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The Pharisees, who also were covetous, heard all these things, and they derided Jesus. In this chapter, Luke 16, almost the whole chapter is made up of parables, and Jesus is exposing the hearts and motives of the Pharisees. He is speaking to them in parables, telling them that their motives are ungodly, and that their hearts are desperately wicked. Instead of looking into their hearts and saying, "Yes, Lord Jesus you are right, we are a sinner, deliver us and make us over in your image," they derided the Lord Jesus Christ, they tore down His authority. They said that "He was not God." The Scripture says that the root motive that causes a believer to deny the anointing on somebody is covetous. They are jealous of you. That is the Scripture. The Pharisees who also were covetous heard all these things, and they derided Jesus. They denied that He was God. They laughed at Him, they mocked Him, they under minded Him, and they did everything in their power to tear down His authority. Glory to God.
The chief weapon that covetous believers use in attacking someone manifesting the anointing is covetous and deriding. That is their weapon. They come against you by denying everything that you are, and those are their weapons. Luke 16:15, And He said unto them, "Ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God." Brethren, we are surrounded by modern day Pharisees today. They would not believe it, and if you told them, they would deride you, but it is the truth. They have their big churches with their carpeting, and their beautiful windows, and all of their equipment, and everything that you could buy. God says that it is an abomination in His sight. You can have all of those things if you also are submitting yourself to God but, unfortunately, not many churches....I do not know of a church that is fully in submission or in submission to God largely that has all of these financial things. I wish it were true, but it just seems so difficult to have the things of this world, and to have God ruling in your life. It seems like it is almost impossible.
I know we live in a country where we are pretty prosperous compared to other people in the world. Some people here might not think so but we are. We are prosperous compared to other people in the world, but God has to make you dependent on Him somehow. You look at people that are moving under a heavy anointing, they are dependent on God in one way. If they have money they are sick. If they are not sick, they have emotional problems. I do not know one person that is moving in a deep anointing of power with God who is wealthy, who is healthy, whose family is in perfect order. I do not know one person.
Everybody has trouble, brethren, and God does not hate you. He loves you. What He is doing is what He did to Jacob, He is touching that tendon in your thigh, He is crippling you, so that you will be dependent on Him because the very inherent nature of man is that if all his needs are met, he forgets about God. That is our nature. That is the way we are, so our trials and tribulations are a mercy of God. Do not throw the rotten eggs at me, it is just true, it is just true. Glory to God. God will try every man's heart. The day is coming that every man's heart will be tried. The light of God will be shown upon it, but each man in his own order. We are coming one at a time. Hallelujah.
Verse 16, "The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time, the Kingdom of God is preached and every man presses into it." Well what does that mean? It means that up until John all that was available to men to attain to righteousness was the law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. We know that the law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets did not carry with it enough spiritual power to change your heart. In those days, in the "before Christ" days, God accepted wicked behavior if you repented of it and followed the prescribed procedure of going to the Levitical Priests and offering up animals to cover your sins.
"The day is coming, God says, since the day, indeed, has come, since John the Baptist, the Kingdom of God is preached and every man presses into it." You no longer can get away with just repenting. Whether your sacrifice be an animal or your sacrifice be Jesus Christ, the day is past where you can just repent. God wants His law in your heart. He wants His law in your heart, preventing you from even sinning in your mind. What does He mean when He is saying, "Every man presses into it?" We had it upon the board earlier. We are literally pressing into the soul life of the Lord Jesus Christ. That spark of life which comes from God, which we are, our spiritual substance, is pressing out of the soul life of fallen Adam into the soul life of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There is a transfer going on, there is a new government in the earth, and the transfer has to be effective. Glory to God. The way we press into the Kingdom of God, the beginning of it is that God sheds His light on our hearts and reveals the wickedness in it, and if you refuse to acknowledge that wickedness, brethren, the only thing left unto you is judgment.
Verse 17, "And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." If you are out there and you are hearing this tape, I do not think anyone here believes this, and you think that you can break the law of God because you are weak or because of whatever your excuse is, and all you have to do is cover yourself with the blood, and that the day is coming that you are going to die and fly away to heaven, you are mistaken, brethren. If you cannot hear the word of God, He shall indeed come upon you as a thief, in the night. That is the word of God because the judgment is here in the earth, the transformation is here in the earth, the change is here in the earth, in the flesh. Our heart is being converted to a place where we only think righteous thoughts. The way that is happening is that Satan who has been our mind is being swallowed up by Christ who is our mind, who is becoming our mind, and who shall be our mind in the fullness. The fulfilling of the law is Christ in you the hope of glory. The Mind of Christ in you, the hope of glory, preventing you from ever thinking a thought that is sin that will bring death into your life. Glory to God.
Verse 19. "There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linens and fared sumptuously every day." The Hebrew word, "clothed" means, "to invest as with a garment." Webster's says about invest, that it means to array in the symbols of office or honor, to furnish with power or authority, to grant someone control or authority over something, to surround with troop or ships so as to prevent escape or entry. That sounds like the walls of salvation to me. That sounds like God is protecting you. Glory to God.
The word, "purple," is a brilliant red, blue color and is apprized, by the ancients for dying garments. It has been apprized by the ancients for dying garments. Great labor was required to extract this purple dye and, hence, only royalty and the wealthy could afford the resulting, richly colored garments. Purple signifies or prefigured Christ's Kingship and was largely used in the Mosaic Tabernacle and in the High Priest's dress.
The word that is translated, "linen" comes from a root meaning, "to be white," which we know means, "righteousness and without sin." Linen was used in the priestly dress. It was used for the entire of the Levitical Choir, and it was used to make the loose upper garment worn by kings. Also the veil of the temple was made from linen. Purple refers to royalty, and linen refers to righteousness, and we are talking about kings and priests here. The word, "fared," means, "to make joyful," and if you do a study on the word, "joy," it really means, "the Spirit of God." It really means the depths of the Spirit of God within you. You cannot be joyful unless the Spirit of God is manifesting in you giving you that joy. This is another error in the church, people going around saying, "The joy of the Lord is my strength, the joy of the Lord is my strength, the joy of the Lord is my strength." You cannot pray it on you, brethren. It has to well up from within you like springs of Living Water.
The joy of the Lord is the Life of Christ coming up from His anointing from deep within your soul, and you can ask for it but only God can give it to you. If you are down and out and someone is rebuking you and saying that the joy of the Lord should be your strength, you should know that only God can give you that joy. Hallelujah. The word, "sumptuously," means, "to take hold of, to take possession of, to take to one's self." I am suggesting to you, that the words, "fared sumptuously," means, "to lay hold of the anointing."
We have an Alternate Translation for Verse 19, "There was a certain rich man who was a citizen of Israel, the landmark nation, in which God dwells. He was spiritually rich because God had imputed His spirit to him declaring him justified before the Lord. Indeed, God had made him both king and priest and had granted him all of the protection, authority, and power of His Spirit, and, accordingly, the rich man appropriated all of the blessings, associated with the anointing, for himself every day of his life." Glory to God.
Now, we know that in this parable Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, and as we go through to the end of the parable, it really does sound like God was speaking to the Pharisees. However, there is a double meaning here, and I remind you that in the Old Covenant it was impossible for anyone to be both a king and a priest. Only under the New Covenant are we Kings and Priests. Under the Old Covenant, there was a distinct, total separation; you could not be a king and a priest. The priesthood and the prophets usually were at direct odds with the kings. It was separation of powers, the separation of authorities. It is just in Christ Jesus that we are Kings and Priests, so this parable is for the church. It is for the New Covenant church, and it is also for the modern day Pharisees that are out there today that have the imputed anointing and think that they do not need anything else. Glory to God.
We have other tapes on this. The church today has been delivered out from under the law of ordinances, but we are still under the law. We are under the spiritual law of God. "Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, thy mind, and thy soul, and thou shall do unto thy brother, as you would have him, to do unto you," and we cannot keep that law. We are still under the law, and we will be under the law until the Mind of Christ has swallowed up our carnal mind, and we only think thoughts of love. The natural man is not going to make it, brethren. He has to be destroyed, Glory to God, so that we can live a life renewed in Christ.
Verse 20, "And there was a certain beggar named, Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, at the rich man's gate, full of sores." The word, "beggar," means, "to be thoroughly frightened," and it also involves the idea of roving about in wretchedness. It was always used in a bad sense until it was ennobled in this Scripture. It means, "to be down, to be poor, to be needy." The word, "laid"....it says, "He laid himself at the gate." It is a much stronger word than that. It means "to literally throw or cast one's self down violently." The word, "gate," means, "a gateway or a doorway, of a city or an entrance way to a city." Glory to God. The word, "sores," really means, "ulcers," and we know that ulcers are running sores. Webster's says, "a break in the skin or a mucus membrane with loss of surface tissue and often puss;" so, it was a sore that something was running out of.
Alternate Translation, Verse 20, "There was a spiritually poor and needy man named Lazarus who dwelled on the soul realm without God. He roved the earth in a condition of spiritual wretchedness and was thoroughly frightened, having experienced being overcome and enslaved by ungodly spiritual powers, and Lazarus recognized the Landmark Nation of Israel appearing in the earth, pointing the way to God, and he desperately fell on his face before God's representative, hoping for mercy because the sack or the body in which he dwelled in this realm of appearance was breaking down because of sin." Hallelujah.
Verse 21, "And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table, moreover the dogs came and licked his sores." The word, "licked" means "to lick clean, to separate one from another." Dogs in the Scripture represent unclean spiritual life, and I am suggesting to you that in this Scripture unclean spiritual life was trying to separate this poor man's life from him, and he had no defense against them. In the last meeting, we talked about the landmark, that God has a landmark in this earth, that people can find God, and in the first covenant days it was the Nation of Israel, and this beggar, who was being utterly overcome, consumed by ungodly spiritual power, discerned God on His landmark, natural Israel. Today it is the church in the New Covenant. In the New Covenant it is the church.
Alternate Translation, Verse 21, "And Lazarus did not ask for the imputed anointing of God which belonged to the citizen of Israel. He did not want what was not his, but he desperately hoped for what was left over after the citizen had taken all he could use because the unclean spiritual powers which fed upon Lazarus' very life substance freely were already separating his life from the earth."
Verse 22, "And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angel into Abraham's bosom." The rich man also died and was buried. Glory to God. Hallelujah. The word, "died" means, "to die off." I did not write down the Greek word, but we have had studies on, "neckros," which means, "to be totally dead" and, "thanatose," which is the separating of the soul from the body. This is a third word, and I do not know it in Greek , I am sorry. It means to die off, to be no more, and it us used, of the death of natural men. It also means, to die unreformed, to have your body die and have your soul in an unreformed condition.
The word, "bosom," is the anatomical center of hidden thoughts, and we have had a teaching, Tape #16, that those of us that have the root of Christ are thoughts in the mind of God, and we are alive because God thinks of us as being alive. If God would think of us as being dead, we would die. That is the way it works. We are thoughts in the mind of God. The "bosom of God" is an expression describing, "being in this place, in the Mind of God, where He thinks life to us." He thinks life to us, and we live. He thinks healing to us, and we heal. How do you think you heal if you have a problem, and a minister of the Gospel lays hands on you? Did you ever stop to think about how it works? The laying on of hands is just an intermediary point between you and God. How do you heal? God thinks of you as healed, and whatever God thinks, happens. Glory to God.
The bosom of the Father or the bosom of Abraham, we know that Jesus was in the bosom of the Father, and here we are talking about the bosom of Abraham. It merely means, "to be in a spiritual place, where God is thinking Life towards you." Abraham brought forth both the natural and a spiritual seed, and we are told in the Book of Galatians that the Spiritual Seed of Abraham is Christ. If we are talking about the bosom of Abraham, what we are saying is that the unseen spiritual place where the root of Christ is imparted to men who have been ordained to bring forth the Christ which is the Spiritual Seed of Abraham....Now, I cannot go into this too deeply, you have had a lot of teaching on plenty of tapes that there are men who are born with the root of Christ and men who are born without the root of Christ.
We know in the parable of the soils that even though the word of God falls upon your heart that there is only one type of soil that it succeeds in fertilizing. When it fertilizes that soil, it brings forth the fruit of the spirit, which is Christ. Now, the difference between the soul that is fertilized, and the soul that is not is that the soul that is fertilized has a root or a female element of Christ. There are people in this world that have that, and people that do not. If you have it, you are in the bosom of Abraham. It is that unseen spiritual place where the root of Christ is imparted to the men who have been ordained to bring forth the Christ.
What we have in the earth today is a natural seed and a spiritual seed. We know that we are all out of fallen Adam, we are all out of Adam, but Adam had a natural seed, and he had a spiritual seed. The spiritual seed was Seth, the natural seed was Adam. Abel did not reproduce, so that line came to an end, and, of course, the line of Cain came to an end. He was a murderer. Out of Seth, I cannot give you the exact names of the people, but out of Seth there entered into the world a natural seed and a spiritual seed, and they are in the earth today. Natural descendants of Adam and spiritual descendants of Adam. For our purposes, in most instances, God goes back to Abraham. Even Abraham had a natural and a spiritual seed. God called Abraham, and He gave him the Covenant. As God moved forward with His plan to reconcile the entire creation unto Himself, He called out a man named Abraham, and made a Covenant with him, the Covenant of the Promise. The Covenant was that his seed would be blessed, and that he would be multiplied, but the promise was for the spiritual seed which was Christ. The natural seed of Abraham was Israel. Glory to God.
There are men in the earth today that live and exist and have fine and wonderful lives, and they do not contain within their spiritual substance the ability to reproduce Christ. There are some men in the earth today that are living, some of them may be going through severe trials and tribulations, and very deep within their spiritual substance is the ability to reproduce Christ when their soul is fertilized by the Holy Spirit. The big question that we have been addressing in this ministry for a while now is, "If God is going to save all men, how is He going to save this natural seed." If you are hearing this tape, and it is your first tape, we have all kinds of tapes teaching on that. Glory to God. Well, God has been showing us something new with the last message and with this one.
Throughout the Scripture, anointed men of God, have always brought forth both spiritual and natural seed. Abraham brought forth Ishmael and Isaac brought forth Esau and Jacob. Although one is a natural seed, both the natural and the spiritual seed have the same ancestor. They still have the same ancestor. This is Abraham, and he has a natural and a spiritual seed. Christ is the spiritual seed, and this is just the natural seed of Abraham. Now, this is the natural seed of Abraham. They do not have the root of Christ, they do not have what it takes to reproduce Christ, The Holy Spirit can fall upon them, and they will fall into one of the three categories of the parable of the soils that does not produce Christ. However, this is their ancestor. The promise was made to Abraham and back here, they also, even before Abraham, they have the same original Father.
What I am suggesting to you is that God is sovereign, that He has made it clear that He moves sovereignly, that He can choose the younger over the eldest by election, and that no man can foil God because He seeks only the counsel of His own will. I am suggesting to you that at any time, God can decide to have mercy, and He can decide to give a root of Christ to this guy over here. Now, in the Old Covenant, it would not have done them any good because natural Israel, under the Old Covenant, cannot bring forth Christ. They had an imputed anointing, and they had the Holy Spirit, but it was not the Spirit of Adoption. The spiritual provision that would have enabled Christ to come forth in the soul of man was not yet available to men in the time of the Old Covenant. There were people in the earth that had the root of Christ because we know that Jesus said that, "He had sheep that were not of this fold." There were people in the earth that had the root of Christ at that time. I do not want to get off my subject here.
What I am saying to you is that this is the natural seed, and when Jesus Christ decides to have mercy on you He can come from all the way back here because this is the Original Ancestor. He can reach any human being, on the face of the earth and decide to impart the root of Christ, but what I am suggesting to you is that when He does that, He does not do it, in this person's lifetime. It will be in their descendants.
Let us go on, and I will explain it again. Maybe I put that up there too quickly. The Lord, who was the Father of the Original Ancestor, can reach through generations of natural seed and instill the root of Christ in any given natural generation by His right of election. The root of Christ alone cannot bring forth fruit unto perfection. A provision had to be made whereby the natural seed could receive the imputed anointing. This is the Spirit of Adoption which is available to all men through Christ Jesus. Although, the natural Jew had the imputed anointing and the root of Christ, the Spirit of Adoption had not yet been poured out, and the provision to bring forth the fruit of the spirit, which is Christ, within natural Israel, was not yet available. It was not available. Glory to God.
Lazarus cried out for salvation. He saw the Landmark of natural Israel. He saw the spiritual prosperity of the natural Jew, and he threw himself on the mercy of God in the only way he knew how. He threw himself at the seed of the natural Jew. It was the only way he could find God, and he was begging for salvation. Now, Lazarus cried out for this salvation which was available only to the Jews, and Lazarus' offspring received the root of Christ, when he was carried into Abraham's bosom. That is what I am suggesting to you. Now, God did not save Lazarus. We had a teaching on the last tape before this, I just cannot go into the whole thing, but we were told that this man that produced a son, that when he died, his spiritual substance and large parts of his soul went into his offspring.
I am suggesting to you that God had mercy on Lazarus, that Lazarus saw the anointing, he recognized God, he threw himself down, on the mercy of the Lord. He recognized, that he needed a Savior, and God said, "I will have mercy on you." That is a Scriptural principal throughout the whole New Testament. The heathen came to Jesus, and He had mercy on them, and He had not yet sent the word to the Gentiles. The ? women, He did not turn them away. When they demonstrated faith and a recognition that He was God, He did not turn them away. It is all through the New Testament, and I am suggesting to you that Jesus Christ did not turn Lazarus away, but He did not heal Lazarus. Lazarus died. The Scripture says, "That he died without being reformed." In the next Scripture, we are talking about Lazarus having an existence. Now, how could this be? The church world says that the Pharisee was in this, below the earth, where he was in Hell, and Lazarus was in heaven, some place up there. I am suggesting to you that Lazarus lived in the next generation, that God had mercy on Lazarus, and He reached out from the basic source.
God is in every single human being on the face of the earth. We are all out of God. If we have been incarnated at the express will of Adam, the substance that we are made of is still God. Do you remember that if the Son of God did not give His life to the earth we would not exist. That substance of which we are is God whether we have taken form at His instruction or whether we have taken form at the instruction of Adam. That which we are is God. There is no life outside of God, so He has the power to reach out from the very recesses of anyone's spiritual being and say, "By my right of election for I am God; I give the root of Christ to this man." I suggest to you that Lazarus' son might not have even been saved. It might not have come out for another four generations.
I suggest to you that this root of Christ is not any good until it is poured upon by the Holy Spirit. It has to be fertilized by the Holy Spirit, and I suggest to you that God's answer to Lazarus may not have come to pass until all the way down here. Distinct possibility. The promise went on the family line, curses go on the family line, blessings go on the family line, mercy goes on the family line, and sometimes, God just does it that way. I do not know of any way, if you are born without the root of Christ, that God can impart it to you. He has not revealed that to me yet, but I believe that, if you are out there and you recognize God, and you recognize the anointing, and you seek Him, and you desire Him, and you do not have the root of Christ, it is going to be given to your offspring. That is my opinion. Glory to God.
The Spirit of Adoption....let me go back here, but the root of Christ alone cannot bring forth fruit unto perfection, so a provision had to be made, whereby the natural seed could receive the imputed anointing. This is the Spirit of Adoption which is available to all men through Christ Jesus. Although, the natural Jew had the imputed anointing and the root of Christ, the Spirit of Adoption had not yet been poured out, and the provision to bring forth the fruit of Christ within natural Israel was not available. They had both elements. They had the root, and they had the imputed anointing, but it just was not time yet. They were in the wrong dispensation to bring forth Christ.
Now, Lazarus cried out for salvation which was available only to the Jews, and his offspring, received the root of Christ which is indicated in the Scripture by telling us that he was carried into Abraham's bosom. What is Abraham's bosom? We have already said it. Abraham's bosom is the place in God where we come into the memory of God. Well, what is in the memory of God, if you are not in the realm of appearance? God remembers you when you are in the realm of appearance. That is when He remembers you. Glory to God.
It was then passed on from generation to generation until the spirit of Jesus Christ was made available to the non-Jew which included Lazarus' descendants, and that is how there are people out there in the world today that are born with the root of Christ because of the election of God, not because one is good and one is bad. If you are saved, it is not that you are okay and the rest of the world is mean and wicked. It is by the election of God, and He will send His Holy Spirit to fertilize that root of Christ which is in you. The rich man died unreformed, and his descendants did not inherit the imputed anointing because it was lifted off of natural Israel. I find that very interesting. The natural Jew had the root and the spirit of God, but there was no Spirit of Adoption. When the Spirit of Adoption was poured out, the Jew was blinded. He was all set, he was all ready for it, he was all set, he had both, and God blinded him, so that the blessing could go to the world.
The word, "buried," means, "to be put under a mound." The rich man died, and he was buried, he was put under a mound, he was put under the earth. Now, for all intents and purposes, when you have the anointing, (right now we are in an in-between stage,) but when a human being has the anointing, we are not considered buried under the earth, brethren, because we have had teaching on this also. When you have the anointing, it vibrates forth from your spiritual being. Peter was said to have a shadow that when it touched people, it caused them to be healed. The anointing is not restricted by a body, so to say that the citizen of Israel was buried under a mound, the Scripture is telling us that he lost the anointing. He became a natural man and became under the dominion of the soul realm within him. Hallelujah.
Verse 23, "And in Hell he lifted up his eyes being in torment and seeing Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom." He became a soul man. Now, how did the Pharisee become a soul man? Of course, the church world will tell you that he wound up in this place underneath the ground where he is being tortured by someone with pitchforks, but, brethren, we just have to grow up. This was the Pharisee. He had a son, this was his original ancestor, and when he died, his spiritual substance went into his son. Now, it may not have happened in the next generation. It has been 2000 years since the Jews lost the anointing. His son may have been fine. It could have been 20 generations down the line.
The Jews, somewhere along the line, became a natural man, and is not that what we see in the world today? Israel had spiritual power. He never got sick. I know a lot of sick Jewish people. They lost their supernatural category, they became a natural man. The Pharisee became a natural man. Why? Because he died unreformed. He had the imputed anointing, he had the root of Christ, but the only way that we are going to stop dying, brethren is if our soul is reformed. Before Jesus Christ of Nazareth hung on the cross, there was no provision for reforming your soul. What is the provision for reforming your soul? Does anyone know? How does He do it? How is our soul being reformed?
He is renewing our mind. He is giving us His mind, and in order to give us His mind, He has to destroy our carnal mind. He was not crucified instead of us. We are crucified with Him. We are crucified to Him; He is nailing Himself to our carnal mind destroying the thought processes that bring death into our life, and giving us His thought processes which will bring life because they will not sin. The Pharisee who had all of these riches of Christ died and somewhere along his family line, his descendants became carnal, all because he died without being reformed. The beggar, who did not have any glory in the natural realm, but who discerned the spirit of God and cried out for mercy, God had mercy on him and put him in a position where somewhere along his family line, one of his descendants, would be in a position to have his mind renewed. Glory to God.
As we said on last week's tape, it is basically the same spiritual person, going from generation to generation to generation to generation. The personality is not resurrected, it is a new body. He takes on a new body, and he takes on a new personality with each generation, but it is basically...it is the same spiritual person moving along the family line, picking up bits and pieces of the soul of each personality as he goes along, accumulating it. Glory to God. For all intents and purposes, God did save Lazarus. He did save Lazarus in another form because our children are us.
Verse 23, "And in Hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and seeing Abraham a far off and Lazarus in his bosom." Hell, an existence where he was hidden from God and his spirit buried under the earth of his soul, where his spiritual life was no longer joined to God, and separation from God brought fear and torment. He realized that there was a better life in God where he saw the blessed Lazarus. Now, I want to suggest to you, brethren, that there is nothing in that Scripture that indicates that the rich man recognized Lazarus from their previous existence. In that Scripture that says Abraham knew that this was the poor man with running sores that lay at his gate. All that says is that he was in torment, and he looked up and he saw somebody who was blessed and he said "Father Abraham have mercy on me."
Now, you can argue with me if you want, but it is not clear in the Scriptures. You are entitled to your own opinion. If you want to believe that he recognized Lazarus, you could believe it. What I am suggesting to you, and I do not see it any other way, how it could be any other way, it is not clear in the Scripture, that he recognized him as the man that he knew, before he died. We have already said that the personality is not resurrected, and what we are saying here is that the descendant of the rich man who had become a carnal man saw the descendant of Lazarus who had been poor and needy without the anointing of God, and he said, "Lord I want it."
I suggest to you that the day is coming that natural Israel is going to look upon the church and say, "Father Abraham, what has happened to our nation? I see the landmark of your spirit in the earth today, and it is not Israel. It is in the heathen. How did that happen?" I suggest to you the day is coming, Glory to God, it is coming in the descendants of these two categories of people. Hallelujah. Glory to God.
Verse 24, "And he cried and said, Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the top of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in the flame." Now reading this Scripture, carnally, we could say, well, obviously he recognized Lazarus. Why would he ask Father Abraham to send Lazarus to cool his flaming tongue. Let us do a little word study here, and we will find out that was not what happened at all. The word, "tongue," means, "to make known, to disclose." It is not referring to this object called the tongue. It means, "to expose," and I suggest to you that it means to expose sin. The word, "cool," means, "to cool down or cool off," and it comes from two roots. One meaning "down under", and the other meaning, "to wax cold." We have a Scripture, Matthew 24:12 which talks about waxing cold.
I also put in Verse 3, Matthew 24:3, "And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto Him, (that is Jesus,) privately saying, tell us when shall these things be and what shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the world." Verse 12, Jesus is now enumerating all of the signs of His coming and the end of the world, the end of the age. "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." We touched on this in another message, and, basically, as I recall it, what we found out, what that meant was that iniquity abounded because the works of the soul realm abounded because the love of God was tread under foot. That is what that means. Glory to God.
The word, "finger," is used to represent divine efficiency, by which something is made known to men. Luke 11:20 it says, "But if I with the finger of God, (Jesus speaking,) cast out devils, no doubt the Kingdom of God is come unto you." The finger of the anointed of God is not just dipping water on a hot man's lips. It has the power to bring forth the anointing to those who are without it, and the word, "dip" is the Greek word, "Bapto" and that is the word from which "Baptizo" is taken. That is the Greek word that means baptized, and it means, "to cover wholly with the fluid, to stain or to dye." When you dye something, you change its appearance completely, and we know that water baptism implies death of the soul life. Glory to God.
Alternate Translation, Verse 4, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to baptize me in water by God's authority which now appears in him, so that the sin in my heart which has caused the love of God to be suppressed can be revealed, because the fire of God's judgment is tormenting me." The landmark that reveals the presence of God to the world is no longer in Israel. It has been transferred to the church. There has been an exchange. Israel which was rich, is now poor, and the Gentiles which were poor are now rich because the spirit of God is upon the church of the Living God. The rich man was saying, "Father Abraham have mercy on me and send the representative of your church in the earth today to baptize me in water." Glory to God.
By God's authority, which now appears in the church so that the sin in my heart, which has caused the love of God to be suppressed, can be revealed because the fire of God's judgment is tormenting me. You cannot make it, if you have the root of Christ, you cannot make it on the Holy Spirit alone. Brethren, they have to get together and bring forth the fruit of the spirit in you. It requires repentance, and if you cannot repent, judgment is already upon you. It is the love and mercy of God because it is destroying.... the sin in your heart is destroying the Life of Christ or the potential Life of Christ in you. Judgment is the mercy of God.
I always thought this was such a light parable you know, was it not cute? This is one deep parable, brethren, and as I pointed out to you at the beginning, there were no kings and priests under the Old Covenant. This word was to the Old Covenant Pharisees, and it is to the New Covenant Pharisees. If you do not get your heart changed, if you do not get delivered, and it is not after you die, it has to be here and now in this life. If you do not do it, the iniquity in your heart is going to tread under foot the love and God, and it will wax cold, and there shall be nothing left unto you but judgment, which is not a punishment. It is the mercy of God. Hallelujah.
Verse 25, But Abraham said, "Son remember that thou in thy lifetime received thy good things and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted and thou art tormented." I suggest to you that the Lord is speaking about the spiritual lifetime. Another thing that we spoke about at the last meeting was that this spiritual man that kept taking on new bodies and new personalities that exists over here today, that this represented a spiritual lifetime. Just as we have had many aspects to our lives, we were children, we were babies, we were school children, we were wives, we were mothers, we were working people, we were professionals, all different aspects of our lives.
I have spent years of my life that have no valid meaning to me at this time, but yet everything that has happened to me has made me what I am today. I am no longer a college student, I am no longer a wife and a mother, I am no longer what I have done in many jobs that I have had. I am not that person any more. My life does not reflect in any way, anything that existed in those prior lifetimes except that my body is the same, and my name is the same. You know that it is me, but if I had the ability to change my body and change my name, people that knew me 20 years ago, would never know who I was, seeing me, sitting here preaching and just looking at any aspect of my life, they would find no basis on which to recognize me. They would not recognize me at all, but it is all me, and I am the sum product of all of my experiences in this life.
I am suggesting to you that there is a spiritual lifetime, there is a spiritual being that keeps changing his body and his personality as it wears out. He is an eternal being, and by the time he gets to be this guy down here in the 42nd generation, he is the sum total of every lifetime and every personality, that he has experienced. Only his body has changed and his name is changed, so that he cannot be recognized. There is no recognition from one lifetime to another, as they believe in reincarnation. There is no resurrection of the personality, and there is no recognition of people that you knew in those lifetimes. Hallelujah.
We are in Verse 25, But Abraham said, "Son remember that thou, in thy lifetime received thy good things and likewise Lazarus, representing the Gentile work, evil things, but now he is comforted." It is, of course, the Spirit of God that is comforting him, and thou art tormented. What is tormenting the rich man? Separation from God brings fear and torment.
Verse 26, "And beside all this between us and you, there is a great gulf fixed so that, they which would pass from hence to you, cannot, neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence." I am suggesting to you that the great gulf between these two groups of people is the ability to reproduce Christ. He wanted what Lazarus had, but he was no longer in a condition to receive it. Glory to God. Only Jesus Christ could cross that gulf. Then he said, "I pray thee, therefore, Father that thou would ascend him to my father's house." I think God is telling me that somewhere along the line, you have this rich man and he lost the anointing, somewhere along the line the root of Christ stopped being passed along from generation to generation. They lost the root. They not only lost the anointing, they lost the root. They had it over here.
I have to say that the great gulf separating the rich man and Lazarus was that one group had the root of Christ....it is available today, the Holy Spirit is available. If you have the root of Christ and God has mercy on you, and you are exposed to the Holy Spirit ,you can reproduce Christ. It is available, it is in the world today. There was this great gulf between the two categories. The two categories had to be those who have the root and those who do not, and I would have to say, according to my understanding of this parable, that the natural Jew not only lost the imputed anointing he also, going down generations, lost the root. The only way he can get it back is through the mercy of God.
God just gave me a Scripture, He said the branches were broken off of the tree. I just got a confirmation from the Lord. The branches of natural Israel were broken off of the tree which is Christ, but we are told that God is full well able to graft them back in again. How is He going to graft them back in again? If the branches are broken off the tree how is He going to graft them back in again? He is going to do the same thing for natural Israel that He did for Lazarus. Natural Israel is going to come to a place where they are going to see the anointing on the church, where they are going to be aware of their own spiritual devastation, and they are going to cry out to God, and He is going to have mercy on them.
God, who is in their very substance because there is no life outside of God, is going to rise up, and He is going to answer their prayers, and in one of these generations, the root of Christ is going to appear again. I do not know how many generations it takes. I just know God can do anything, and I know that this guy down here is him over there. It is the same spiritual man. This body died. He is now living in this body, and he has taken something of the soul of each incarnation with him, although the personality is not resurrected. It is the same man. Glory to God.
Verse 27, "Then he said, I pray thee therefore Father, that thou would ascend him to my father's house for I have five brethren that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment." Sounds like a lot of people in the church world today. They are trying to pray their relatives into salvation, and they are praying all of these psychic prayers. You cannot pray someone into salvation, brethren. If it is not their time, it is not their time. You can pray for them. God can hear you, and He can have mercy, but be careful that you are not praying psychic prayers. "Abraham saith unto him, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them."
There are a lot of Christians out there today trying to minister to natural Israel. They think that they are going to save natural Israel by speaking the word to them, but the Lord says, "They have Moses and the prophets." They do not need you to minister to them. This revelation that we have, brethren, this word of salvation and reconciliation, is in the Old Testament. You would be amazed at what is in the Old Testament. I was very excited last week, we had a very deep study on the creation, and I do not personally know any other ministry preaching it. They must be out there somewhere, but I do not know them. I just did it because God told me to do it, and I do not care who criticizes me. I am just doing what God tells me to do.
A sister in the Lord, who is a Jewish Christian and studies the mystical studies of the ancient Jews, I cannot think of the name right now, she sent me a parable in one of the books that she studies from, and it had the same basic principles of the creation, that were taught in this ministry in Tape #18, Parts 1-9, A Place Teeming With Life. It was a real blessing to me because I was just doing what God told me to do, but I do not know anyone else that believes any of that, and here it was. The ancient Hebrews, thousands of years ago, had this revelation. It is in the Old Testament, brethren. They do not need the Christians coming and witnessing to them. It is in their own Bible. They have to repent, brethren. They have to repent. You cannot win their soul, by preaching the word of Christ to them. They have to repent. Hallelujah.
Verse 30, "And he said, nay Father Abraham but if one went unto them from the dead they will repent, and he said unto him, if they hear not Moses and the prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." And indeed the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ did not persuade them 2000 years ago, and I say unto you, brethren, neither shall the resurrection of the Body of Christ, of the Sons of God, of the 42nd generation, neither shall their resurrection from the dead persuade the modern day Pharisee. Hallelujah. That was prophetic, brethren. That was the Lord who said that. There is going to be a lot of shocked people around here in the church world.
COMMENT: Even if we repent of our sins, does that mean, the Lord will forgive us or if we continue to sin, I do not understand, I am lost?
SHEILA: We have to repent, but that is not the end of it. We have to be brought to a place in our mind where we do not sin. Sin is not in our behavior. All sin originates with wrong thinking, and, of course, the carnal mind of Adam is demented. It is programed to think wrong. All sin starts in the mind. This is the carnal mind, and sin is here. When we have Christ, when He comes into our life, He enters in over here, as we said earlier, in our position of spiritual weakness. He does not have the power to stop us from lusting, He does not have the power to stop us from coveting, He does not have the power to bind up this sin and root it out, when He first enters in. When we sin, if we can recognize it and confess it, what He does is, He covers us with His spirit. He becomes the equivalent of what was the Levitical sacrifice, so that the sin is not imputed unto you because when He comes into our life, we become justified before God.
Now, what justification means is that we become eligible for the benefits of God. God does not give benefits to sinners. When we sin, the Christ within us is in a weakened position, we appropriate His sacrifice for us, and God says, "Alright you repented, I receive the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, I will not impute the sin to you." What happens when God imputes the sin to us? The judgments of death fall. When this happens, the judgments stop falling upon us, the curses of God stop falling upon us, but we cannot stay in this condition because the day is going to come, that God is going to say, "I will not accept this any more. I will not accept this sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the only thing that I will accept is, sin being rooted out of your mind." Did you understand what I said?
We repent, but this is a temporary procedure. God has made available to us repentance and the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ for a temporary period of time during which we are supposed to be acquiring the Mind of Christ. Instead of looking like this any more, the carnal mind which sins, was supposed to receive the Mind of Christ which is filled with righteousness. We are going from this to this. If you desire it, you are going. God looks at your motives. If your heart is in a condition of repentance, if you desire God, if you desire righteousness, this is His work, that is not your work.
Your work is to repent and to desire righteousness, and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is His work. Converting your mind is His work. If your heart is towards Him, if you desire the things of His spirit, it is His job. Until we get over here, where our heart is filled with righteousness, when we do sin we have to repent, we are covered by His sacrifice, and we remain justified before God. If we were not covered by His sacrifice, and we did not remain justified by God, how could we possibly get ahead, if God continued to rain down judgments on us? Here, we are trying to get cleaned up, we are trying to get the curses broken, we are trying to get the demons cast out, and it is taking years. We would never get out of it if God kept cursing us. That is the purpose of this. It is a temporary armistice, whereby God says, "I recognize your repentance, and I recognize that My Son is doing this work in you, so I am not going to impute your transgression unto you. I want you to get out of trouble." It is a temporary armistice.
God is at war with sin. He is going to stamp it out one way or another. Either He is going to kill us, or He is going to have us renewed in Christ, but He is not going to tolerate it. Sin in this world, He is not going to have it here. Because He is merciful, He is saying, "Alright, hold off all hostilities while My Son gets you from the mind of fallen Adam, ruled by Satan, into the Mind of Christ, which is righteous where you cannot sin." When you are in this condition, you cannot sin. He who is born of God, cannot sin. The church world freaks out on that one. They really think it means them, and they are going around cursing everybody. Christ is the only one who cannot sin. Your carnal mind is still sinning. Anybody who is hearing this tape, it is programmed to sin. It does not know how to do anything else. It has to be destroyed. It is going to die. We are going to be redeemed through death. Not an imaginary death, we are going to die.
Just like there is a burning building over here, you have two buildings over here....I know several people have told me, that they have had dreams, about buildings being on fire. This is Christ and this is Adam, and this is our life. It is hidden right over here. You realize that your life is in your arms, and in your hair, and in your feet, deep within your spiritual substance is a spark of life. Well, God is setting this building on fire. It is going to burn, and He has laid hold of your spiritual life, and He has brought it to a place of safety in Christ. This whole structure is coming down, burning up, so we have to get over here where we cannot sin, and there is no way that the natural man is going to be fixed up so that he does not sin. He is going to die. I told you recently, about that preacher that said, "You should start being nice to your soul." Your soul will kill you if you would let it. He is a wild venomous beast, he will destroy you, do not listen to a thing he tells you, and do not be nice to him. Step on him, before he gets you.
Did I answer your question? Any other questions?
(End of Tape)
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7/06/03ab-2ndEdit
