The Following Message Has Been Transcribed And Edited For
Clarity, Continuity Of Thought, And Punctuation By
The LEM Transcribing & Editing Team.
We were talking about what is going on in Congress today, this was off the message, and I was saying that I am really trying to hear the truth coming from the hearts of man. I am trying not to be partisan because the Sons of God are not partisan. They are beyond partisanship, the Sons of God are beyond the governments of men, and they are representatives of the government of God. I made a statement to this effect that I am trying really hard, but the majority of Republicans that I hear interviewed seem to me to be sincere, I listen to the words that they are saying, and it makes sense to my mind and to my heart.
The general Democratic party line, I have heard one or two Democrats speak righteousness, but the Democratic party line avoid the truth, they manipulate, they will not answer direct questions, they are spouting propaganda, and to the best of my ability to discern it, they are just speaking lies, and their whole intention is to seduce the minds of the people who may not be strong in political areas.
Xxxx said, They are all out protecting their own job, their own interests. So I knew that it was a spirit of justification, and I was praying to the Lord as to how He wanted me to bring this forth. And Xxxx had a word of knowledge within herself -- if it was not a word of knowledge it was a conviction, which is very encouraging that as soon as it was out of your mouth, you knew it was justification? Right?
COMMENT: No actually, it was a remembrance. I remembered something that happened online in a very similar way, and I remembered it.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, this same correction came forth on line, and again I was telling the brethren here, off the message, that this seems to be a very difficult principle. First of all, everybody that is moving on in Christ comes to the place where they have to deal with this, and it seems to be hard for people to grasp, so we are going to have our own round-table discussion here today, and we are going to try and get this on a message so that people can listen to it as much as they can.
COMMENT: I asked if making an observance of circumstances is the same thing as justifying it, especially even if you do not even agree with it?
PASTOR VITALE: That is a good question, because it is true that was really your observance of what they are trying to do, but justification -- Lord, help me to explain this. That was very true what you said.
Justification is a taking of the other person's side. In order words, I made this statement that I just told you. You could disagree with it, you could agree with it, that is your privilege to disagree or agree with it, but when someone speaks for the other party it is justifying them. Can you hear what I am saying? Let me try again. If you disagreed with what I was saying that is your opinion. If you agreed, that is your opinion, but what you said was neither in agreement or disagreement. It was a presentation of the other party's position, and obviously the other party is not here. So you took the other party's position, which set up a controversy. Can you hear that at all?
COMMENT: It seems to me that when you take the other side's part you are agreeing with them, which I am not, so I did not identify it.
PASTOR VITALE: Now, I understand that you did not agree with them, but it is a spirit of controversy, and all of this is pride, justification and controversy, to come in and explain the other party's side. I will just have to ask God to help you understand it. I do not have any other words right now. Can you contribute anything to this?
COMMENT: I agree with what you are saying because, without realizing it, she was right in there, like it is an old trick that the enemy uses for debate almost.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, it is a spirit of controversy, but I understand that it is probably not coming forth from any evil motive, but it is most likely coming forth -- whether it is conscious; it is probably unconscious, conscious or unconscious the Lord knows -- it is probably coming forth from just a desire to have something to say, or to keep the conversation going, or it is also very likely that this is what you have been hearing people do all your life and you never realized that it is a spirit of controversy. It just never occurred to you that there is anything wrong with it, but this is the problem that we all have. We are all doing things all of our life that we do not think there is anything wrong with it, and then one day Jesus comes to us and says, You know, that is really not right. You are not murdering anybody, it is not a terrible thing, but it is not a right spirit, and it is a spirit that brings in controversy, and it is a spirit that opposes.
COMMENT: You always say that when you hear something, you automatically have an opinion on it, and I just say it as my opinion.
PASTOR VITALE: OK, so here is where we have to break through. See, that is not your opinion. That is presenting the other party's side. Would you like to try to give your opinion? Now let me repeat it to you, this is what I said. As hard as I try to be fair, I see the Republicians really being very sincere and the Democrats being very wicked. That is my opinion. What is your opinion about the issue? Not your opinion about the Democrats, but what do you think about what is happening in Congress?
COMMENT: My own personal opinion?
PASTOR VITALE: Yes.
COMMENT: That all the evidence is there to convict them, and they are saying that the people are going to be the judges, when it is not the people who are the judges. It is the Constitution that they have to abide by.
PASTOR VITALE: Excellent, I agree with you completely. That is Xxxx opinion. Can you try and see the difference between Xxxx opinion and your speaking for the other people?
COMMENT: So you are saying I made a judgment of why the Democrats are doing it?
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, and that judgment came out of the spirit of pride because everything that is not Christ is a spirit of pride. It was a spirit of controversy. I grant you, Xxxx, that you did not intend to do anything wrong or make any trouble. It is probably just a learned thing that you are going to easily overcome, but it is a spirit of opposition.
COMMENT: I always understood that pride was something that was self-exalting or had some kind of benefit for the person speaking it, so I find it hard to identify pride with this.
PASTOR VITALE: OK, this again is a big problem for people moving on in God. Pride has many faces. In Job 40 or 41 it talks about Leviathan, and it says that Leviathan is the king of all of the children of pride, and there is pride that I call a healthy pride. For people who are not in Christ, who are trying to live in this world, you have to have some pride or you will just be slaughtered. You have to have self-respect even as long as it is out of your carnal mind. It is a manifestation of pride, but you have to have some healthy pride or this world will kill you.
Then there is the pride that you talk about, self-exaltation, saying, Am I not great? But then, there are many manifestations of hidden pride. There is such a thing as false humility, for example, which is pride, and a lot of people are amazed to find out that what they perceive to be humility is a false humility, which is pride. So one of the things we uncover here is all of these hidden manifestations of pride, and these are the hidden sins of the mind, or at least some of the hidden sins of the mind. The bottom line of what we are trying to do here is expose the carnal mind, because all of these ways that we think, that we have been taught, that we have seen our parents do for all of these years, is all the carnal mind's attempt to live in this world, and we want to switch over from the carnal mind to the Christ mind. So to do that we have to be able to recognize the carnal mind. If you are a decent person, which you are, most of the manifestations of your carnal mind will be pride. So all I can do is tell you I know that you will hear from God. I know that He will witness it to you because I know that I am telling you the truth. So, for right now, can you see the difference between your opinion and taking the other person's side?
COMMENT: I am wavering. I am trying, I have not seen it yet.
PASTOR VITALE: OK.
Also, you would have to ask yourself why, since you have a strong opinion, whether I agree with your opinion or not, you have a strong godly opinion which I happen to agree with, but it would not have mattered if I did not agree with it. Since you had an opinion of your own, why was your response to justify or to explain the other person's motives rather than give your opinion? You see, it is a form -- would you like to answer that? You see, I go through this with almost everybody that is training here, and it arises out of an insecurity, or a conscious or unconscious belief that your opinion really is not important. And I know that you came out of that in your life, but you came out of that. There have been people telling you your opinion is not worth anything all your life. Is that not true? Or what you think is not important, you are just a woman and should not even be a part of this conference. You have told me things like that.
Well, I did not want to say that on the message, but you said it, that is how your husband treats you? OK. So you have been resisting this all of your life. That is a form of abuse, not that he knows that he is abusing you. It is a common macho attitude, but it is still a form of abuse. Lots of times when we are being abused we resist so much with all of our strength for so long that we think that this abuse has not affected us at all, but it does affect us. It does not affect us as it would if we did not fight it off. We are not devastated by the abuse, but sometimes we do not realize that it has affected us.
I want to suggest to you today that there is a real possibility that one of the effects that it has had on you is that, under certain circumstances, I cannot even define them for you right now, you really are reluctant to give your opinion and yet you would like to say something so you present the other party's position. Even if you do not agree with me, can you hear what I am saying? Because you had a choice here, you had a choice to give your opinion or present the other party's side, and I believe that the Lord has told me because I have been praying about this with you for years, I believe the Lord has told me that you do not even know why you do this, you see. It is like a knee-jerk reaction with you, and you do it frequently that you are controversial, you do it frequently, but you have no idea what you are doing, and I do not think you even know why you do it. It is something that you just do without thinking.
When we were here last Sunday night, and there was a witchcraft attack here Sunday night, and I had some trouble staying in the anointing, and the anointing finally came up in me, and this was exactly what happened. We were going around the room reading Psalms, the anointing rose, and I started preaching again, and this kind of a manifestation came out of you, and Christ just crumbled, you know, and I lost you for the moment. It was just temporary, I was under an attack, but do not take this wrong. I am not talking about me or the fact that Christ crumbled in me. I am fine. OK? We are trying to help you to understand because I know that you did not know what you did Sunday night, and I thought you felt bad about it at the time because I completely lost the anointing again for, like, the third time Sunday night.
Now, you have to understand that the foundational reason for me losing the anointing was not you. There was a severe witchcraft attack here, but as I started to stand, you unwittingly said something out of your carnal mind that just toppled me again. So you cannot take the whole blame for it. Do you understand what I am saying? You were just like that last straw. Normally I can deal with things like that, I am dealing with it tonight. I think it is time that the Lord wants to help you to understand that you have got a habit. It is just a habit, that is all it is. It is just a habit, you have been doing it all of your life. No one ever told you it was wrong so you never prayed about it, you never thought you were doing anything wrong, so I will leave this with you.
You have a habit that sometimes, in a controversial issue, when you have a choice between giving your opinion, and most of the time you have excellent opinions, we have disagreed from time to time, but you have strong opinions, and you think things through, and you hear from God. So when you have a choice between giving your opinion and presenting the other party's side, sometimes you present the other party's side. It is just a bad habit, and I want to leave you with these words, that it creates a controversy because it opposes what I am saying.
Then, I have two choices -- if this happens, if anyone make a statement like that, that takes the other person's side, I have two choices -- I either fight with you, which I do not want to do, or I just shut up. It ends the conversation. See, when you gave your opinion just a few minutes ago I thought it was an excellent opinion, and if we were not having this discussion here it probably would have fueled the fire and the discussion would have gone on. And maybe the others would have had something to say, and I would have had something to say, and it would have gone back and forth, and the Spirit of Christ would have been in it, and it could have been a very exciting conversation, but what you said, spiritually speaking, threw water on the flames. There is nothing else to say. It more or less ended the conversation, unless I wanted to fight with you.
COMMENT: Are you saying that my observing the motive of the Democratic people was not the problem, but the problem was that I said it after your statement? Is that where the conflict is?
PASTOR VITALE: Well, you are close. There is nothing wrong with observing their motives. I do that all the time, but the way the conversation was flowing here, your stating that observation at that time was really inappropriate. It was bad timing, it was the wrong time. OK, you can deal with that? OK. Praise the Lord.
COMMENT: It is so true what you just said, when you said that if she had said it when she voiced her own opinion, it would have maybe stirred -- it is so true because I was saying, Wow, I wish we would get on to this discussion.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes, and actually, to tell you the truth, I have been very carnal. I guess I am all caught up in this office work. I have not been in anything spiritual at all, and I am asking the Lord for a message. I had no idea what I would be preaching on tonight, and a good discussion was starting up. I felt the anointing rising, so without you realizing it, Satan rose in your mind and threw water on the fire that Christ was stirring up. When people have a conversation it is a spiritual thing, and we touch one another, our spirit touches one another, and stimulates each other to contribute to the conversation. There are some things that you could say that will flow with the conversation and make it grow positively, and, of course, everything that we say is spirit, and then there are other tings that we could say that just puts an end to it, and that is what happened.
Christ was in the conversation, and the anointing was raising up, and because, at the time you did not understand these issues, Satan was able to bring forth that statement in you in another spirit that just put an end to the conversation. See, everything is spirit, and it came forth in a spirit of opposition. So it is OK if you do not understand it. This is the beginning of your understanding. It was a controversial statement. What is interesting is that you could have disagreed with what I was saying and not thrown cold water on the fire if it was your opinion. If it was your opinion, and you said, Pastor Sheila, I feel this way about it, I would have responded to you, but you see, when you are talking for another person, what is going to happen we are going to start arguing over the other people who are not even here.
I see you are not following me, so I am going to leave it with this, that it was Satan who rose in you, and the only reason she could rise in you -- now we all know that Satan is our unconscious mind so she is in all of us, right? I am not saying anything bad about you, right? You know that, right? OK. The only way Satan can manifest through us is through a lack of understanding because she is there in our unconscious mind, and she wants to use our mind and our mouth to oppose the flow of the Spirit of Christ. And the only way we are going to stop her -- you are not going to stand there and curse me, you are not going to do anything like that, so she knows she cannot do that through you. She has to be more subtle than that, and the only way she can manifest through you or through me or through any of us is through an area where we have no understanding. See, you did not understand that kind of statement was wrong, was inappropriate in this conversation, so Satan took the opportunity to speak it through your mouth. Can you hear that? So this is why education is absolutely essential.
COMMENT: So you are saying that I can speak for myself, not speak for somebody else?
PASTOR VITALE: Great, good, exactly, that is it, wonderful. OK.
The discussion started with the difference in the attitude of the Democrats and Republicians and how distressing the attitude is on the Democrats who are following the Democratic line, that they will not face the issue. They are just covering over the issue, trying to change people's minds, trying to change the subject, they are very big in changing the subject and making a controversy out of things. This is very ungodly behavior. What is godly behavior? Godly behavior is the behavior that leads to reconciliation, and to lead to reconciliation both parties have to be willing to say, This is what I did wrong, I did not understand you, I am sorry, I will learn from my experience. And it is a breaking in your spirit that lets the two spirits come together in a spiritual rejoicing, which is called reconciliation.
But there are a lot of people in this country today who cannot do that. They are having trouble saying that they are wrong, and why do they do that? There are so many people doing it today that we have a moral crisis in the country. There is one interviewer on TV that I have been watching. He is on Fox News, and his name is O'Reilly. I do not know his first name. I like the man. He is a conservative interviewer, and he says that we are having a moral crisis in the country, and he is outspoken as to challenging the heads of the other news stations why they are not exposing this moral crisis that we are having in the country. The moral crisis, as he sees it, and as I see it, is this: that for thousands of years in the world we had what is called moral absolutes: this is right, and this is wrong, but there has been a change in this country today. I do not know about the rest of the world, but there has been a change in this country. It started in the 50's and it escalated, and right now in the 90's we have a large percentage of the population who do not have a revelation of this is right or this is wrong. But they have their own concept of what is right and what is wrong.
Now things are not cut and dried. There are a lot of people who know that murder is wrong, they know that stealing is wrong, they know that forgery is wrong, but they do not understand that certain attitudes are wrong, as in the case that came forth today. People living for God, people who want to do everything right, but they do not know how to reconcile. They think they are reconciling. They think they are communicating, but this attitude, which is spirit, that rises in them prevents a true reconciliation. As I said earlier, and I want to say it again, it is so important when two people have a controversy or a misunderstanding or they have to resolve an issue. The true resolution of the problem only comes when both parties humble themselves and are willing to say, This was my part in it, and the other one says, This was my part in it, and you come together in a rejoicing of the spirit, which is called reconciliation.
A lot of people cannot do that today, and their problem is pride, but it is a pride that arises out of a lack of education. It is a phenomena in the country today. We are having a moral crisis here. Thousands and millions of people in this country think that it is not necessary to humble themselves and break in the spirit so that they can come together in a rejoicing of the spirit of reconciliation. And the reason they do not think they have to do it is because they have been taught incorrectly. Now, they may have been taught verbally, but most likely they were taught by the households that they grew up in. That is what their parents did, that is what their relatives did, and that is what they do. That is how they deal with controversy. To stand your ground, to not admit that you did anything wrong, and to think that the reconciliation comes when you agree to just drop it and go on with it. See, this is wrong thinking. It is a plague in the country today. You are not the only one. It is a plague in the country today. Did I define the crisis? Do you understand the crisis here?
So we have one part of the population who is moving in a spirit of truth, who is attempting to communicate with the other part of the population in a spirit of truth that will lead to a true spirit of reconciliation, and then we have the other part of the population that is saying, Well, consciously or unconsciously, this is not a spirit of accusation, but I am talking about something that is going on in the country today. So consciously or unconsciously, the other category of people are saying, No, I do not want to humble myself, I do not want to admit the truth, or I do not want to admit my part in contributing to this controversy. I want it to be enough to say to you that we agree just to go on with this and just forget about it and go on with it. And they want to go on with their life without that breaking, without that coming together, without that rejoicing in the spirit of reconciliation.
This is a very dangerous way to live because there is negative energy present in that. It is just sowing seeds of future disaster. So O'Reilly had these two teachers of ethics on his interview program. Personally, I think it was brilliant to bring these two up to keep religion out of it because everybody is, when I say everybody, I mean the people in the country who are not in God are just on the defensive when it comes to religion and everything is the religious right. I heard on the TV the other day that some gentlemen, I do not remember who he was, but someone in the news was called a religious fanatic, and he was called a religious fanatic by someone on President Clinton's staff, and the basis for that opinion, for that decision, for that conclusion, is that the man was a deacon in his church, that he did not drink, and he went to church. Ridiculous! That makes you a religious fanatic?
So O'Reilly brought these two people onto his show. They did not say one word about religion. They were talking about ethics and morality and a standard of right and wrong. A standard of right and wrong that goes from something as serious as murder to something that appears to not be as serious as telling a lie. I never realized how serious the smallest lie is because it is the beginning of a state of mind which is dishonest. It is a seed. I am telling you, I have lied in my life, you know. Before I came to the Lord, I was no angel. Even when I was in the Lord, it is only these last few years -- I do not want you to think that I lied a lot when I was in the Lord, but I did not understand how important it is to tell the truth in the simplest things, to create within yourself an attitude of honesty that not many people have today.
When I come up against somebody like that, I find it very refreshing to meet an honest man, and I see it on some of these people being interviewed on TV. I perceive an honest spirit. It is like a breath of cool air that comes over me, someone who is willing to humble himself, admit that he was wrong, and make changes. So these two teachers of ethics both agreed that if the society continues along these lines we are headed for destruction. This society cannot survive this if the whole society goes over to what they call situational ethics. I think it is wrong, you think it is right, well it is OK for you, but it is not OK for me. There has to be absolutes with regard to morality if we are to survive as a nation.
The Bible talks about this in the Book of Judges. It says every man did what he thought was right in his own eyes in those days, and Israel fell into disaster, cried out to God, and God raised up a judge. This is what is happening in this country today. We must have honesty to survive because dishonesty raises up negative energy. Now the way I have always described it in the past, even before I started understanding things in terms of energy, it would be like this, for example: in a marriage where two people fight all the time, but this rejoicing and reconciliation never comes forth, the very best they could hope for is that they stop fighting. They put the issue aside, they forget about it, and they both go on with their lives. It is sweeping this negative energy under the rug, and it has to manifest somewhere, because energy builds up, and builds up and builds up and builds up. It has to manifest.
Either the person gets sick, or the person engages in compulsive behavior. Another way to put it is if you cannot have closure -- I have talked about this in other meetings. Also, this is the legal term that I have heard used with regard to President Clinton. The people need closure. It is just another way of saying reconciliation. President Clinton has never resolved this issue with the people of this country. Whatever he got up on TV and said, spiritually speaking, he never humbled himself, he never broke, and he never came together in a spirit of rejoicing/reconciliation with the people of this nation. He is fighting, and, in my opinion, will fight until the bitter end insisting that he is right, refusing to humble himself, and flow with the people. He is an opposing force. In my opinion, he is dividing the nation, and he should resign. Do you know that were two groups who came to blows? Did you see that on the TV? I saw it on TV, men, husky men punching people out, with their faces in a full grimace, punching with all their strength, attacking the people who were asking Clinton to resign.
See, with the spirit of reconciliation which is given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ, we have the provision to avoid this, but the spirit of reconciliation only works when we humble ourselves. It is the most beautiful thing to see, even amazes me sometimes. I must have given this testimony recently, but I will give it again. I was asked to mediate between two people who were just at complete odds with each other. It looked like their relationship was completely over, they had been friends for quite a while, there were hard feelings, there was hostility, the husband of one of the woman was saying, I do not want that woman in my house anymore, she does this to my wife, and things were really bad. Two of them agreed to talk with me as a mediator, so we came together and we prayed. Then I just sat back and suggested that the two of them just start speaking about how they feel. How do you feel? What are you so angry at? Where is all this behavior coming from?
The Spirit of Christ moved, and it was the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen. These two women were more than friends, they also worked together, and one of the woman was a superior to the other woman. It was not the superior, but the worker who was being very aggressive towards her friend who was her superior at work, and when it came out that the worker was so wounded and hurt over something that the superior had done, the superior started to cry. She had no idea that she had hurt this woman. She had absolutely no idea the extent to which she had hurt this woman, and both of them cried and the spirit of reconciliation flowed. She admitted when she started to cry that she had no idea she hurt her, but that she was sorry that she hurt her and that she really wanted peace with her. The spirit of reconciliation flowed, they kissed each other, and all the wounds were healed. I never did find out what her husband's response was when he came home that night. He was already saying, I do not want that woman in my house. She is against my wife. That was before he went to work, and when he comes home from work they are the best of friends again.
Brethren, we have this gift in Christ Jesus. This is what the Scripture is talking about when it says, Ff you have a controversy or a complaint go to your brother. If he will not listen to you, go again with a friend. What does that mean? Bring someone to mediate. If he still will not listen to you take it before the Church, and if he still will not listen the man is a heathen. What does that mean? It means that if this man will not admit his part in what is troubling you after you go through those three steps, after you seek to communicate with him, you bring a mediator, and then you bring it before the whole Church, and if the man cannot admit his part in your pain, and humble himself so that you can receive closure, he does not have the spirit of God in him. He is a heathen.
You see, brethren, it is possible for us to not have any pain, it is possible for us not to be aware at all that there is any hurt present, and maybe we are not hurt, but at the same time, where is another person who is really hurting over something that we did -- even if we did not mean to hurt them, that person needs closure. They need to be released from their pain. This is so important, you have got to know this, brethren, that if you could just go to that person and say, I am just really sorry that I hurt you. If I had known, I would have done it differently, or if I had it to do over again, I could not have done it any other way, but I am really sorry that I hurt you. That is humility. Pride says, Well, that is the way it is, I am sorry that you feel that way. You deny the person closure. They are locked in a spiritual jail with their pain. But in Christ Jesus we set men free. What skin is it off of your nose to say to someone, I am so sorry I hurt you? I had no choice, I had to do what I had to do, but I am really sorry I hurt you, let us pray. Only pride will stop you from doing that. This is what the Son of God does.
I will give you my testimony. I talked about it on line this week. The most incredible thing has happened in my life. As you all know, I have had a very heavily cursed life which the Lord Jesus has been delivering me from for all these years, and one of the manifestations of the curse, or some of the manifestations of the curse is, or has been, because it is really turned around now, rejection and unforgiveness, and people going away and refusing to talk to me, to communicate with me, refusing to give me an opportunity to reconcile with them. If someone wants to leave, if you have a friend that does not want to be friends with you any more, it is OK, you do not have to be friends with someone that you do not want to be friends with, but if you want to be in right standing with Jesus Christ, and that person is willing to communicate with you and is hurt that you are leaving, to be in right standing with Jesus Christ, you should talk to them, you should say every kind thing that you can possible think of, and explain to them that you just have to go on your way. You bless them and you wish them happiness in this life, but you just have to go. When you do not do that you leave a person with a spiritual problem. Now, they are going to still fell sad that you are leaving, but if you give them closure, if you say goodbye, if you talk about the things that were good in the relationship, you will help them to deal with it. Do you know this is what a funeral is all about? It is an opportunity for people to express their grief so that they can go on with their life.
Well, I have had all these problems with people not forgiving me, people walking out of my life with a hard heart towards me, and, of course, it is through my whole family. The Lord has pretty much turned that around, but it took quite a few years in God. Well, I heard from an aunt of mine last week that I have not seen in over 40 years, that my parents have not spoken to -- my parents are dead now, but my parents did not speak to them for years. I think I must have been 13 or 14 years old the last time that we went over there together, and the last time that my parents had anything to do with them, my aunt and my grandmother, my father's mother and my father's sister. I know that my aunt called once or twice to say that grandma was dying or that another brother was dying, and my parents wanted nothing to do with her. But I tell you that it never occurred to me in a million years that this woman was suffering.
I do not know what happened. I am not judging my parents for why they did what they did, but I tell you this, that I had no reason whatsoever to believe that my father, it was his family, or my mother were suffering for not seeing his family. They just cut off the whole family, and they did not appear to be suffering for it at all. It was their decision. It was what they wanted. Well, I heard from my father's sister, my aunt, and this woman is in such pain it just has touched my heart, and I know that the Lord has brought this reconciliation to grant this woman closure before she dies. She is in her 90's. And she told me that for these 40 some odd years she has been writing letters that never come back but are never answered, that my parents have moved twice, that she has gone banging on neighbor's doors begging them to tell her where her brother has gone, and she was so excited that I called her back in response to her message, that she was flabbergasted on the telephone.
All that she could say was, Sheila, you called me, I cannot believe you called me, and she is telling me how much she loves me and my sisters. I am just sitting there on the telephone, this is a family feud, I do not even know what happened, and I want to tell you something that there is really not a doubt in my mind that a lot of the problems that I have had in my life are coming directly from this woman who for 45 years, however long it was, has not given up hope of seeing her brother and her three nieces again, that the door has been shut in her face, that her letters do not come back, but they are not answered. She called on the telephone, and they would say two words and hang up on her. For 40 some odd years she has not forgotten us, and what my parents were doing to her was happening to me. Can you hear that?
I believe it is a miracle that I am even in touch with her. The last time she called my parents -- I do not know the last time she wrote, I have not gotten any letters here in 3 years -- but the last time she called was about 10 years ago to tell them that another brother died. I do not know what her relationship is with God, but she said, I had a feeling that I had to try one more time. This was just last week. I had to try to reach my brother one more time. She is in her 90's. My father would be 96. He died 3 years ago. So she called the phone number that my parents had before they died. I am living in their house, and I took my phone number, so their phone number from the last time she called has been with another family for 3 years.
Well, when she called, she got this other family. She is a two hour ride away. She got this family in the local area because it is the same exchange, and she begged them to please go over to this address. She told them, I do not know why the phone number has changed, but will you please go over to this address, it is very important. And the woman who does not know any of us got into her car, the woman who has my parent's old phone number got in her car and drove to this address, and when I was not at home, she left a message with the condo manager who gave me the message, and I called her. She could not believe I called her. She kept saying it over and over again, Sheila, you called me, I cannot believe you called me. For 40 some odd years she is calling and writing and having the door slammed in her face, and everything my father did to her was happening to me.
You have got to have closure, and one of the things she said to me was, What did I do? I do not even know what I did. You have to have closure, brethren, and you have to give people closure, even if you go away. If you want to be a godly person, if you want to be in right standing in Christ, you have to go to them and talk to them and tell them how you feel and explain it, and then do whatever you have to do. But to lock somebody out with unforgiveness, and not even be willing to call them once a year -- again, I am not here to judge my parents, I am just telling that the pain in this woman was being lived out through me. So, I have not seen her yet. I am going to see her either this Saturday or next Saturday. You have to have closure, brethren, you have to have reconciliation or there is an explosion. There will be an explosion.
Also, one of the potential explosions is, apparently, unexplained anger. When people walk around with unresolved conflicts in them -- I am not justifying anybody or anything, I am just telling you the truth -- one of the reasons for outbursts of anger that appear to be unreasonable and are unreasonable on the surface arise out of unresolved conflict, because conflict is energy. When two people strive with one another, you are manifesting energy, and I am manifesting energy, and it is really a battle of minds, and that energy has to be discharged. You cannot just say, Let us go on, because there is going to be an atomic explosion.
I am going to tell you something that is going to be very hard for you to believe, and I do not want you to take any condemnation. This is just the aspects of our life. That little striving that we just had, I have a stiff neck from the stress. You have a very strong mind, and the strength that you were putting into defending yourself has given me a stiff neck. Would you put that on the message so that the people can hear that?
COMMENT: Well, I have an upset stomach.
PASTOR VITALE: Well, I am not glad that you have an upset stomach, but I am really glad that this came out. This is what happens from this kind of striving that you were not even aware that you were doing. So the Lord really wants to break this spirit of pride in you because all of this strength that you have, He wants it to flow into the Mind of Christ. So that is what we are doing here, we are exposing this, and all I can do is give you a choice. That is my job, to give you a choice, and I know that you will always make the right choice. This is how people get sick, this is how accidents happen.
We cannot be feeling guilty about these things, I just want you to know how this world works, that there is a reason for every negative thing that happens in this world, and the reason is that somewhere behind the scenes there is some negative energy flowing. And it is really a curse to not be able or to not know how to bring forth this reconciliation that I am talking about, this rejoicing in reconciliation. It is a bondage. I break that curse on you right now. in the name of Jesus, and I break it on your marriage, and I break it in every aspect of your family, and you too. It is a curse. Jesus wants us to live. He wants us to live. He wants us to have good things in this life. Every evil thing in this life comes from wrong thinking. Every evil thing is out of this carnal mind, wrong thinking, wrong doing, lack of understanding, darkness, ignorance, and every problem we have. Every single problem should be subject to reconciliation. with only one exception, and that one exception is if you are trying to reconcile with someone who is under the curse of the fool and will not do their part. It takes two people. The Scripture says that there is only one thing that will help the fool, and that is a rod across his back, and the back is where pride is. So what the Lord is saying is that the only thing that will help the fool is to break his pride. This is all pride. Our biggest problem is pride.
We have to find that middle ground where pride stops being healthy. I said, off the message, that there is a healthy pride, that you cannot go through this world letting people mop up the floor with you. There is a healthy pride, you have to know when to say "no," that you will not let people walk all over you. You have to find that line where that healthy pride stops and where you go into malignant pride that gives stomachaches and stiff necks. I remember years ago, that church that we were raised up in. We were a part of a denomination, but the people in the congregation had put in thousands of dollars to purchase this church, and there was a falling out between the denomination and what our pastor was teaching. We knew that we were withdrawing from the denomination, but our pastor wanted to get out with the building. He did not want the denomination to walk away with the building. They had given him an offering, and then the people put in thousands of dollars. I think it was $20,000 they had put towards the building. So the best he could hope for would be that they would release him if he would give them the $20,000, but the worst that could happen was that even if he offered the $20,000 they would not let him go, but they would try to take the whole building from him.
So there was a confrontation. One of the elders from the denomination, and the two of them were up on the stage, our pastor and the elder from the denomination, and one of the brethren in the congregation said to me, I just saw the two of them as two, I forget the animal she said, but it had something to do with a stiff neck, that their neck -- peacocks. They were strutting around the platform like peacocks, and I was very young in God at the time and naive, and I said, My pastor has pride. I knew that it meant pride. Surely the elder of the denomination is the one with all the pride, but my pastor has pride too. Yes, he had pride too. It is very hard to not manifest pride, but all things are possible in Christ.
Reconciliation, brethren. You cannot have peace without reconciliation, and we are promised peace. Jesus promised us peace. When He promised us peace He promised us peace with Him, but if we are at peace with Him we are going to be at peace with our fellow man. Now being at peace with your fellow man does not mean that you never have controversy, because the Sons of God have controversy all the time. It means that the end is peace. Either you bring reconciliation, or the relationship ends.
Once again, back to that Scripture, you talk to your brother, you take a mediator, and you take it before the Church, and if the spirit of reconciliation still cannot heal this rift, the man does not have the Spirit of Christ; he is a heathen. In that case, you depart and you have peace. So you either have peace through reconciliation or you have peace through departure. The Lord always prefers peace through reconciliation. Now you have to understand that you cannot be best friends with everybody. You do not have to have everybody in your life that you see them every week, but you can be at peace with them. Maybe you see them once a year, maybe you call them once a year just to stay in touch, but both parties know that if they ever wanted to call you, that they are welcome to call you, but this block that you are not welcome in my house, your phone call is not welcome or your letter is not welcome, is a heartache. It is an unresolved conflict, it is a living thing that exists in the emotional plane, and it is tormenting.
So, I exhort you all tonight to get a revelation that if you are not hurting, it does not necessarily mean that the other person is not hurting.
COMMENT: Is it the responsibility of the person that is hurting to go to the other party, who may not even be aware of what is happening?
PASTOR VITALE: Definitely, definitely. That is the Scripture which says, Go to you are your brother, and if you brother does not listen, then you take a mediator, and if he still does not listen, you go before the Church, and if he still just does not care that you are hurting, then he is a heathen, and you have to go on and get your deliverance by the power of God and forget about that person. That is not a reasonable person.
Now, if this is your husband, I do not know if that is who you have in mind, but if it is your husband, if it is your mother, if it is a relative, well then you cannot be throwing them out of your life, but you are going to have to really deal with this in your prayer life, because that is painful to be in a relationship with someone who will not reconcile with you no matter how hard you try. That is torment, and the only way that I know of that you could deal with that without being damaged by it is through complete submission to Jesus Christ, asking for Him to supernaturally help you to forgive that person, and to go on without their forgiveness.
That is very painful to be in a relationship like that. It is an ongoing lack of reconciliation. It is really a lack of communication, but, you know, a lot of marriages today have that. As a matter of fact, in my opinion, more marriages today are in that condition than otherwise because marriage, at least mature marriages, going back 50 years ago, or 30 or 40 years ago, it just seems that is the way it was in those days. Life was harder, and the man worked, and the woman took care of the kids, and a lot of the men especially, and sometimes it is the woman, they just do not want to discuss problems. They just want peace and quiet. They are bringing home the bacon, and you should just live your life. A lot of men are that way, and it is very painful.
See, the more insensitive you are, the easier it is for you to survive that life. A lot of married people like that. They just go their own way, and they have been married 10-40 years, and they each develop their own interests, and they come together for family gatherings, and for their sexual relationship, and that is how they live. A lot of people live like that, and that is what marriage is like for a lot of people. I think it is a very rare couple that are really sensitive toward one another and willing to talk all these things out; although, you might find that more these days than 30-40 years ago, with all of the consciousness raising that we have in this hour. Even in today's marriages, I think the majority of marriages are just a lifestyle.
Probably someone is going to misunderstand me for what I am saying here. People fall in love, they have this romantic experience, and then they settle down to married life, and that is exactly what it is. It is life. It is a day-to-day life, and the man works, and today most women work, and everyone has their responsibilities, and they just do not want to shake the boat. A lot of people are happy with this surface marriage where they -- this is not a bad thing, I am an observer of people, I am not saying it is a bad thing. They have the home, the man and woman work together, they raise their family, they have family activities, they have sexual outlet, they have some affection, a commitment to one another to build a life together, but it never goes any deeper than that. I am going to say it again, this is not a bad thing, I am not saying it is a bad thing, but it is a very rare couple where the man and the woman go into a deeper relationship where they really become soul mates, where they know what the other person is thinking and feeling, and they anticipate them, and they care about them.
A famous writer wrote a short story once about a man and a woman that had this kind of love. They had no money, they were very, very poor. The woman had beautiful, beautiful hair that was way down beyond her buttocks, beautiful hair, and the man had, I cannot remember exactly what this was so I am going to make this up, if you know the story I am making this up, he had a watch that he just adored. It was the most important thing in his life, and Christmastime was coming, was it not? They wanted to give each other gifts, and they had nothing to give each other, so the woman went out and sold her hair.
I do not know if you know it or not, but there are people who buy human hair. They make wigs out of it and whatever. She sold her hair and bought him a case for the watch, something like that, or a chain for the watch. He went out and sold his watch and bought her a comb for her hair. Now this is a wonderful story, but how many marriages are like that? Not today, anyway, not many. It is a lifestyle. You live together, and people are people. It is certainly better than being out in the world and having no family life and having no home life. If you are a single person, out there looking for a man or a woman, it is highly preferable to be married, but there is only one lifestyle that is higher than being married, and that is a lifestyle where you are consecrated to God, and your whole life is devoted to God.
Marriage is a good thing, but the truth of the matter is that it usually only goes so deep, and it does not go any deeper. This is why, in most instances, and it is healthy considering the condition of humanity today, men have to have men friends, and women have to have women friends because no man and woman can satisfy every need in the other person. We need everybody. We need our relatives. If you are still a young couple, you need your mother, you need your father, you need your sisters, your brothers, your cousins, you need people in your life because each person is not completely satisfying the other person. Men have needs that their wife cannot meet, and the woman has needs that the husband cannot meet. That is why, when you see a fellowship of married couplesm the men are all over there, and the women are all over here. It is very rare that it is otherwise because men have male things that they talk about, emotional and intellectual needs, and women have emotional and intellectual needs and things that they want to talk about that their husbands do not want to listen to. How many men do not listen to their wives? It is a subject of many jokes. The woman is talking away, and finally she says, What do you think honey? And he goes, Ahhhhh. He was not listening to a word she was saying. Is that not true? He is not interested. That is the way it is. Very, very, very few married couples go really deep and become soul mates. It is very rare.
Marriage is a lifestyle, and it is a good lifestyle. It is the best lifestyle that we can have in fallen humanity, and if God is in it, it is the best. Of course, marriage can go bad, but the institution in itself is the best thing that we have to survive our time in this hell, and to make it as positive as possible. But the truth of the matter is that it is a social institution that is not designed to meet the deep spiritual needs of man. It is a social institution that is designed to meet the emotional needs of man and the sexual needs of man, and that is the truth. It is not designed to meet the intellectual needs of man, and it is not designed to meet the spiritual needs of man. Did I answer your question?
COMMENT: I had asked that if the person is hurting, is it their responsibility to go to the other person?
PASTOR VITALE: Definitely, but I believe to be in right standing with God, we have to do it. If we are really hurting, and we are looking for deliverance from that hurt, to the best of my knowledge of the way that God works if, it is at all reasonably possible to go talk to the person who has hurt you, the Lord will require you to do that before the deliverance comes forth. Now a lot of people do not understand this. It does not matter where the person reconciles with you or not. The only thing that matters is that you do all that you have to do so that God can move on your behalf. It does not matter where they forgive you or not. You have to go ask, whether you have to ask them to forgive you, or you have to be willing to communicate with them if they have hurt you. Then Jesus will move.
We all have to do everything we have to do. Remember when you came out of the hospital and you came down with pneumonia? What did I say to you? I said that the right order of things is for you to call your children -- both you and your husband had pneumonia at the same time, you were both sick -- I said you call your children. If none of them come, I do not care why they do not come, I am not judging anybody, but if they do not help you and you need help, you call me, and I will come. Everything has its right order. So, if you want that reconciliation, you have to do all that you can do in the natural, and then the Lord moves supernaturally.
COMMENT: I watched a program the other night talking about REM sleep, talking about different stages of consciousness when you sleep, and they brought home how important it is not to go to bed angry, how that negative energy stirs up bad dreams. One particular girl had this recurring nightmare. Fifteen years ago she had been raped by someone she trusted, and she did not resist him, choosing to live rather than die, and she was very angry at him and herself, and she had this recurring dream. On top of that, she had a fear of men, and she did go to a psychoanalyst, she brought home some ways to reverse her thinking processes, and she said that she did that at a conscious level that did something to her dreams, took control of it. Now she has vented that anger, that rage, and she is now married with a child.
PASTOR VITALE: That is an excellent example of what I have been talking about. That anger, that negative energy, she needed closure, you see. She had to do something. In her case, she went to a psychiatrist. You have to do something to release that negative energy or it will follow you for the rest of your life, and not only will it follow you for the rest of your life, but it will be transferred to your children. If you do not marry, in this case the woman was not married until she was released, it will touch other members of your family. Look at what is happened to me with my aunt. It just so happens that I am spiritually sensitive, and I had been carrying her pain all of these years, but that negative energy has to be released.
COMMENT: I used to hear people talking about blowing up like a steam kettle, and I never really understood it, but now I have like a visual idea of what it means. That energy has to go somewhere.
PASTOR VITALE: It has to go somewhere.
COMMENT: I understand about the undercurrents that will come out somehow.
PASTOR VITALE: Somehow it comes out. That is really an unfortunate aspect of our mortality is that when the negative energy does come out a few weeks or a few months later as a knife in the back, we do not even know why we did it. We have so repressed the anger or the resentment that we do not even know why we were cruel to the person. So it is only the mercy of God that we start to see ourselves and understand our own motives and our own emotions.
COMMENT: I can observe the hostility in young women and children, who have either a husband who will not listen to them, or parents who will not listen to their children, how that hostility grows and begins to cause a lot of other problems.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes. If it goes in, it makes you sick, if it comes out it makes you an angry, aggressive person which damages your relationships, and if you repress it and it goes underground, it is hurting somebody else, and you become a murderer. You are guilty of spiritual murder even though you do not know it. Jesus said, If you hate your brother, you have murdered him.
COMMENT: Particularly young Christian wives, under the guise of being submissive to their husbands, they do not come out and state what is on their minds and what they are feeling just to keep peace under the guise of being submissive. What happens is the anger that really should be expressed and exposed turns on them themselves, and they begin to hate themselves for not standing up and doing what they really know should be done and dealt with.
PASTOR VITALE: Yes.
COMMENT: How do you handle a situation when someone consistently will say, I do not want to hear it, I do not want to talk about it? Is there such a thing like witchcraft of trying to force the issue even if you do not bring it up at that time, but at another time?
PASTOR VITALE: What you have to do is to give the issue to God, to go into your prayer closet, to cry out to God, to tell Him how you feel, to express all of your hurts to Him, to tell Him what you think, and to make a commitment to God and to yourself that you are determined not to respond out of your carnal mind. And that you are willing to suffer the loss of having no response, you are willing to crucify your pride if the Lord does not raise up Christ within you to respond, because when you hold your own tongue either Christ will rise up and speak for you, or there will be silence, and then you suffer the loss. What is the benefit of suffering the loss? If you continue to do this, if you make this your lifestyle, in due season, Christ Jesus will rise up and begin to speak for you.
I do not know how long it could take. It depends on how deeply involved you are in responding out of your carnal mind, but the point is that you are sowing good seed by holding your tongue and saying, Lord, if it is not you, I do not want to say one word, even if it means that you lose the argument. And surely as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, the day will come that Christ will start speaking for you, and you will begin to see victory in your life, the likes of which you have never seen before, awesome powerful victory without all the stress and pain and all the reaping of the witchcraft seed that will come back to bite you. When you respond out of your carnal mind with hostility, out of pride, it is all witchcraft and control, and you shall surely reap what you have sown.
I think we will close for the evening. This has been a really interesting discussion. I just pray that everyone reading this message is blessed. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
