivity are wrong. It's not my job to judge another man's servant, but God has sent me to tell you to reject this doctrine. It's death unto you. The fact that you have the weapon of Christ is not enough. You must wield that weapon. You must wield that weapon. Everything that you've done in your carnal mind, that is now unacceptable to God; your willpower, your stubbornness, even your rebellion, it's being possessed by Christ. That strength in your personality that was directed into sin is being possessed by Christ and now it must be used as the weapon of Christ. There is a strength in Christ. There is a righteous judgment. There is a righteous anger. There is a righteous control when you have the authority in Christ.
The meekness before God is the waiting for His Spirit to manifest in you. But once His Spirit manifests in you, if it's truly Christ, you exercise great authority. There's no passivity in your spiritual manhood and you never lay down for the carnal mind. What does that mean? Evaluate yourself, brethren. If the activity that you're engaged in, is not Christ, you have been captured. If you're doing something that you know is wrong, like my own example of lying down on the couch in the middle of the day, saying I know that I have been hit with a barrage of curses. It's actually knocked me down. I know that's not Christ, that I should lie down in the middle of the day. So that part of me, which is Christ, was still functioning. See, Christ cannot be cursed. Did you ever hear that Israel can't be cursed. It goes around the whole church. Israel can't be cursed. So they tell you, the whole believer can't be cursed. Well, the problem, brethren, is that all of you is not Israel. The only part of you that's Israel is the Christ in you. Your Adam can be cursed. Your physical body can be cursed. Your soul can be cursed and Christ in you is suppose to be keeping your garden. If you cannot move a muscle, Christ in you can cry out to God. I had an experience this year, just within the past six months, where I was still in bed and all of a sudden, I felt like I was being dragged. At first, I thought I was physically being dragged. But my Christ mind kicked in. He said you can't be physically dragged; you're alone in this house.
So I knew something was really wrong. My body wasn't being dragged, but I was being dragged out of my body. I couldn't move and I couldn't talk. My lips wouldn't work, but Christ was not under the influence of this witchcraft and Christ cried out and Jesus saved me. He cried out in my mind. I couldn't even form the words, but He heard my mind. Brethren, if you're passive, you're going to fall away. Christ in you is the guardian of the rest of you and as long as He's in there, as long as He's being formed in any measure, no matter what is happening to you, He is free enough to get the thought out. I suggest to you that that is what happened to Elijah. If you can recall my exhortation yesterday, when we looked up every word in the Hebrew, about the "so called" account of Elijah fleeing from Jezebel; it's not a true translation. He didn't flee from her. This was what happened to him. The carnal minds of the sons of Israel (as one man) was so enraged that he had exposed their idolatry and even worse than that, killed the prophets of Baal, who they were engaging in spiritual idolatry and broke their idols.
They were so enraged at Elijah the prophet, that they knocked him down out of Christ. The power of their carnal mind knocked him down. But that seed in him of Christ, cried out, and a pre-incarnated Christ came and the expression is, rebuilt the altar. He knocked down the altar that Satan had erected in him, and what is the altar that Satan had erected in him? The carnal mind. The carnal mind arose and knocked down his Christ. You see, the carnal minds of all the sons of Israel, corporately, corporately, were so powerful that when you vibrated towards Elijah, they joined with his own carnal mind, which was being held captive by the Christ in him. They strengthened his carnal mind to rise up and kill the Christ. He fell down and he became a carnal man. But that seed of Christ in him cried out and a pre-incarnate Jesus Christ came and knocked down the altar of the carnal mind and rebuilt the altar of Christ.
What does that mean? How do you build a spiritual altar, brethren? The altar is that which results initially from the union of the male spirit and your human spirit. The altar upon which Christ rests in the spiritual being, is that union of the Spirit of the Father and the human spirit. So to knock down the Christ altar, the carnal mind had to kill Christ and then break the altar apart. If you read this Bible, it's all through the scriptures. They broke the altars. Spiritually speaking, this is what it means; the mind is killed. How do you kill a mind? You tear it to pieces and then the original union which has brought forth that mind is broken apart. That's how you've broken the altar, whether it's the altar of Christ or whether it's the altar of the carnal mind. The spiritual altar is that initial union of the male spirit with the human spirit, which when it is completed, as Brother James tells us in the Scriptures, will produce a mind in the creation. So when you want to get that mind out of the creation, you rip or you tear that mind or you tear that carcase in some scriptures, to pieces, and you break the altar that brought it forth. Then you capture or you seize the human spirit (that was engaged in the building or whose material was used in the building of this altar) and the male spirit takes her unto himself. He seizes her, he captures her, he uses her spiritual substance to build an altar in his image and he brings forth his mind in the creation.
This is what's going on in your life right now. If Christ is being formed in you, it is a miracle. It is a miracle that the Holy Spirit got close enough to your human spirit to raise up the altar of Christ in you. It is a miracle. So if Christ is being formed in you, you have two altars existing in your spiritual being. And you have two minds and they're at war with one another and each mind is trying to kill the other mind and break down their altars. You need to know that. Passivity will kill you because your true life is in Christ and if your Christ gets knocked out, you die. You have to be totally given over to the death of your carnal mind. So I exhort you, brethren, to pray carefully and to reject that false doctrine, if you have received the lie, that there's nothing for you to do. There is not only something for you to do, there is a war for you to fight and the more you fight it, the harder it's going to hit at you. The harder it hits at you, hopefully the harder you will fight it until you rip that carcase of your old carnal mind to pieces and knock down the altar upon which it has been formed. Then brethren, when you have done all that you could do to stand; stand up in full stature. So I exhort you with all the strength in me, to pray to the Lord, to deliver you from false doctrine.
I saw another false doctrine today. It grieved me, it grieved me. It's not just in Lagos, it's all over the world. This false doctrine is in every corner, it's in every alley, it's in every place; it's like a stench in my nose. The believers don't realize that it's wrong. It's seeped into their minds and it grieves me. Sometimes I can't even bear it because it causes me such pain. I'm telling you, this is the truth, and I exhort you with all the strength that I have, to pray always that the Lord deliver you from false doctrine that will steal your spiritual life that is your inheritance in Christ Jesus. It is the Father's gift unto you, brethren, that His Son should be your mind and that you should be translated into the kingdom of His dear Son. You need to know that the enemy has gone forth first. This is nothing new. It seems to be the pattern. The enemy goes forth first. These heresies are allowed by the Father, brethren. Why? Does anybody know? So that the very elect should be revealed. Because, if it were possible, the very elect would be deceived. The only ones that are going to discern this false doctrine and get the information that they need to be able to fight this war, for Christ to stand up in full stature, are the ones who are completely submitted to Christ. They are determined to get what God has for them, even to the extent of denying their own pride. They're the elect and they're the only ones that are going to stand up because there is doctrine out there today, brethren, that puffs up the mind of man, that makes him important, that tells him he's going to enter into all the glory, simply because he is. It's a lie.
Let us go on. We're up to chapter 86 in the Gospel of Thomas (the devil). I am preaching from this gospel, convinced that no apostle of God wrote this, but a demon wrote it through some man's mind, wittingly or unwittingly, and I don't believe it was written by Thomas the Apostle. Therefore, to emphasize the point, I'm calling him Thomas the devil because this is Satan's missile. I don't hesitate to say it. Chapter 86 verse 1; Jesus said, I shall choose you, one out of a thousand and two out of ten thousand and they shall stand as a single one. Jesus said, I shall choose you one out of a thousand and two out of ten thousand. Well, that sounds like a direct contradiction to me. The Scripture says, that this salvation is for whosoever will. I mentioned yesterday that there is prejudice in the church. There are groups in the church saying such and such are not qualified for salvation and such and such are not qualified for salvation. This subtle statement is saying the same thing. Salvation is not for everyone. It's a lie.
My Bible says, let whosoever will, come. So let me show you the scripture from the King James Translation that this is a takeoff on, so that we can find out the truth. Jeremiah 3:14; Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion. The problem we have here is that this translation is an in-accurate translation. So let's take a look at the Hebrew and see what the Lord is saying to Israel and to the church because the prophesies of the Hebrew prophets were written not only to Israel and to the church. The prophesies of the Hebrew prophets were written not only to Israel, the nation, but they are today the inheritance of the church. And who is the church today? The whole human race is the church today, brethren, but all Israel are not Israel. Everybody is not walking in it. But the salvation that is in Jesus Christ is for any human being on the face of this earth, whosoever will. In this hour, most people are saying, no thank you. So all Israel is not Israel, but all Israel could be Israel, if you have ears to hear; hear it.
Once again, for those who don't remember or for someone who wasn't here, the reason the Lord is accepting the, no thank you, of some people, today, is that there are two outpourings of His Spirit. The first outpouring of His Spirit is a general seeding of His life. It's like an ocean wave going in and coming out. It's like a net going into the ocean and catching fish with no specific objective. The second seeding of God's life which we are waiting for in this hour will come through the sons of God. The sons of God are going to call specific men in accordance with the Lord's will. The ones who say, no thank you, will come under the judgment, the corrective loving judgment of the Father because if you're a son, He chastens you and if He lets you go, it means that you weren't a son. All these people that are saying, no thank you; what it means is not that the Lord is a gentleman, but that you weren't a son. Because, brethren, if you're dying and the Lord is offering to save your life and your mind is so fallen that you say, no thank you, I'd rather die. There's something wrong with your mind.
Now in the United States, you can't commit suicide; it's against the law to commit suicide. If a police officer sees you trying to kill yourself, he'll lock you up and take you to the hospital. They'll put you in the psychiatric ward. But probably nine tenths of humanity in this hour is saying to Jesus, no thank you. Because He's not locking them up in the psychiatric ward, the carnal minds of men are saying, Jesus is a gentleman. Jesus is no gentleman. But the key issue is that a fallen man cannot force his will on another fallen man. Why? Because the fallen man who's forcing his will is assuredly, assuredly, as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, will reach a point where he abuses his authority and God knows that. To force your will upon another man that you do not have specific authority to do so, is the sin of witchcraft. If you are a parent, you can force your will on your child. You can force him into the doctor to get that treatment. You can force him to go to school. God says it's okay, but there is no fallen man that can force another man to come to Christ. You're not allowed to do it in your imperfection. So therefore, God's provision to lock the insane person up in a spiritual mental hospital is not yet manifesting (I don't want to go off on a tangent) it is only manifesting at a very small level in the earth.
But by and large, God's provision to deal with spiritual suicide is not yet in play. It is the sons of God, righteous men, men in whom the righteousness of Christ is so prevalent that it's flowing out of them. Revelation Chapter 15 tells us about the angels with the bowls of wrath. That's a bad translation. The bowls aren't filled with the wrath of God, brethren. The angels are filled with the wrath of God and they're angry, God is angry at all you spiritual suicides that are trying to kill the bodies that the Lord Jesus Christ wants to fill with His life. Their wrath is against the carnal minds in the people that are destroying them. So as soon as (I don't believe one second will be wasted) a righteous man appears on this earth, whereby he can assert power or exercise power over another man, without it corrupting himself, God is sending that man to save potential spiritual suicides from death.
This honor have the saints, to break the shackles off the minds of the people, which shackles are making him say, no, to a God who has the power to offer them eternal life. We're told in another place in the Scripture that when these shackles are broken off of men's minds, they won't need to be forced; they'll turn to Christ willingly. Men are so cursed in their minds that they can't see straight. They can't think straight. They're fallen in their minds. There's spiritual sickness in the mind of man. Do you let a spiritually sick person kill himself? No, you don't. You have to have a vision of the condition of humanity. So we see that the church today or Israel today, is all of humanity. But they don't know that they're Israel and they're not acting like Israel and they're not thinking like Israel and therefore, for all intents and purposes, they are not Israel. But they're Israel, but all Israel isn't Israel. If you can hear it, hear it. If you can' t hear it, don't worry about it.
Let's go back into Jeremiah 3:14. The Lord says He will take one from the city, one man from each city. The Hebrew word translated take is Strong's #3947 and it means to take for oneself. He's speaking about joining Himself to that man in a permanent union which will produce His mind in that man. That's what He's talking about. One; the Hebrew word translated one is Strong's #259 and one is a legitimate translation, but another legitimate translation is the whole; the whole. Brethren, He's not just taking our spirit. He's taking all of us. He's taking the whole man; spirit, soul and body, unto Himself. This salvation is for the whole man; spirit, soul and body. We are the city, in case I didn't make that clear. Jesus clearly said that man is a city. We're cities for spiritual life. He's taking all of you, brethren. If that Spirit which raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, He shall quicken your mortal body, which is your soul, and He shall dwell in you, also. He's taking all of you. So we see that the Lord is taking the whole man unto Himself and two from a family.
The Hebrew word translated two is Strong's #8147. I use a supplemental lexicon which is supplemental to Strong's. It's called Gesenius Hebrew Chaldean Lexicon and it gives me more alternatives to put before the Lord. This lexicon says that the Hebrew spelling which appears in the Interlinear which is translated unto is a form of the verb, shanah, that's Strong's #8138 and this word means to be changed. In other words, as I tell you all the time, every Hebrew word has a multiplicity of translations that you could choose from. The King James translators said that He's going to take two from the family, but I don't say He's going to take two from a family. I choose a different translation. If you want to believe that He's going to take two from a family and that He might be taking you and your brother and leaving your father and your mother and your other six brothers and sisters behind; if you want to believe it, you believe it. I don't believe it. I choose not to believe it and I have every right to choose a different translation and the King James translators had a right to choose the translation that they picked, but I don't believe it.
So Gesenius says that this spelling (I checked the spelling out which is translated into, from the Hebrew spelling). It's from a verb which can be translated, to be changed. Gesenius further says that this verb is used and has the common usage of a change of mind; to change one's mind, to change one's garments. If you would like, this very same word can be used or translated either to change one's garments or to change one's mind. Let me remind you that the phrase, to change one's garments is speaking about the soul that one is wearing. Paul said, we're not seeking to put off our garment, but to put on another one on top of it, to add to it. A garment is our soul. A soul is the garment of our mind. So if you would like to see this Hebrew word which is translated, two, used to express the idea of a change of mind or a change of garment, you can look in 2 Kings Chapter 25:29. You can look in Jeremiah Chapter 52:33 and last, but not least, in Job Chapter 14 verse 20. The same word translated two, or to be changed, is used in Job to speak about the disfiguring of one's face. Now the implication in Job is that you have a beautiful face and your face becomes ugly. But I want to suggest to you that in the scripture we're dealing with, I shall take two of the city, the Lord is really saying, I shall change your disfigured face because we are disfigured, brethren. We are spiritually disfigured and if you want to believe that that scripture says He's going to take two out of your family, you believe it, but I say it says, He's going to change your disfigured face and He's going to give you a glorious face in the image of Christ.
We see him in this Gospel of Thomas (the devil) quoting a scripture translation which gives this gospel power because he seems to be lining up with the King James Translation. However, in this instant, the King James Translation is a poor translation. Here's a scripture witness that backs up what I was saying, where Jesus says this salvation is for everybody. It's John 7:37; In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. Any man, any man, any man; if any man thirst. Verse 38, He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. The note that I wrote to myself says, the offer is for everybody in the last day, not necessarily, right now, but when the sons of God manifest and break the bands off of the people's free will. I mentioned that earlier and I would like to show you where that appears in the Scripture. It's in our Alternate Translation of Matthew 27:52 and 53. And the Holy One (that's Christ) went to sleep at the beginning of time, arose from the dead, in the many members of the body of Christ and their human spirits entered into Christ and their souls awoke from the sleep of death. And Christ appeared in the sons of God and the many members of fallen Adam saw them and remembered that they too were Christ and willingly abandoned their adulterous union with Satan and the carnal mind.
So we see that we're told that when the sons of God manifest, they're going to have an effect on the rest of humanity. There will be such power vibrating through them that the fallen man in the street will come to his senses. Now it's not clear in the Scripture, but the fallen man in the street will come to his senses after he tangles with the son. There's going to be a shock applied to the minds of fallen men. Have you heard of shock treatments over here in Nigeria? I don't think they do it too much in the United States anymore, but they used to give mental patients electric shocks to their brain. Brethren, we're disconnected. Fallen man's mind is not functioning properly. If God would not help us, despite ourselves, it would be hatred of Him towards us. Once again, the only reason we see Him letting us go along our sinful ways in the manner that He has, is that there has been no righteous man around to do the work of declaring man a sinner. You see, if you're using your carnal mind to declare a man as a sinner, Jesus says, judge not your brother, less you be judged. But when a righteous man declares you a sinner, the end of it is that you should be raised from the dead.
So we're waiting for the sons of God to manifest to show the church and the world their sins. Not that they should be condemned down to hell forever, but that God should convince them of those sins, that they might repent and be raised from the dead. This creation is God's wife and we fell into a deep pit and we died and He has every intention of saving us, despite ourselves. Don't be deceived because of the circumstances. Don't be deceived because of the time that has elapsed between the time that we fell into the pit and the time that He draws us out. Don't be deceived. One day to God is as a thousand years unto man. There's much you don't understand. Jesus said, I have much to tell you, but you cannot bear it right now. Why can't you bear it now and you'll be able to bear it later? You'll be able to bear it when your mind is Christ. He has much spiritual truth to tell you, that your carnal mind could not tolerate. But when Christ is your mind, you will tolerate it. He's going to give you as much spiritual truth as you could bear. Once Christ begins to be formed as your mind, it has a dual purpose. It's both feeding the son of God in you because He needs the doctrine to grow up and then it's also bringing back or bringing all of this knowledge forth in you to make you all that you could be in Christ.
There's another scripture that I would like to use to show you that it is not Jesus who's picking just one out of many. As a follow-up on that, this is speaking about the impotent man who was at the pool where the angel was troubling the water. King James, John Chapter 5 verses 1 thru 4. After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. Brethren, I would like to call your attention to the fact in verse four that the word angel is not modified. If you have drawn a conclusion or made an assumption that this angel is of God, I suggest to you, you have drawn a faulty conclusion or made a faulty assumption. God does not torture people. God does not come to a place where everybody is desperate and says, the first one into the pool gets healed. Kill each other getting in there. God doesn't do that.
God says whosoever will. Now if you know somebody who's been healed and somebody who hasn't been healed, and you were using this to draw the conclusion that God is a respecter of persons, you are mistaken. God is no respecter of persons. If you need a healing or if you need a deliverance, you bang on heaven's doors and you don't stop banging until God does it or tells you why He's not doing it. Everybody is not starting out at the same place. Everybody doesn't have the same conditions when they come to the Lord. He took thirteen years healing my body. Those thirteen years didn't come easily. I know people that got healed the day after He received them. I know a man who has a testimony that he was leading a very wicked lifestyle doing everything you could imagine. The night that the Lord received him, he knocked him out in the spirit. He was out for twenty four hours. This is his personal public testimony. He woke up, delivered from cigarettes, drugs, alcohol and sexual perversion. The man had already had several nervous breakdowns and has not had one since. This was twenty years ago. So why did God take thirteen years to heal me; I don't know. But I know that God is righteous and I know that whatever He does, He has a reason for it. The only thing that matters to me is that He healed me.
So if you have something that you've been petitioning the Lord for, don't weary, brethren. Be very careful that you do not condemn God or accuse Him or indict Him for being unfaithful to you or for being a respecter of persons. Be very careful that you do not condemn the one who has the power to deliver you. But get before Him and don't stop knocking until He tells you why He hasn't done it yet. Or until you find out if you're suppose to be doing something that you're not doing. Because God is merciful and righteous and He is no respecter of persons, He doesn't send an angel into a pool where people have to fight amongst each other to get the healing. That's what God did at the Tower of Babel. We talked about that yesterday. He set men, one against the other, because when they were of one mind and one accord, their witchcraft power was so great that the Lord would have had to wipe them out. So He set men one against the other. Fight against each other until the time when I'm ready to correct the error in your minds. But when Jesus comes, He doesn't come to set men against one another; not in this context.
He comes to set a brother against a brother when one has Christ and one has the carnal mind. What that scripture means is if you rise up in Christ, you can expect your brother to come against you, but He doesn't come to set men fighting over a healing. I hope you could see the difference. This salvation is for whosoever will. The problem is men are fallen in their minds. They're so bound and so blinded by the God of this world that they cannot come. So the Lord has made a provision to help those who cannot come. He's going to judge their sins. What does that mean? He's going to expose and uproot their sins and restore them to their right mind so that they will choose to come. He's a good God; rich in mercy and all powerful. He doesn't need to torture you in hell forever. He doesn't need to reject you. He doesn't need to torment you. God does not tempt you, brethren. He will test you, but He will not tempt you. We're His wife and no man has ever hated His own flesh. We're His flesh. He loves us. He loves us so much that when He could have stayed in heaven in the liberty of the realm of the Spirit (which I do not even have a full revelation of the glory of it) He left that place and He's down here in hell dwelling in our sinful hearts, working to defeat our carnal minds, so that He could take us back up to where He is.
Oh, you read somebody's writing and you thought He went down to hell after they crucified Him? No, not in the context that you heard it. He went down to hell after He poured out of His Spirit upon all flesh and rained on the hearts of fallen men. Now He's locked inside of these fallen bodies and these carnal minds and I don't think it's very pleasant for Him. But He's doing it to get us out of hell. Because only the one who came down from heaven can go back up to heaven. Unless we have Christ in us, we're not going back up to heaven because the carnal mind didn't come down out of heaven. Only Christ came down out of heaven. So therefore, to get us back up into heaven, the Christ mind has to be born in us and then when the Christ mind is born in us, He's not just taking our human spirit. He's taking the whole man. We just read in the book of Jeremiah. He's taking the whole city and He's changing a mind. He's getting rid of the carnal mind, giving you the Christ mind and taking you back up to heaven. That's how much He loves us.
So if you're in pain right now, you're in pain because of sin. I condemn you not, brethren, there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus and called according to His purposes. But this doctrine that says God subjected us to the pain and torment of this world must be exposed for what it is. God is not guilty. We are guilty. God is righteous. We are unrighteous. God has not tortured us for an experiment. We fell when our original ancestor Adam fell. Our sins are not after the similitude of Adam. We have inherited his sin and the sins of the fathers shall be visited unto the children unto the third and fourth generation. Spiritually speaking, this is a great mystery, but to God, we are the same spiritual person as the man who fell. We're just in a different garment and we've had a change of mind and we've become disfigured.
Let's go on. When we did the study on Daniel 7 where we looked up every word in the Hebrew, we found one of the scriptures in that chapter that said, when Christ appears, He looks so disfigured to the fallen mind of man that the fallen mind of man thinks He's an enemy. It means He's so radically different than we are, not in His flesh, because in this hour He's appearing in the fallen flesh of the two witness company. We're in His soul, in His mind, the image that's engraved in the mind of Christ is the Father. When your mind is Christ, that image is also expressed in your soul. You see, the mind is the brazen image and the soul is the clay or the wood image. Did you ever wonder why it's illegal to make idols and yet the cherubim appeared in the ark? Graven images; did you ever wonder about that? You see, it's alright, it's legal to make a spiritual engraving. Our mind is to be engraved in the image of the Spirit of Christ, which is the Father. This is that which the cherubim is a type of. Our soul is to be impressed, our soul is to be turned under the seal, we're told in the book of Job. It's to be impressed in the image of the mind which is in the image of the Father.
This graven image is legal to make, brethren. This molten image and this graven image is legal to make. Not the works of your hands, but the work of the Spirit.
So we see the Gospel of Thomas saying, Jesus said, I shall choose you one of a thousand and two out of ten thousand. I reject that and I don't believe that's true.
My God is no respecter of persons. And they shall stand as a single one. I don't really have any comment on that. We shall stand as a single one. Let me remind you that the way the serpent's mind works is that it perverts truth. Sometimes, if you read a document that's been brought forth by the mind of the serpent, you will find truth in it. Antichrist is mixture, brethren. You wouldn't be deceived if the doctrine was a complete all out lie. There's truth in there. We shall all stand as one. God is reconciling you all back into one. If I get to it today, we're coming up to several scriptures which are just correct. They're taken right out of the true Scripture. Sometimes Satan adds a word; sometimes he leaves a word out; sometimes he twists it around; sometimes he gives you the truth. I remind you, the only way you can discern false doctrine is if you know the truth. Then when you read it, you say, hey wait a minute, and in the same manner, the only way you will be able to distinguish between the true Spirit of Christ and antichrist is when you have the true Spirit of Christ. When you have an intimate relationship with Christ, you will know Him in another man and another you will not follow. But if you don't have Him yourself, brethren, you have no basis for comparison. When you have no basis for comparison, your carnal mind will make sure that you don't see any error, but that you choose her. Jesus, help us Lord, in these last days.
I pray that everybody here should be amongst the elect, that not one person here should be deceived, but that whatever is of the truth as the true Christ sees it, should enter into your heart and fill your minds so completely that you will be a lit candle, that you should not stumble in the darkness that's surrounding us and the whole church in this hour. But that you should all see clearly and distinguish between Christ and the evil one; that you should follow the true Shepherd and enter into God. That's my prayer for all of you; for my friends and for my enemies, because you see, when you enter into glory, you won't be my enemy anymore. Hallelujah!!!
We're back in the Gospel of Thomas (the devil) chapter 86 verse 4; And his disciples said, show us the place where you are. That's a takeoff on where dwellest thou Lord? It is necessary for us to seek the same place where you are. I don't remember anything like that in the Scripture. The only problem I can see with that is that it is once again putting the emphasis on man's ability to raise himself up out of the hell of this world system. I declare unto you, natural man cannot raise himself up out of the hell of this world system. In the condition that he came into this world, he is impotent. You are the impotent man. Adam; fallen Adam is the impotent man sitting at that pool trying to get yourself healed, competing with the other people of this world and Jesus is coming to that pool and He's coming to everyone that can recognize Him. Everyone has the same opportunity. Are you looking for Him? Are you hoping in your heart? That man was hoping in his heart, praying to God for deliverance. That's why Jesus went to him. He went to the man that had the faith to be healed. He didn't go to the man who hated God in his heart, who was bitter towards God in his heart for his impotency. He went to the man who had the faith to be healed. Fallen Adam is that man or that company of believers within man who has not condemned God, but who has the faith to be healed.
So the subtlety of this doctrine is that man has the power to do it himself and that power is inherent in him from birth. It's a lie. We must have something added to us. The Lord Jesus Christ must come unto us and attach Himself to us and begin to reproduce His life in us. With that addition, we then have the power to go forth and wage the war against our carnal mind. Even then we need our "big brother" who has already overcome the world, in the instances when the carnal mind is too strong for us. This teaching of the empowering of fallen man will result in your abiding in death. The carnal mind loves it, your pride "loves" it and your rebellion doesn't want to confess that you need to submit to Christ and die so that He could live through you. Oh, choose ye, brethren, life or death, a curse or a blessing. You see, as soon as Christ begins to be formed in you, you have the power to overcome deception. Once you have heard the truth, if you choose the lie, you've done it because of the pride of your own mind. That's how God thinks. It's the same exact principle as to what happened to Adam at the time of the fall. Let me go over that. God gave him everything he needed to overcome sin. He gave him dominion over that sin, but He said, Adam, you have the potential to fall. I'm telling you that it's in you, I'm warning you, but if you're obedient unto me, you don't have to fall; just do what I tell you. Now you have to go on your own because you're not a robot. I'm not raising up a race of robots. I'm raising up a son. I've given you everything I could give you, now go and let's see what you're going to do.
It's just like human people raising up their children. You give them your values, you give them your knowledge, you give them your own life substance, you give them your strength, you tell them about God, you do everything you can to equip them to prevail over the wickedness that could destroy them in this world. Then the day comes that they're an adult and you must let them go. You must let your son go and you believe in God for the best. That was the condition of Adam at the time of the fall. God said I gave you everything I could give you; now you must prove yourself. You must be tested because you're not a robot. You're intended to be a son. Adam was tested and Adam made the wrong choice and in the same manner the church is being tested today. There will be a company of faithful who will make the right choice and the Son of God will be raised from the dead and appear in the earth and will have dominion over the earth and will inherit all of the promises of God. But every individual human being will not be saved. The spiritual creation is being saved and if you make the wrong choice, because of your pride (now don't get me wrong, God is equipping you to make the right choice) but the fact is He's not a respecter of persons. He's giving you every opportunity to make the right choice. Humble yourself before Him and ask Him to save you from your own pride and He will do it. You cannot choose correctly of yourself. You need His overcoming power. Pride is too strong in man.
So the test comes again, all these thousands of years later, the test comes again. But this time, God has a son who has had overcoming experiences in Christ. God has a son to whom He has sent teachers and apostles and prophets and pastors and evangelists. This time the son is educated with experience. Brethren, the false doctrine came first and the true doctrine comes second. Throw yourself on the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will choose correctly. I don't know how to make it any clearer. If you're deceived, you're deceived by the pride of your own mind and I'm not telling you to believe me. I'm telling you to humble yourself before God because if it were possible, the very elect would be deceived and are being deceived at this very moment. You're not going to be burnt in hell forever, but when the sons of God stand up, you won't be on the inside, you'll be on the outside, saying, Lord, Lord, how could you do this to me? His answer is, I never knew you. You were serving "another Jesus" because of the pride of your own mind.
Gospel of Thomas (the devil) Jesus said then, whosoever has ears to hear, within a man of light there is light and he lights the whole world. When he does not shine there is darkness. We did that in a previous message. This is a perversion of the Scripture. Jesus says, when your eye is single, you light up the whole. But when your eye is evil, or when your eye is not completed in Christ, when you have a carnal mind in there (the eye being the spirit) how great is that darkness. But the Gospel of Thomas doesn't speak about being evil. It doesn't speak about the possibility of being completed in evil. It simply says, that every man has the light, but if it doesn't shine, there's darkness. That's not true because every man is not complete in Christ. For your light to shine, your spirit must be complete in Christ. You must have an altar, which is formed by the union of the Holy Spirit and your human spirit and Christ must be produced on that altar. Then you're completed and your light shall shine. Can you see the suggestion here? Everybody has the light and it's just that some are shining and some aren't and that at any time, all you need is a match and you light your candle and you're okay.
But my Bible says, there were ten virgins, you see, and when the Lord came, only five of them had oil in their lamps. The five that didn't have oil in their lamps, when they saw their mistake, went out to get their lamps filled. But by the time they came back, the door had closed. So you see it's not a question of not having a match to light your light. It's a question of not having the oil. The oil is Christ, brethren. It takes time to form Christ in your mind. It's a process; it's an education; it's a warfare; it takes the destruction of the carnal mind; it takes time to build Christ in you. The Bible clearly states that the door is opening for a season and closing. We need to be prepared at the moment that it opens. As I told you yesterday, especially you brethren here in Africa, you have some very exciting times coming up ahead of you. When the sons of God start manifesting here and the Lord gives you the privilege of breaking the curses off of your people and off of your land, and you see the glorious marvelous miracles that God is going to work here, you're going to be right in the midst of it. All you brethren, that chose pride over Christ, you're going to be watching it and you're not going to have any power to participate in the glory because you didn't get your oil. You liked your doctrine that tickled your ears better than the truth of the Word of God. You didn't come to the light when it shone unto you because your deeds were evil. You loved the doctrine of your own mind more than you loved the truth.
Time is very close, brethren. It's very close. It can't be much longer now; it can't be. The sons of God have got to start appearing. It has to be soon. The Gospel of Thomas continues; Jesus said, love thy brother as thy soul. Guard him as the apple of thy eye. That's a perversion. Let me just get my notes out here. I don't know of any scripture that says, love thy brother as thyself. I think it says forgive your brother. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Your brother you have to forgive. I have been coming up with so much opposition with this message. I know that I had a list of those scriptures. I just don't know what I did with them. It's love your neighbor as yourself, brethren. It's not love your brother; it's forgive your brother. Forgive your brother. Oh here it is, Love one another, brethren, John 15 verses 12 and 13. Matthew 18:35 says forgive your brother. Love one another, love your neighbor; this is just a perversion and look at how it is used. It says love your brother as your own soul and guard him. See, that might not seem to be such a serious perversion to you. Well, what's the difference, love your brother, love your neighbor; what's the difference? It's a serious perversion because it's setting you up for the next scripture which says that you should be guarding your brother. You're not suppose to be guarding your brother. You're suppose to be looking at yourself. You're suppose to be taking care of your own sins.
Let's see how far this goes. This is very serious; guard your brother. Set yourself up as your brother's guardian, brethren, whether he wants you to or not. That's what it's saying; whether he wants you to or not. Guard him and what the suggestion is here, guard the formation of his carnal mind. This is the subliminal message going out. Guard your brother's carnal mind and pray all your psychic prayers. In New York we call it "kitchen prophesy." Make sure you're watching over your brother. If he's not married, you want to get him a wife. If he's married and doesn't have children, you want his wife to get pregnant. You're always looking at someone else's life. You don't like the way he treats his mother; pray about that. You think that you know what kind of a job he should have; pray about that. It's all witchcraft, it's all psychic prayers. It's none of your business. Get before God and get yourself straightened out. Don't pray for someone that you don't have authority over. The deep significance of this subliminal suggestion to your carnal mind is don't let Christ rise up in your brother. When you concern yourself with someone else's life and it's none of your business and you're praying prayers to produce what you think they need in their life, your prayers are hitting them as curses. If you don't know it, you need to know it, because God is not honoring your prayer. You see, God is rejecting your prayer that's none of your business, but some demon up there is receiving your prayer and going out and putting pressure on your brethren. That pressure is hitting them in such a way as to hinder them from developing in Christ. Depending on how accomplished they are and how mature they are in their spiritual warfare, you could knock them right out. So the subtlety of this scripture, to love your brother as your soul and guard him, the subtlety underneath it is, keep those psychic prayers going and knock that Christ mind out of your brethren.
Guard it. Who's the one that's suppose to be guarded? Does anybody remember? You're suppose to be guarding your own human spirit. Remember when God told Adam to keep the garden, that Hebrew word translated, keep, has another translation. It means to militarily guard. The command of Jesus for the believer to guard, is for you to guard your own mind against the corruption which is in this world. But when the blind lead the blind, you're both going to fall into the ditch. Don't worry about your brother unless God has specifically given you authority over that person or responsibility for that person. Guard your own human spirit, who is now joined to both Satan and the Holy Spirit. Let Christ in you guard the Christ in you. Let Christ be waging war against the carnal mind to get your human spirit completely free from him. Fight your own warfare. Your brother doesn't need you guarding him. I'd like to give you the opportunity to ask some questions, so we'll stop. I'd just like to read this next verse. I just feel to do it. Lord willing, we'll talk about it tomorrow night. He says, love your brother as your soul. Guard him as the apple of your eye. I have a little study for you on what the apple of your eye means, to show you that it's misused here. So, Lord willing, we'll do that tomorrow night. I'll open the floor for some questions right now.
COMMENT: Can you define the human spirit? How is it the human spirit has the potential of being good and evil? My second question is man has the ability after having Christ to choose either to follow Christ or to follow the devil, but the Scripture records that even Pharaoh was willing to let the children of Israel go, but God said for this purpose Pharaoh's heart was hardened so that I might show forth my power. Do you understand what I'm saying?
PASTOR VITALE: Let me answer the first question first. I'm not sure that I did understand your second question. Okay, you'd like to know who is the human spirit, that she has this ability to manifest either Christ or the carnal mind? Is that correct? Okay. The human spirit is the breath of life that God breathed into the man. You see, when a woman is pregnant with a child, that child is within. After the birth, that child goes out from her and becomes a separate individual and takes his own name. When the life of God was breathed into the man, from the moment that it entered into the man, God gave it another name. It's still the breath of life. It's still God's spirit, but it's in a different environment and it is in a different function. There is one Spirit, but many administrations of that Spirit.
The function of the spirit that God breathed into the man was that it should take the form of the female seed of His life. It was the intention of the Lord to reproduce after His own kind; male spirit, female spirit, would produce a spirit that was growing out of that soul. The name of spirit which is growing out of the soul which is the product of a male and a female spirit is a mind. So we have the completed spirit of the Father and we have a manifestation or an administration of the Spirit of the Father, which was breathed into the man and became weak. The Lord formed it. It's a female seed. That was His intention, that His Spirit in the environment of the man should be weak and should be able to do nothing of herself and she would stay there and wait for the visitation of the seed of the Spirit of the Father, so that she might bring forth the mind in the man; Christ, the son of the Living God. Did I answer your question? No? Oh, what is the weakness, you ask. The weakness is that she is female. Now I keep saying if these Women Lib Organizations in the United States get a hold of these tapes, they're going to string me up. But this has nothing to do with human women. I'm a woman, myself. But we see in the Scripture, God uses natural examples to explain things to us. God's natural example of weakness is females.
As a matter of fact, if you look up the Hebrew words that are used early in the book of Genesis, to speak about male or female, it has nothing to do with human maleness or human femaleness. It's merely two words which God is using to describe the strong part and the weak part. I certainly do not have a knowledge of every society that has existed on the earth, but in many human societies, women have been so dependant that if they didn't have a husband or a mature adult son, they would die. This was the condition of women in Israel in the hour that Jesus appeared. You may recall He raised the widow's only son and the reason He did that, was that she would surely have perished without him. She had no way of providing shelter or food for herself. They're not doing this anymore, but in days past, and still in some parts of India, when a man dies, they burn the body and they put his living wife right in the fire with him because work or employment is not available to a woman and they're just going to starve to death slowly, so they burn her. That's what their society does. I've read about the American Indians, where if an old woman's husband dies and she has no adult son who will take her into his tepee, she's literally put out of the tepee.
Now these American Indians that I'm talking of lived at least a couple of hundred years ago when the United States was still a frontier and the Indians were a migratory people, setting up tepees or tents and taking them down. They existed in North America during the winter, where it gets very cold and if you don't have shelter, you freeze to death. They would take the elderly woman and just put her outside. No one would take her into their tent. If she didn't have a husband or an adult son, who was physically strong enough to erect a tent, the whole society just put her out and she froze to death. I certainly don't subscribe to any of these events. My whole point is to tell you that the human spirit is the spiritual reality upon which we have these human examples. The principle is a woman cannot exist without a man. She is incomplete; she's powerless; she's weak; she's open prey for any man who captures her at will. My whole point is that there have been societies and I think there are still some societies today, where their women are raised that weak. If they don't have a father or older brothers or a husband to take care of them, they're totally victimized by other males in the society. So that's the answer. Did I answer your question? Okay.
It's just the way God set it up, that she was that weak. God told the man, keep the garden, keep that part of yourself which is capable of producing life. What is a garden? A garden is a place where something grows. The garden of God is the spirit which is in man or the whole soul, if you will, but specifically the spirit which is in man, which is capable of producing the life of God, when the seed of the Father falls upon it. But we see that before the seed of the Father could fall upon it, there was a weed that grew up of its own accord. The name of that weed is the carnal mind and she's choking the garden of God. So the Lord is coming to weed your garden. He's going to pull your carnal mind out and plant the true pure seed of His life. Now you wanted to know about Pharaoh and God hardening Pharaoh's heart. Would you mind giving me that question again. I'm not sure I really perceived what you asked.
COMMENT: The Scripture records that even when Pharaoh was willing to let the Israelites go, God hardened his heart. The Scripture says that God did that and that He had raised up Pharaoh that He might show forth His power. Another chapter says, God loved Jacob and hated Esau, even before they were born. What do you say about this free will?
PASTOR VITALE: I believe that God made man with a free will, but in this hour, that free will is captured by Satan. So for all intents and purposes, unless we have Christ, we don't have any free will. That's why He's sending the sons of God to break the bondages on people's minds. With regard to Pharaoh and God hardening his heart; Pharaoh was a man who did not have Christ. He was a carnal man. This account that you're questioning is a question of God merely pressing the correct buttons, if you will, that will cause the man's own nature to manifest. The nature of Pharaoh was not Christ. So we see that Pharaoh let men go contrary to his nature, contrary to his nature. So how does God harden Pharaoh's heart? He lifted His hand off of him and his true nature arose again and he said, what in the world did I do? I must have been under the influence of some demonic spirit; I let all those Jews go. But the truth is that it was the power of God that turned him to do something against his own nature. Then God lifted His hand off and his true nature was revealed again. God had raised him up to show His power in this man, that He could turn a man away from his own fallen nature. Does that answer your question about Pharaoh?
Now the other example you gave was that God loved Jacob and hated Esau. Well first of all, the word hatred, it doesn't mean hate as we think of hate in our fallen condition. What it means if you look it up in the Hebrew, it means (oh yes, thank your Lord, for reminding me). Here we go, right back to the basic message that I had, again. For God to love a man with the agape love, it implies a union of spirit. So when the Scripture says that God loved Jacob and hated Esau, it means that there was a union of spirit with Jacob that did not exist in Esau. That union of spirit implies that there was a formation of a Christ mind there. How? Well, he must have had Christ being formed in him (Jacob) before they were born. We know that God called people and spoke to them in the womb. He spoke to Levi in the womb. He raised up Cyrus and He spoke to Jeremiah also, before he was born. So that was the way the Lord brought it forth. You see, in the days of prior covenants, God did choose individual men. He did choose one of a thousand or one of a city or two (however the scripture went.) He did do that, but not since Jesus Christ. He did pick one and rejected another. The one that He picked was the one who His Spirit was joined to and that's what He means when He said He loved someone. Jesus speaks about John as the apostle that He loved. Well, what was so different about John from all the other apostles. Why would the Lord pick one over the other when the Scripture clearly states He's not a respecter of persons?
What it means is that the Spirit which was in Jesus Christ joined with the spirit in John like unto the relationship between David and Jonathan. They had a spirit tie. You may have heard of soul ties. When two men (when I say men, I'm speaking about women also) when two human beings have their souls joined, they have a soul tie. It can be a positive soul tie and produce good fruit in the people's lives, the fruit of love and companionship and fellowship and honor and respect and decency and commitment or it can be an ungodly soul tie and produce a destructive relationship. But there is a love higher than the love of man. You see, that soul tie, the first one that I described, that produced good fruit, that is described by the Greek word, phileo; the phileo love of man, when two people love one another, their souls join. Paul said, it's a mystery, but a man and his wife, they are one flesh, meaning their soul. Now we know that your bodies aren't stuck together, brethren. It's talking about your souls; you become one soul. It's also possible for two men or two women or for a man and woman to have a soul tie that are not married. They could be positive or negative. It means that your souls join. But we have something better that's available to us today. We have a spirit tie. Jesus had a spirit tie with John. I call your attention to the fact that after Jesus was raised from the dead and appearing in another form, John was the only one who perceived He was the Lord, when He was cooking the fish and baking the cake on the coals. John knew He was the Lord.
Well, how come no one else knew it was the Lord? Because His physical appearance had changed, but John had a spirit tie with Jesus and he knew Him after the flesh, but in addition to that, he knew Jesus after the Spirit. So he recognized Him even after His outward form changed. So we see an offer to us, brethren, of spirit ties. How do you know when you have a spirit tie with a man or a woman or another human being? What are the signs of having a spirit tie? Well, you must evaluate your relationship. What do you do when you're together? Do you spend almost every moment together talking about the things of God or practicing the things of God or doing the works of God? If you do, your relationship with that person is a spirit tie. Now in this hour, we have spirit ties and we have soul ties. If you don't have a spirit tie in your life, that's fine, but if you think you would like one, ask the Lord for one. But let me tell you, for you to have a spirit tie with somebody, means that you have to have Christ in you which is developed to the point that you could spend hours in one day talking about the things of God. Some people cannot bear that. So you may not be able to bear the fire. So count the cost, brethren, before you ask to experience a spirit tie. Know that heavy judgment might be falling on you. Why? To prepare your heart to bring Christ forth in you in a measure for you to have this intense kind of spiritual relationship with another human being. So when God talks about loving one and hating the other, He's speaking about the agape love. He's speaking about a spirit tie and He had that union with Jacob before He was born. I hope I answered your question.
The free will is in Christ. Our free will is in Christ. There's an overlapping between spirit and soul. There is a will of the soul and there is also a will of the spirit. I mentioned earlier the way that you could tell the difference. Let me use different words to describe it to you. The will of the soul is the ungodly will that leads us to rebellion and pride and stubbornness and brings destruction into our life, but there is a will which is in Christ. There is a righteous will and this is the will by which we must stand for righteousness and fight against the carnal mind. The will which leads us into bondage is not a free will. The will of man is in the spirit. The will of man initiates or originates in the human spirit, but the human spirit is in this condition of weakness. The quality of her very existence is subject to her husband giving her a demonic will because she is captured by Satan. He is expressing his will through her and his will is witchcraft. The will of Satan is to force people into bondage and to do things that they don't want to do. But when Christ completes the human spirit, the free will is in righteousness. I'm having a little trouble explaining this. Let me just pray. Father, I just pray that you help me to impart this in a way that these brethren can understand it. This is an excellent question and he's entitled to an answer. I just pray that you help me.
I'll start again. The will is in the spirit. The will of man is in the spirit, but for that will to manifest itself, it needs to be manifested through a completed spirit. The human spirit is a partial spirit. She's nothing of herself. She must have a husband and an offspring to complete her. So when we speak about free will, we must identify whether or not we're speaking about the will of the human spirit who's married to Satan or whether we're speaking about the will of the human spirit that's married to Christ. Now in the United States, right now, just by way of example, we're having a problem with too much freedom; too much freedom. We've taken this principle that says a man should be free, right out of the Scripture and the nation is dedicated to God. There's liberty in Christ. We have a Constitution, but man has become so free in the United States that we now have legalized witchcraft. I mentioned that to you. Now isn't that ridiculous? My whole point is, that man's will can only be free so long as it does not go against the spiritual law of God. If man's free will opposes the righteousness of God, then it's no longer free. It may look free; it may sound free; it may talk free; it may act free; but the truth is that that will has been captured by Satan. Do you get my point? Let me just pursue it a little further. We also made pornography legal. Is pornography legal in Nigeria? Yes, it is legal. Well, pornography used to not be legal in the United States and we made it legal there and now we have a problem. We said it was legal for pictures, for example, of two consenting adults. But it didn't stop there.
You see, sin has a tendency to descend and now we have a real problem with people selling their children to make pornographic movies. Four, five and six year old boys and girls are being used in pornographic movies. So we had to pass legislation against that. The whole reason I'm telling you this is that man cannot do whatever he wants. So we didn't want to pass the legislation when it was between consenting adults, so we waited until thousands and millions of little babies have been abused and have had their lives completely ruined until we pass a restriction on the free will of man to do evil. So just by way of recap, my point is spirit is the will, but that spirit must be completed to exercise its will. When that human spirit is married to Satan and has brought forth the carnal mind, her will is no longer free because she's now married to the spirit of bondage. But when that human spirit is married to the Lord Jesus Christ and her offspring is Christ (because there is liberty in Christ) she has a free will available only in Christ. Do you hear what I'm saying? Your free will is only free when it's free, and if you're married to Satan, you don't have any free will. So with regard to Pharaoh, he only had free will when Christ was manifested in him. His human spirit was freed up, out from the bondage of Satan, and the human spirit when freed from Satan, will do righteousness. As soon as God lifted His hand off, she reversed back to her marriage to Satan and the carnal mind and his true nature manifested. There's somebody here who still doesn't understand. If you would like to ask me a question, perhaps I can meet you at your point of need, if I hear your specific question. Is it you or is there somebody else?
COMMENT: Every person is born with a free will. It's like your ability to have a free will is dependent on your ability to receive an amount of God's love into you. How do I put it in words?
PASTOR VITALE: I think at least part of the problem is that I don't agree that every man is born with a free will. Every man is born with a spiritual heritage of blessings and curses, which are severely restricting his free will. So if that's where you're coming from, that's where our problem is. Fallen man does not have a free will. Fallen man is subject to the spirit of bondage. Some men are in more bondage than other men, but every man born is born with a sin nature. His human spirit is completed in Satan and the carnal mind and she's therefore in bondage, so we don't have a free will.
I don't know very many people who have accomplished every dream of their life. Some people can't go to school because they have to support their families. Some people would like to be geniuses and they just don't have the raw material. Some people would like to marry a movie star and she's not interested in him. Everybody doesn't have a free will. So if that's the point at which we disagree, I don't really know where to go from there. I think, basically, what we're saying, is that we're coming from two different points of view. If I perceive you correctly, you're coming from the point of view that says man has this power to be good or evil. I'm coming from a place where I'm saying, in this fallen condition, man has no power to be good or evil. Man is evil because he's married to evil. Now he has no potential to be righteous outside of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, so the most that we could hope for down here in hell is to be more good than evil. But even if we're the most good, out of all the potential good a man could be down here in hell, our righteousness is still as filthy rags in comparison to the Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot keep our own soul alive. So, also, it's not possible even down here in hell, where we can be predominately good or predominately evil; we still don't have power over our own lives. Drug addicts don't have power over their own lives. Alcoholics don't have power over their own lives.
People who are bound, whatever they are bound with, for those people who are on the negative side of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes, people who are overcome, people who have been turned to destruction because of witchcraft on the family line, they don't have the power to lift themselves up. Frequently, the kinds of people that are sent to me for ministry in the United States, are people who are turned over to destruction. They literally have a mark on their soul. They need those curses broken in Christ Jesus or they're going to die as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. They'll die from an overdose; they'll die from their alcoholism. Their lives are in utter destruction. They have no rewarding personal relationships. If they're married, their marriages are a disaster. If they have children, their children hate them. A lot of them have never even married because their personalities are so distorted that any marriage they would engage in, would be total destruction, violence, hatred, etc. etc. These people do not have a functioning lifestyle. They're on the evil side of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I'm sitting here today to tell you that they do not have a free will and that they were born to be in that kind of condition because of heavy curses on their life. So man is not born with a free will. So I have disagreed with your basic premise. That's not your basic premise?
Okay, try me again.
COMMENT: I was beginning to get it. Normally you're told there's a certain age at which you say I receive Christ. Now Jacob was loved and Esau was hated and we know that to be loved means that his spirit was joined to God. That means even the baby in the womb could be joined unto Him and though Jacob was doing things that looked like sin, his own Christ spirit was already born. That's what I'm trying to say. Are you saying now that the start of joining to Christ does not even start when we are physically matured? Do you get what I'm saying?
PASTOR VITALE: The average person born today is born with a spirit of bondage and our free will doesn't begin to manifest until Christ begins to be formed in us. That is the beginning of the formation of the manifestation of our free will and that is the beginning of the battle of the wills. I always called it the battle of the two minds; the Christ mind against the carnal mind. You could say the battle of the positive will or the battle of the free will against the battle of the will that's in bondage.
Remember that when Christ begins to be formed in you, your human spirit is now attached to two different offspring; the carnal mind and the Christ mind. They're both fighting to draw the fullness of her spiritual substance into their mind. When Christ draws the last of the spiritual substance of the human spirit into His mind, that's the end of the carnal mind. The mind cannot exist without the human spirit. So from the moment that the Christ mind begins to be formed in you, you have a measure of free will. To get your will completely free, you have to get the rest of your spirit away from the spirit of bondage. Did that answer your question? Yes, God gave Jacob the handicap. He gave it to him. Why would God give it to him and not the other? Because God had a purpose in Jacob. We're told in another place that God choose one ahead of the other before either one could sin, just to prove the right of God of election. It's not based on a man's own righteousness, but based on God's intended purpose in this man to play out God's plan of salvation for the entire human race. It's not based on any good thing that Jacob did, but based on God's call on his life. Did I get it? Oh, thank you, Jesus. Anybody else? Okay.
COMMENT: Jesus said, I have chosen the twelve of you and one of you is a devil. The Bible says that then the devil entered Judas. Then Jesus turned to Judas and said, what you're going to do, do quickly.
PASTOR VITALE: Let me take one at a time. What is a devil? Let me point out to you for those who may not have noticed that there is a difference between a demon and a devil. The word devil is a translation of the Greek word, Diabolos. It's a proper name. It's a person. The devil is a person. I suggest to you that he is the spiritual man known as fallen Adam. He was the glory of God, the man Adam. He was the glory of God when his mind was Christ. When the carnal mind killed Christ and took possession of God's possession, the fallen man became the devil. Any human being who is under the complete control of that fallen mind becomes a devil or a manifestation of or a full expression of the devil. So I suggest to you that what those scriptures are talking about is that Judas was turned over to the complete control of Satan who fully manifested his carnal mind through him, making Judas a full expression of the devil or a full expression of the fallen man. He was no longer a man, who in his mind, had some good thoughts and some evil thoughts. His Christ mind was stripped from him. I believe that Judas had the same measure of an imputed Christ that the other disciples had. He carried the bag and he had a trusted position in the ministry. I believe that Christ couldn't be formed in him in the way He's being formed in us because it was before the Holy Spirit was poured out.
The Scripture says Jesus gave the disciples power over devils. Actually the Greek word is demons; power over demons and power to heal all manner of diseases. He was a man of God with an imputed anointing. But the Scripture had to be fulfilled. Someone had to betray Jesus and Judas was the one who was picked. But of course he would never do it in his Christ mind. We go right back to the scripture that says the man was not deceived; it was the woman who was deceived. So I suggest to you, the Lord by His power, dissolved the altar of Christ in the man, Judas, and his carnal mind filled him completely and he became a spiritual woman. He was deceived and whatever was in his mind when he did what he did; he did it. The scripture says the devil entered into him. I looked that up in the Greek once. It's not even an accurate translation, but the point is it's just an English way of expressing the concept that the carnal mind totally possessed him. We shouldn't get caught up on literal translations. The carnal mind totally possessed him. The Christ mind was broken down. The altar was broken down. The carnal mind filled him completely and put some lie in his mind and he went and he betrayed Jesus. It was allowed for the purposes of the fulfillment of the Scripture. Judas was sacrificed because somebody had to betray Jesus. If you could receive it, that's my opinion. Did I, at least, answer your question? Yes, Judas came back into his right mind. You see, he was completely filled with the carnal mind.
Let me give you an analogy. We're told that when Peter pronounced blindness upon Simon the Sorcerer, he was filled up with the Holy Ghost. What happened was that Peter was a natural man. He was not in full stature, but in order to do a deed that required a high authority in Christ, the Holy Ghost in him arose to its highest potential and filled him up, utterly suppressing his carnal mind, and exercised the authority that it had to pronounce blindness upon this man. Then it receded, just like the tide comes in and the tide goes out. The Holy Ghost filled up Peter and brought him to a condition, I suggest to you, of temporary full stature, executed his authority and withdrew back to the level of spirituality that Paul abided at, if you can hear it. A similar thing happened with Judas. Even after Christ was broken down in him, Judas was a man that was both good and both evil. He was a man who had a conscience, but he was filled up, we might say, not with the anointing of the Holy Ghost, but with the anointing of Satan, with the anointing of the devil, if you will. Any conscience that Judas had was completely covered over and when repressed, he did the works of the devil. He betrayed the Christ and then when the deed was done, that filling receded and he became a manifestation of good and evil again. He returned to his right mind and he realized what he did. He was possessed of the devil, brethren. When he came back to his right mind and he realized what he did, he was devastated. He was sacrificed so that the scriptures could be filled. Does that satisfy you?
What do I think of predestination is your next question. I believe in predestination. Lord, what would you have me to say about predestination? We're told in the Book of Romans that there are some men who are born because of the will of Adam. There are some men who are born because a man and a woman decide they want to have a child. There are some men who are born because a man and a woman come together and they don't want a child, but they have a child, anyway. Then there are some men who are born because Adam in the soul realm needs bodies to express himself through. But there are some men who are born because the Father in heaven said, come into existence; I have a work for you to do. That category of men will end up in the ministry, one way or the other. There is no escaping it and there's no place to run. Usually people in that category have very hard lives; lives that might line up in some instances with the Hebrew prophets, the reason being that for God to express His life through us, He has to really crush us. Our fallen will just doesn't want to be dominated by Christ. So we usually have very hard lives. When the Lord comes along and we see something good, we recognize it. Did I answer your question? Okay. I'll take one more question and then we have to close tonight. There's a very sweet Spirit here. If you'll just wait with me a minute, I think the Lord might have a word for us. There's a very sweet Spirit here. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Lord.
Thus saith the Lord. In this last day, I have called many sons, saith God. I have called you from before the foundation of the earth and you have heard me. I have hissed and you have come, saith the Lord. Fear not, thou worm, Jacob, for I shall do the work in you, whose heart is turned towards me. Fear is only for the evil man. Be not distressed at the word of my prophet, for every word that comes forth, every chastisement and every rebuke, is not for every man. Open your heart to me and I shall quicken to you that which is for you and that which is not for you. For I have known you, saith the Lord. I am your creator and fear is not of me. I shall do it. I shall bring you through. I shall save you. I shall save your nation and I shall restore everything, saith the Lord. For I have loved you, with an everlasting love, and I have never forgotten you, saith God, from the day that Noah cast you down to hell. In this hour, I have raised up my sons, saith the Lord, to reverse that curse. For indeed, as you have been taught of my prophet, the reversal of the curse can only be or only come from an authority higher than the one who prophesied the curse. Such a high office is found in my Christ. I shall manifest Him unto you. I shall keep my promise unto you, saith the Father. I shall restore you and I shall reward your faithfulness and all things shall be restored, saith the Lord.
12/13/2000mjs
