Are You

Following a Wolf?

David Eells

Unleavened Bread Publishing Inc.

Published by

Unleavened Bread Publishing Inc.

www.unleavenedbreadpublishing.org

Copyright © 2011 David Eells. All Rights Reserved. Permission is given to copy and quote portions of this book, provided the context is given, along with copyright notice and contact details.

ISBN:

This book and many others may be downloaded freely from

www.unleavenedbreadpublishing.org.

In order to make this book broadly available, we also offer it through online book sellers. We have taken the lowest percentage permitted by their systems, so income from these sales is negligible and is offset by the thousands we give away to those who cannot afford to pay for it. We do this to be obedient to our Lord, Who said, “freely ye received, freely give.”

IMPORTANT NOTES:

Scriptures are taken from the American Standard Version (ASV) of the Holy Bible because of its faithfulness to the ancient manuscripts and Bible Numerics.

Numerics is a system designed into the Bible by God to prove authenticity. The Greeks and Hebrews used their letters for numbers.Therefore, the whole Bible is also written in numbers which show perfect patterns as long as the God-inspired original words are not departed from.It mathematically proves the original text and where it has been added to or taken away from. The Numeric English New Testament (NENT) is based on the numeric pattern and is quoted from when necessary.

We have departed from the ASV only in the name Jehovah and Lord Jehovah which we replaced with Lord and Lord God, respectively. Neither represents the original YHWH but Lord is less confusing to many and we did not want this to distract from the teaching. The vowels were added by men to make the name “Jehovah.” We apologize for sometimes using partial texts but this book would have been much larger had we not. Rarely, where italicized words were added to the text and changed the original meaning, we left them out.

This book is dedicated to all the many factions of God’s people so that they would know that the only examples of a true New Testament shepherd we have is revealed in Scriptures, in the life of “The Good Shepherd” and his disciples. May Father give you grace to search for this leadership on the way to life.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

May our Father bless those whom He used to create this book from transcriptions of David Eells’ teachings:

- Dwora Jawer, who took the manuscript and refined it.

- Brad Moyers, who then proofread the manuscript.

- Doris and Kaile Hamilton, whodid the formatting and final proofread.

- Michael Duncan, who created the book cover.

- Many brothers and sisters who have worked on this book but do not wish any credit.

Books of the Bible Abbreviation List

Old Testament                                             New Testament

Gen.                Genesis                                  Mat.                 Matthew

Exo.                 Exodus                                  Mar.                 Mark

Lev.                 Leviticus                                Luk.                 Luke

Num.              Numbers                                Joh.                 John

Deu.                Deuteronomy                       Act.                  Acts

Jos.                 Joshua                                    Rom.               Romans

Jdg.                 Judges                                    1Co.                 1 Corinthians

Rth.                 Ruth                                       2Co.                 2 Corinthians

1Sa.                 1 Samuel                                Gal.                  Galatians

2Sa.                 2 Samuel                               Eph.                 Ephesians

1Ki.                 1 Kings                                    Php.                 Philippians

2Ki.                 2 Kings                                  Col.                   Colossians

1Ch.                 1 Chronicles                         1Th.                   1 Thessalonians

2Ch.                2 Chronicles                         2Th.                  2 Thessalonians

Ezr.                 Ezra                                       1Ti.                     1 Timothy

Neh.               Nehemiah                              2Ti.                   2 Timothy

Est.                 Esther                                     Tit.                   Titus

Job                 Job                                         Phm.                  Philemon (1 Chapter)

Psa.                Psalms                                  Heb.                    Hebrews

Pro.                Proverbs                              Jas.                      James

Ecc.                Ecclesiastes                         1Pe.                     1 Peter

Son.               The Song of Solomon        2Pe.                    2 Peter

Isa.                 Isaiah                                   1Jn.                    1 John

Jer.                Jeremiah                              2Jn.                   2 John (1 Chapter)

Lam.              Lamentations                     3Jn.                    3 John (1 Chapter)

Eze.               Ezekiel                                 Jud.                     Jude (1 Chapter)

Dan.              Daniel                                  Rev.                      Revelation

Hos.              Hosea

Joe.               Joel

Amo.            Amos

Oba.             Obadiah (1 Chapter)

Jon.              Jonah

Mic.             Micah

Nah.            Nahum

Hab.            Habakkuk

Zep.            Zephaniah

Hag.            Haggai

Zec.             Zechariah

Mal.            Malachi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.         History Repeats

2.         Conquering the Flesh

3.         The “Bulls of Bashan”

4.         Speaking as an Oracle of God

5.         The Truth Shall Make You Free

6.         The Law of Spirit vs. the Letter

7.         Come Out of Her, My People

8.         Walking in the Steps of Jesus

CHAPTER ONE

History Repeats

Some of you who have been studying with us for a while know the revelation that the Lord shared with me many, many years ago concerning a repetition of history. The Bible says, “That which is hath been long ago; and that which is to be hath long ago been: and God seeketh again that which is passed away” (Ecc.3:15). Well, we’re about to repeat history and go through another cycle here. I have shared with you how the Lord spoke to me that everything that happened in the Gospels and in the book of Acts was going to repeat in our day, except the cast of characters will be multiplied many times over. In other words, every time history repeats, it repeats with larger groups of people. Now, we know Jesus came as the Man-child in His day. He came to follow-up and to teach, and to lead God’s people out of bondage to the harlot and the beast kingdom of His day. His teaching was to the “called-out ones” which is the word “church.” “Church” means “called-out ones.” So His words and His teachings were calling the people out of a false leadership: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots. These people were leading God’s people astray. These men and the people who submitted totally to these men did not recognize the Christ when He stood in their midst and it’s going to be that way in our day, too, folks, because, as we’re seeing, history repeats.

In John 16, Jesus said that we would see Him again as a Man-child born to a woman in travail. He was, of course, describing the woman in Revelation 12 who brings forth the Man-child there. That Man-child ministry is about to start in our day and it shouldn’t surprise us to know that the Man-child ministry of our day is going to be just like the first Man-child ministry because to believe in Jesus is to walk in His steps and to abide in Him. It is to “walk even as he walked” (1Jn.2:6).

I’d like to share something that Jesus shared with me about this Pharisee ministry that gave way to the Man-child ministry, this Eli ministry that gave way to the Man-child ministry and this Saul ministry that gave way to the David ministry, which is also the Man-child ministry. Let’s look at a few types here. We can see what’s happening right now, what’s happening today. We can read the newspapers today and see the repetition of history from the Bible, so it would be applicable in our day. Now, as we know, the first Man-child in the New Testament, Jesus, was a natural Man-child; He was a born Jew and He came first to the lost sheep of natural Israel. But the way this is going to be repeated in our day, as the Lord shared with me, is the Man-child who’s coming is going to be a Man-child of New Testament spiritual Israel to lead spiritual Israel out of bondage, just as Jesus came and led a remnant of natural Israel out of bondage.

Think about what Jesus is saying here: (Joh.8:31) “Jesus therefore said to those Jews that had believed him.” That’s interesting. There are a lot of people who say they believe in Jesus today, right? So He was speaking to those Jews who believed Him. (31) Jesus therefore said to those Jews that had believed him, If ye abide in my word, [then] are ye truly my disciples. See, we’re missing something today in the modern churches and that is discipleship. In the modern churches, it’s “Accept Jesus”; it’s kind of ‘step-over-a-line and you’re in.’ A person really doesn’t have to do anything. And if you have any sin problem, that’s not a problem either because ‘you really don’t’ – you’re not saved by works, according to them. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about a thing, you’re in. But Jesus said to those people who did believe Him, “If ye abide in my word, [then] are ye truly my disciples “(31). In other words, there are a lot of people who believe in Jesus, but they’re not disciples. They don’t have eternal life because Jesus said, “he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved” (Mat.10:22).

The word for “disciple” is methetes, which means “a learner and a follower.” This is someone who is studying the Master, who’s following in His steps, who’s learning what it is to be Christian. Now, Jesus didn’t make “Christians.” There’s no verse in the Bible that says that. He was making “disciples.” And He put conditions on discipleship of the people who were following Him, of the people who were listening, of the people who were believing. Today, with these modern churches, all a person has to do is “believe in Jesus.” It’s an easy “believism” that has no conditions whatsoever. Jesus put conditions on discipleship and here’s one of them: (Joh.8:31) “If ye abide in my word, [then] are ye truly my disciples.”

The Bible says, “Whosoever goeth onward and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God: he that abideth in the teaching, the same hath both the Father and the Son” (2Jn.9). He didn’t say “who started out with you,” but “who continued with you and continued to abide in the teaching of Christ.” So He’s saying the same thing to these people who believed in Him, that if His words would abide in them, they would truly be His disciples. There are many people who are not disciples of Christ and we’re about to see a great falling away because of that.

Many people followed the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Zealots in Jesus’ day, instead of following Him. But Jesus said, “He that is of God heareth the words of God” (Joh.8:47). That remnant among them who had the gift and calling of God, who had the gift of true faith, they followed Him out. Remember that Jesus is speaking to the people, who “had believed him,” so He put this condition on them. He says, “and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (32). Those people who believe Him, who abide in His Word, they will know the truth and the truth will make them free. However, the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Zealots answered back, “We are Abraham’s seed, and have never yet been in bondage to any man; how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?” (33).

If the Man-child comes and preaches this same message, quoting Jesus, what kind of reaction would a ministry get out of the overwhelming majority of Christianity which has been raised up under the Pharisees and Sadducees of today? “What do you mean set free? I accepted Jesus as my personal savior. What are you talking about being set free?” It will be “We’re Abraham’s seed” all over again.

By the way, what does it mean to be “Abraham’s seed”? (Rom.4:16) For this cause [it is] of faith, that [it may be] according to grace; to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed (That’s all of the seed of the elect, all of the seed of the remnant.); not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (Now, this is speaking, of course, to the Roman church. This is an overwhelmingly Gentile church that Paul is speaking to and he says that Abraham is the “father of us all.”) (17) (as it is written, A father of many nations [which is also the word for “Gentiles”] have I made thee) …. So Abraham was the father of the people who had faith. They had the faith of Abraham. They were the people who believed the promise, “that the promise may be sure to all the seed.” The people who believe the promises of God, the people who have faith, these are the “seed” of Abraham.

Well, just what is it that we’re supposed to believe? As Jesus said, (Joh.8:31) “If you abide in My word then are you truly My disciples.” Suppose, for instance, you believe in a particular religion and their ideas of the Word. That’s not the seed that’s born from above, is it? If we’re going to be born of the Father, it has to be the Seed that came down out of heaven. It can’t be another man’s seed. It can’t be the seed of the Pharisees. As we read on, we’ll see that another seed didn’t work; another seed couldn’t bring forth Christians. In fact, the people whom those other seeds brought forth couldn’t even recognize Christ.

Is it the same today? Yes, it’s the same today. When the Man-child ministry comes, the same exact thing is going to happen: history is going to repeat. The people who consider themselves sons of Abraham are not going to recognize that they must abide in His Word to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. (33) They answered unto him, We are Abraham’s seed, and have never yet been in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? (34) Jesus answered them, Verily, verily I say unto you, Everyone that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin. (35) And the bondservant abideth not in the house for ever: the son abideth for ever. We need to understand that abiding in the Word will set us free, according to what Jesus said. They didn’t believe there was a possibility of being set free from sin and most of the church today doesn’t believe there’s a possibility of being set free from sin either. Jesus said if you abide in His Word, you would be set free from sin and that those people who were in bondage to sin would not abide in the house forever. Wow!

That must mean the Word has the ability to set free from sin and most of the church doesn’t know that, just as most of the Jews didn’t know it. That’s very interesting. We don’t need to wonder why there’s going to be a great falling away. It will happen because most of the church doesn’t believe in the power of God. They have a form of Godliness, but they deny the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:5). (36) If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. He does that by you abiding in His Word; that’s what He said. The Son didn’t set you free when you first stepped into the Kingdom; He set only your spirit free at that time. Now He wants to set your soul free. He wants to sanctify you in your soul by crucifying the old soul life.

In the natural, in the letter, these people were sons of Abraham and they couldn’t imagine themselves not to be saved. According to their thinking, all you had to do to be saved is to be born a Jew and to have the Covenant, right? It’s the same way today. Some people think, “All I have to do is be born again. All I have to do is accept Jesus as my savior.” Does that make you a shoe-in in the Kingdom? No, it doesn’t, not at all. That’s a lie, just as it was a lie to these people. They had the same idea. They thought they had unconditional eternal security because they were Jews. But there are other people today who are not abiding in His Word who call themselves Christians, even though they are not disciples – learners and followers of Christ. He said a person had to abide in His Word to be a disciple. They’re still in bondage to sin and He says they won’t abide in the house forever.

Oh, we need to be careful, folks. If you’re buying into that garbage from the church, believe me, there won’t be any reason for you to accept the Man-child ministry when it comes to restore the doctrine of the truth of the Word, which is the only thing that will set free. It’s the only Seed of God that creates Christians. The rest of the church is just following the Pharisees and Sadducees. (37) I know that ye are Abraham’s seed: yet ye seek to kill me, because my word hath not free course in you. And again, folks, the same thing is going to happen. These people, who are coming to teach the pure Word of God, are going to be heretics to those people who don’t want to lose their life, to those people who make excuses as to why it all passed away and they don’t have to abide in it anymore.

They’re not the Seed of God, they’re the seed of the Pharisees. (38) I speak the things which I have seen with [my] Father: and ye also do the things which ye heard from [your] father. Well, now, wait a minute. These were Jews. They knew they were the chosen people of God. They knew they were the Kingdom people, the ones with the Covenant. Is it the same today? Are there some people today who believe that they’re chosen of God, members of the New Covenant? Yes, exactly the same and they’re not going to abide in the house forever. (39) They answered and said unto him, Our father is Abraham. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. So was Jesus denying that they were Abraham’s children? No. He knew they were Abraham’s children in the flesh, in the natural, but that’s not what counts in the New Testament. We just discovered a person can be Abraham’s child only if they walk by faith in the promises.

Well, the overwhelming majority of the church nowadays, folks, denies the promises of God. You wonder why they’re not bearing fruit unto the likeness of Jesus Christ; it’s because they deny the promises of God. They reject the Word, the Seed, which is to beget them unto the Father to be born from above. Now, they accept the seed of their religion, but they reject the Seed that comes from God. And so Jesus said to them, “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham” (39).

If you are of the Seed of God, it’s because you do the works of God. If you are of the Seed of Jesus Christ, which is the Word of God, according to Matthew 13, then you’d do the works because that Seed brings forth its fruit. If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. Suppose we said that to Christians nowadays. “If you’re Abraham’s children because you have faith in the promises, according to Romans 4, then you will do the works of Abraham.” Abiding in Christ is the only place salvation is, folks. The Bible says, “God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1Jn.5:11); therefore, the only place you can have that life is abiding in Him. Some people think God has given them a gift of eternal life, that He’s put it in their hand and they think they can go anywhere with that. But no, God says He put the gift in His Son and the only people who are going to be saved is His Son. (Joh.3:13) “No one hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven.” That’s what Jesus said. So we see the Son of man came out of heaven as the Word of God (John 1:1) and we’re born from above when we accept that Word of God. Jesus said, The words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life (6:63). His Words go into us and recreate His life and His spirit.

This is a continual thing; it’s not a one-time, step-over-the-line accepting Jesus as your personal Savior. Such a quote is not anywhere in the Bible. This is a lie. Sanctification is a process of separating you from the world unto Christ. Jesus called it bearing fruit 30-, 60- and 100-fold (Matthew 13:8). And the fruit He’s talking about is the Word of God that came down out of heaven. So if you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.

Now, these people were Jews and they believed that they were the chosen, just as a lot of Christians believe today. They accepted Jesus as their personal Savior, they believe they’re forever saved, but they’re not doing the works. However, Jesus said, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also” (14:12). So if you really believe on Jesus, if you’re believing the promise in order to become Abraham’s seed, then you’re going to be doing the works of Jesus. We can’t follow another religion. We have to follow the original one that was laid down here. Desire it earnestly. Seek earnestly for that which was originally given unto the saints (Jude 3).

Jesus said, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Mat.7:21). Jesus demanded that they do the works of Abraham. Now, Abraham was a believer. He believed God. He walked by faith and he saw his fruit born in Isaac. The promised fruit was given to Abraham, who was not able to bring forth fruit on his own and we can’t bring forth fruit on our own, either. None of us can bear fruit, the fruit of Christ, the fruit of the promised child. It has to be the same power of God that brought forth Abraham’s fruit and he had to believe in order for that to happen. Today we’re told you can believe and never bear fruit. We’re told you don’t have to bear fruit because that’s works. Folks, it’s God’s works, just as it was only God’s works that brought forth fruit unto Abraham. We’re Abraham’s children, if we bring forth fruit that we can’t bear naturally. It can only be born from Him by His power through our faith.

So Jesus said, (21) Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. (22) Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by they name do many mighty works? (23) And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Now, the people who don’t believe in New Testament works, they, of course, say, “Well, that’s because they were casting out demons and prophesying and that’s not legal today.” That’s utterly ridiculous! What Jesus is talking about is people who were doing the works of Jesus. Jesus said, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also “(Joh.14:12), but they weren’t obeying Jesus in their own life. They were not being obedient personally.

You know, it’s not the gifts, folks, that make us worthy of the Kingdom of God; it’s the fruit of Jesus Christ. See, we can manifest the gifts and God will just accept whatever we offer to His people. We can manifest any gift God can give us. That’s great, wonderful, but that won’t get us into the Kingdom. It’s the fruit of the Word that gets us into the Kingdom. (1Jn.2:29) If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one also that doeth righteousness is begotten of him. In other words, how can a person be born of God and still do iniquity? We’re departing from this world. We’re departing from wickedness and evil as we’re being born of Him. Now, your spirit is born of Him in a moment, but your soul is not. Your soul is born of Him as you receive this Word. (1Pe.1:22) Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently: (23) having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and abideth. Corruptible seed is what you receive through men: their ideas about God, their little picking at verses here and verses there to make their doctrines fit and to make their religion right. That’s a corruptible seed.

But we have to be born of the incorruptible Seed, which is the Word of God. (22) Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth. How much truth are you obeying? You may say, “Well, I’m obeying what I know,” and that’s good. (Jas.4:17) To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. God imputes sin when you know something and you’re not doing it. As we walk in more and more truth, as we abide in more and more of His Word, we’re becoming more and more a disciple of Christ and sin, according to what we just read in John 8, is no longer exercising authority over us. Well, that’s pretty neat! So you see, “born again” is more than a born-again spirit, it’s a born-again soul. And your soul is born again only because you’re obeying more and more of the truth.

(1Jn.3:7) My little children, let no man lead you astray: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He’s saying, “Don’t be deceived. The people who do righteousness are righteous.” Some may say, “Well, David, aren’t we righteous by faith?” Yes, but if you’re righteous by faith, faith without works is dead (James 2:17). And that’s not your works. It’s when your faith goes up to God that He does the work in you. He works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). When you believe the promises of God, you confess the promises of God and it’s God Who does the work in you; it’s not you. He calls it ceasing from your works (Hebrews 4:10). (10) In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. Obviously, God plans on doing His righteousness in His elect and the rest will claim God but won’t know God. These people believed in Jesus in John 8 but, for some reason, they weren’t walking in His steps and it can only mean that they did not believe the promises of God. We need to spend time in the Word, folks. We need to make sure we’re believing the promise of God because that’s where power over sin, power to walk in the steps of Jesus, comes from. It doesn’t come from us; it comes from Him.

So Jesus said, (Joh.8:39) “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. (40) But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth.” Once again, folks, I want to tell you, a lot of people calling themselves “Christians” are going to be the persecutors in these coming days. They’re going to call heretics the people who believe exactly what the Bible says and speak exactly what the Bible says. They have their own doctrine, saying, “That passed away … We have a new religion now … God doesn’t do things that way anymore.”

Well, in Hebrews 13:20, God called this “an eternal covenant” and He said, (Jud.3) “contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” It’s only the Word that comes down from above that’s the incorruptible Seed that will bring forth Christ in you, which is the only hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). The only hope of glory is Christ in you, folks. He’s the only One God is going to accept in heaven. He calls His people the body of Christ (Romans 12:5). Well, Who lives in the body of Christ? Christ does. Who is going to heaven? Christ is. There’s no sin in Him. When you sin, you step outside the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:18) because there’s no sin in Him (1 Peter 2:22). (1Co.6:18) “Every sin that a man doeth is without the body.” So if you continue to abide in sin, are you abiding in Christ? No. And, by the way, where is salvation? Where is eternal life? (1Jn.5:11) God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. So the people who say they can’t be lost because they have eternal life while they walk in their sins are liars. They’re just like those people Jesus was speaking to in that day. The Man-child’s going to speak to them in this day and they’re going to get the same Word, and it’s going to have the same effect because they believe, “Hey, we’re sons of Abraham; we’ve been born again; we accepted Jesus as our personal Savior.” Yes, but you’re not abiding in His Word and you’re not a disciple, and you’re in bondage to sin. Oh, yes, history is about to repeat.

(Joh.8:41) Ye do the works of your father. They said unto him, We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, [even] God. (42) Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me … Folks, if God is your Father, you love Jesus. Now, what did Jesus say about love? He said, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me” (14:21). If God is your Father, you will keep His commandments. Why? Because you’re born of God. His Word lives in you. You believe it. You’re not denying it, you’re believing it. It’s a part of you. It has power to cast out sin because the Word of God doesn’t come back void; it’s sharper than a two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). (8:42) Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I came forth and am come from God; for neither have I come of myself, but he sent me. (43) Why do ye not understand my speech? [Even] because ye cannot hear my word. (44) Ye are of [your] father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. Now, looking back to verse 31, He’s still talking to these people who believed Him. Jesus said to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you abide in my word, then are you truly my disciples”; and now He’s telling them, “You’re of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it’s your will to do.” How can we tell whether we’re born of God or born of this world? First of all, if you’re not born of the Word of God, then you’re born of this world. Jesus said, “He that is not with me is against me” (Mat.12:30). You either receive the incorruptible Word of God or you receive something else, but another seed cannot bring forth Jesus. Only the Word of God can bring forth Jesus in you. Therefore, if you’re believing a doctrine that’s not backed up with His Word and a teaching that’s not backed up with His Word, you’ve received another seed. You have another Jesus.

That’s very dangerous because the only thing that can overcome sin and can cause you to love Jesus is for you to believe and keep His commandments. And the power to do that only comes from God. It’s not our power, it’s God’s power. Some people, because they don’t believe in God’s power, they believe only in their own power, quickly will tell you, “Well, we can’t be perfect,” but the point is moot. It has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. Yes, we can’t be perfect, but this perfection that was accomplished by Jesus at the Cross is given to us because of our faith. If you let some Pharisee talk you out of God’s promises, that’s very dangerous because you will not bear the fruit of Jesus Christ and it won’t matter if you believe in Him or not. You’re not a son of Abraham. He said, “You’re of your father the devil.”

That could be said to an awful lot of Christians today, folks, because they’re not born from above, they’re not born of Christ because the Word doesn’t live in them. If you speak the Word to them, they’ll deny the Word for their religion. And I want to tell you, it’s obvious, if we just look at them, “he that doeth righteousness is righteous” and they aren’t righteous because they don’t do righteousness; they are sons of the devil. The proof of that is in their actions. It’s not because of what they say, that they accepted Jesus as their Savior and they believe in Jesus. His followers being addressed here believed in Jesus. “Ye are of [your] father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do.” That’s what proves you’re of the devil, you see, if you live in those lusts, right? (Joh.8:44) … He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. There it is, right there. How do you know you’re a seed of the devil? Because you don’t stand in the truth. I’ll tell you, not one jot or one tittle is going to pass away from God’s Law. It doesn’t matter if you deny it, it doesn’t matter if your religion denies it; you’re held accountable to it because the Word of God is Jesus Christ. There’s no other way to get Jesus into you than for you to accept that Word Who comes down out of heaven. If you’re going to be “born from above” (that’s the literal translation of John 3:3,5: “born from above”) you have to be born of the incorruptible Seed, which is the Word of God. No other thinking, no other doctrine can bring forth Christ. And “he standeth not in the truth” and neither do his children, even though they go to church.

Now, these people being spoken to here were raised to believe that they were in the Covenant. They were, of course, Jews in the natural. To tell them that they were sons of the devil, not sons of Abraham, was far from their thinking and they didn’t believe Him. That’s why they couldn’t hear His words and didn’t believe Him. They won’t believe Him today because Jesus is coming again, according to Hosea 6:2,3, on the morning of the third day as the latter rain. Before He comes in the cloud, He’s coming as the latter rain. And those who are sons of the devil won’t believe this today. He’s coming, He said in John 16, as the Man-child. He’s coming born in the man-child. He’s coming to speak to His people again in other great ministries: the two witness ministry and the John the Baptist ministry. He’s coming to speak to His people again and they won’t hear them either. They think that they are sons of Abraham and sons of God. (44) … When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.

So how does a person get to be a son of the devil raised up under Judaism, studying the Word, and all those things? How do you get to be a son of the devil? Well, it’s really pretty easy. It comes quite naturally. (Mat.23:15) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves. How is it that these Pharisees, Sadducees, hypocrites, scribes – how is it they made people sons of hell? It’s because they sowed a doctrine and a teaching that was not the Seed that comes out of heaven and and there’s only one thing which that can create – a son of hell. How do people who are religious get to be sons of the devil? All they have to do is receive the seed of the Pharisees and the Sadducees of our day and they’ll be sons of the devil. History has to repeat, folks. The first time history doesn’t repeat the Word of God is wrong. (Ecc.1:9) That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

(1Co.10:11) Now these things happened unto them (that is, the Jews) by way of example (and the word “example” here is “a type or shadow”); and they were written for our admonition (these are the Corinthians he’s talking to, so he’s talking to the Gentile church here), upon whom the ends of the ages are come. So what happens to the Jews happens to the church. The natural Jews had their natural Man-child. The spiritual Jews are going to have their spiritual Man-child. (15:46) Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual. That’s the Law. So the parable that we looked at back there in the Gospels is going to have a fulfillment in the church and this same Jesus, Who came and preached this to them, is coming to preach this to you and to me, and many people are going to be found to be other than what they think they are. They’ve been deceived by a strong delusion.

(Joh.8:47) He that is of God heareth the words of God…. You know, the Bible says, He who is from God speaks the Word of God. We can speak nothing else. We cannot add to or take away anything. (3:34) For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God…. Therefore, if a person is speaking something that’s adding to or taking away from the Word, they’re corrupting the Seed. They’re not making it possible for you to bear the fruit of Jesus Christ. We are commanded to come out from among them and not sit under their leaven. (1Co.5:6) … Know ye not that a little leaven leaventh the whole lump? (7) Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our passover also hath been sacrificed, [even] Christ: (8) wherefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. What’s the leaven? It’s what changes the Seed; it’s what changes the Word. It’s basically man’s way of making the bread taste more palatable to the old fleshly man and easier to swallow. “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump,” so he warns you to come out from among them and to cast out the old leaven from among you.

He who is of God hears the words of God, yet, folks, when I speak these things that are straight out of the Gospel, when I talk about the works of Jesus, how much of the church do you think would accept it? Jesus said, “These signs will accompany them that believe.” Jesus told us who believed. He told us who were the sons of Abraham because they believe the promises. (Mar.16:17) And these signs shall accompany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues. Oh, heaven forbid! How much of the church would reject that? (18) They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall in wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. How much of the church would reject and rejects that today? If Jesus showed up right now doing and teaching the same things He did, which is about to happen, folks, what are they going to do? The same thing they have done. They’re going to reject Him because only he who is of God hears the words of God. A remnant in these days is going to hear the Word of God and the rest are going to fight Him, just as these same people in John 8 did. He said, “He that is of God heareth the words of God: for this cause ye hear [them] not, because ye are not of God. He that is of God hears the words of God” (Joh.8:47). See, when people do not hear the Word of God, it’s because in that point they are not of God. Let’s just agree with Jesus, right? We just agree with the Lord Jesus.

Now, what happened to these people? Well, let’s go back to Matthew 13 and read what happened to them, even before Jesus came. (Mat.13:10) And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? (11) And he answered and said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. God had reprobated them. He wasn’t even attempting to bring these particular Jews He’s talking about into the Kingdom. He had chosen a remnant and they heard His voice and they were following Him, but the rest were not. And so He said, (12) For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that which he hath. So even if they did have anything toward God, they were going to lose it. It was going to be taken away from them because they didn’t have fruit and, therefore, weren’t going to receive. (13) Therefore speak I to them in parables; because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. (14) And unto them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; And seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive. This was a curse upon them. The overwhelming majority of Judaism who did not accept Jesus, this was a curse upon them. (15) For this peoples’s heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them. Now this is going to be repeated and is being repeated in our time. They cannot hear; they cannot see. You try to share the true Gospel with them or try to quote the Word of God and they cannot receive it. They do not believe it. It’s not a part of what the Pharisees have given to them and they are not sons of God. They’re sons of the Pharisees, which makes them a two-fold more son of hell than themselves. That’s what Jesus said. How does a so-called Christian get to be a son of the devil? It’s very simple: Just receive another seed than the One God sent. This is happening all over.

Who is it who’s going to persecute the church, the true called-out ones? Not the ones who refuse to come out, but the ones who come out. Who’s going to persecute them? It’s these people who have been reprobated. And in the next verse: “But blessed are your eyes, for they see” (16). He’s speaking to His remnant, His elect, His chosen ones. These are the chosen ones, not the ones who have been rejected. Much of the false church and the Pharisees have been saying all the natural Jews are the chosen people of God. They haven’t read the New Testament because He broke off the natural Jews for their unbelief. Read it. Romans 11:20. And He grafted in the Gentiles by faith, warning them that if they didn’t continue to believe, they, too, would be broken off (verse 21). It’s basically the same thing Jesus said: (Joh.8:47) “for this cause ye hear [them] not, because ye are not of God.” And he continues, (10:26) “But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep.” There are many Christians who do not believe what Jesus said here, nor when He comes this time to say the same thing are they going to believe it. If I quote it to them from the Bible, they don’t believe it. And if I talk to them of the works of Jesus, which Jesus said all believers would do, they don’t believe it.

(26) But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep. (27) My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. People love to quote this. People who do not believe the Word of God and who do not follow Jesus love to quote this verse when they don’t even know what they’re saying. Read carefully what He’s saying: “My sheep hear my voice.” In other words, they accept all of the Word of God. He who is of God hears the Words of God, accepts the Word of God. (27) My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. To these people it’s not necessary to follow, it’s just necessary to accept. “I accept Jesus as my personal savior, but I continue to go down my own path.” No. He says, “and they follow me. (28) And I give unto them eternal life.” These are the people who are abiding in Christ He’s talking about and He gives unto them eternal life. How about the rest of the people in John 8 whom He said believed on Him and were naturally sons of Abraham? He said they were sons of the devil. (28) And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. Amen.

The unconditional eternal security people who don’t believe in the works of Jesus, in that way they don’t believe in the Words of Jesus. These people who believed were rejected and didn’t have eternal life. So what’s Jesus saying here? He’s saying that the people who are His true sheep hear His voice, they believe His Word, He knows them, they follow Him and He gives to them eternal life. And we found from 1 John 5 that the only people who have eternal life are those who abide in Christ. Jesus said, (15:6) “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” “Every branch in me that beareth not fruit,” He says, is cut off. Well, how could you be in Him? See, there are people who start out in Christ, but they don’t continue in Christ. They get led astray by these religions because they don’t love truth. They get led astray into one religion or another and they don’t continue to follow the Christ of the Bible. (2Jn.9) Whosoever goeth onward and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God….

Do you know people who started out as Christians but they don’t abide in the teaching and they don’t even think it’s necessary? The Bible says they have “not God: he that abideth in the teaching, the same hath both the Father and the Son” (9). So you see, folks, what is wrong with this multitude of Christianity out there? It’s very simple. They’ve been led astray by the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes of this day, and they’re not receiving this Word right here. Listen, folks, there’s not one religion that followed Jesus. There were people who followed Jesus out of the religions. He came to the sheepfold, He called His by name and He called them out. That’s what the word “church” means: “called-out ones.” They followed Him out. If you follow the Pharisees of our day, you’re going to die. You don’t have eternal life, if you follow these religions that pervert God’s Word.

Repent, which means “change your mind,” every time you read the Word of God. Cast out your old software and put in the new software. This is the only way Jesus is born in your soul, through your obedience to the Word of God. Every other seed is corruptible, is corrupted, cannot bring forth Jesus Christ. Every other seed. Many of you would do so much good to your soul to stay home and read your Bible. Put that Word down in your heart and stop following these Pharisees who think they can deny the Word of God and still go to heaven; stop following these multitudes of people who think they are sons of Abraham and do believe in Jesus. Remember, the devil believes in Jesus, but he just doesn’t believe in Him enough to repent. Multitudes of people who believe in Jesus, who believe they’re sons of Abraham, who believe they have the Covenant just like the people in John 8, are not going to have eternal life. That’s because the only reason they believe the doctrines that they do is so they can continue on in the lusts of their flesh. They don’t want a word from God that says, “Oh no, oh no, ‘he that doeth righteousness is righteous.’”

What’s the way to do righteousness, folks? Faith in the promise of God, faith that He really took away your sins (Acts 2:38), faith that He delivered you out of the power of darkness (Colossians 1:13), faith that He bore the curse for you (Galatians 3:13) and you don’t have to bear the curse. It takes repentance. It takes repentance every time you read this Word so that you can put this incorruptible Seed in you, which is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col.1:27). Do you remember what Paul’s name was when he was among the Pharisees? His name was Saul. That’s not an accident. He was a Saul ministry and yet God granted him repentance. God turned him away from that and turned him to Christ, and then God gave him a new name, as He promises in the book of Revelation. He gave him “Paul.” And, as you know, Paul led many people out of apostasy and on to follow the Lord.

I think we could take some time right now to pray for not only the “Pauls” who are out there, but also the “Sauls” who are going to repent. And it’s a small minority, I know, those Sauls who are going to repent and also the people who are going to hear them. We need to pray for them.

Father, in the Name of Jesus, Lord, we’re asking Your grace, Lord. We desire earnestly to see Your grace on those men who are in bondage, in captivity to their own flesh. Those men who are Your elect from the foundation of world, but they’re caught up in this system, along with many others who will never repent, we know. But we ask You, Father, in Jesus’ Name, send forth Your grace upon these men even now, Lord, to begin to turn them.

Let there be Nicodemuses, Lord, who come forth with honesty and desiring truth, examining the Word and seeing the power that’s upon Your true ministers. Let there be Nicodemuses who come forth and Sauls who repent and are given a new name of Paul, Lord. And let those people come forth and, Lord, let them be great and mighty warriors for Your Kingdom. Let them bring forth, oh, Lord, multitudes of Your people, too, out from under the apostasy of Babylonish religion, Lord, and these organizations of men, Lord, that have departed from Your Word and are rebellious against Your Word. Bring Your people out from under apostates, Lord, organizations that think they know more than Your Word and rule over the people of God as God. Grant repentance to those of Your elect in their midst, Lord.

We ask that do you this in Jesus’ Name, Father. We ask that You bring multitudes out even now, Lord, a first-fruits of those to come out of Babylon and go back to Zion, Lord. We ask that You do this in the Name of Jesus Christ, Father. We’re asking for a great move of Your Spirit even now, even before the Tribulation, even before the great shakings that come, Lord. We ask because these people need to be able to recognize, Lord, this Man-child ministry. Though many Jews couldn’t recognize Your ministry, Lord Jesus Christ, in the time that You came, some did. Some had grace. Some, like Nicodemus, said that we know that You have to be a man from God with the signs that You do.

Lord, let others see these things. Let them repent and let them turn to You. Father, grant repentance, oh, Lord, to Your people. Grant repentance to those who will see the truth, oh, God. We just ask you, Lord, in Jesus’ Name. Lord, we don’t desire that any of these people perish but that they repent and turn to you. And we don’t desire that the people who follow them, who were in bondage to their own flesh, perish, but that they would in turn repent and follow You. And we know it’s in Your Hands, Father, to grant repentance. Your Word says You grant repentance and we ask You to have mercy, Lord, upon them in Jesus’ Name, Father. Let them see the truth, hear the truth, follow the truth. Let them “eat the roll.”

Lord, we know that You’re going to have demonstrations of Your mighty power to save even people like Saul of Tarsus. And, Lord, we thank You for sending forth Your mercy upon Your people in days to come. We desire to see Your mercy, Lord. Lord, we’re not angry with these people, we just want them to repent. And we know that the apostle Paul desired earnestly and would have given up his own life so that his people would repent. And, Lord, we need that in the Sauls of our day. We need that to be seen in their lives, Lord; that they would give up their life, their desires, their position, their authority, their prestige, their money. We need that to be seen, that they would turn away from these wicked things, these wicked lusts of the flesh and that they not be consumed by their own flesh in the days to come and totally reprobated. Lord, we ask your grace and your mercy in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

I’m going to continue in the next chapter on the Eli and Saul ministries that are doing the exact same thing the Pharisees did. And everybody who follows them dies. The people who follow them die.

God bless you. Keep me in prayer.

CHAPTER TWO

Conquering the Flesh

We’ve been studying the Pharisees, Saul and Eli ministries, and what they represent in the Scriptures, as a revelation that the Lord is giving us of what time it is, of where we are in God’s scheme of things right now. This will help us to understand what’s happening and what’s coming down the road, so let’s continue.

If you remember, in the previous chapter we were looking at the fact that God always repeats history, for one thing, and then the fact that Jesus came along and what was prophesied about Him. (Luk.1:31) And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. (32) He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: (33) and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Praise God! And so we see that Jesus came to sit on the throne of David, or to rule over New Testament spiritual Israel as a repetition of the Davidic ministry over Israel. We also discovered a parallel there that we’re finding in other places in the Scriptures, and that is, when Jesus came on the scene to lead those who had eyes to see and ears to hear, that there was a ministry already in place that fought him every step of the way. And before David came on the scene, there was a Saul ministry. Those Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots and all the heads of denominations in Jesus’ day represented this Saul ministry.

So what can we find out about the Saul ministry? Well, for one thing, Jesus said things about the religious heads of His day that were true of Saul in David’s day. Jesus said that they were leading the people badly, actually leading them to destruction, and weren’t being obedient to the commands of the Lord. Jesus also said of the Pharisees that they made of no effect the Word of God by their traditions (Mark 7:13). And we looked at verses that spoke about them raising up people to be sons of the devil. (Mat.23:15) Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more of a son of hell than yourselves.

What kind of a ministry of God’s people is it who raise up people to be sons of hell and sons of the devil? And who in the world could believe that after being raised up in such a religious institution or institutions, that they could possibly be that? Well, those people, of course, didn’t believe that they were sons of hell and the devil. In our day, too, there are many people who are in Christianity and are just as mean as snakes, yet they think they’re sons of God. It’s sad, but we can recognize such people by their fruit (Matthew 12:33).

Well, I shared with you what the Lord showed me and also what the Scripture had to say, which is that everything in the Gospels and in the book of Acts is going to be repeated in our day, except the cast of characters is multiplied many times over. In other words, every time history repeats, it repeats with more people. So we see corporate body entities in the book of Revelation and in the types and shadows there, and all through the Gospels and the book of Acts we’re also going to see that, folks. God had reprobated those ministries even before Jesus came on the scene.

Jesus prophesied what Isaiah the prophet said of them, that they couldn’t see and they couldn’t hear. (13:14) And unto them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; And seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive: (15) For this people’s heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them. They did not understand what Jesus was bringing to them from the Father and they were jealously protecting their turf, so to speak. And, of course, they were the ones, these so-called people of God, who persecuted and killed the saints. Do you think it’s going to be any different in our day? It’s not. History just repeats; that’s how we know God’s in control (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

So we see that their “Saul” ministry was leading people to destruction and, if a few hadn’t listened to Jesus, they would have all been destroyed, but God saved a remnant through the Man-child Jesus. I’ve already shared with you that Jesus said how He was going to repeat that history again in the end time, that He was going to be gone for a little while, but when He returned He was going to return like a little baby boy, a Man-child born to a woman in travail (John 16; Revelation 12).

Now we have another Man-child ministry coming and before that ministry comes, before the David ministry comes again, God is going to reprobate another Saul ministry. I asked the Lord in 2007, “Lord, where are we? Show me where we are in the scheme of things in the timeline.” And the Lord immediately brought me to 1 Chronicles 10. Remember that the Saul ministry led their people to destruction, led them to death, and yet they thought they were such religious people. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:11 that that’s all a type and a shadow for us. We can see there are a lot of people who believe they are children of God but they are totally deceived. We can tell by their fruit, if we just judge by the Word of God. What a person merely believes that they are will not make a whole lot of difference compared to what Jesus said about the Scriptures, that we’re going to be judged by them (John 12:48). So we need to know what the Scriptures say.

(1Ch.10:1) Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa. (2) And the Philistines followed hard after Saul and after his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Malchishua, and the sons of Saul. Now what are we talking about here? Well, we know that God has shown us what some of the types represent and, in this type right here, the Philistines were the people who dwelt in the land before Israel was commanded to come in. Israel was commanded to conquer them and take that land, and so what we need to understand is the same thing, the parallel that we saw in the book of Exodus, which was that the Egyptians represented the old man. The old man lived in the land and the Israelites were in bondage to the old man, so God sent His man-child Moses in there to lead His people out of bondage to the old man. God even took them through baptism in the Red Sea, where the old man was drowned. When we go down in the waters of baptism, it symbolizes putting the old man in us to death. We are to reckon ourselves to be dead unto sin, but now we’re alive unto Christ and the new man comes up on the other side (Romans 6:11). Well, this is the same with the Promised Land, folks. The Israelites were the spiritual man that was to conquer the old man who lived in the land and these Philistines were now conquering them. What do you think it represents when the old man conquers the new man? It’s not a good thing, right? Does it ever happen? Oh, yes.

Now let’s look at an extreme example of this happening. (Heb.6:4) For as touching those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, (5) and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come (of course, this is speaking to Christians), (6) and [then] fell away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. Who is the Son of God? How can you crucify to yourself the Son of God except that, remember, it’s “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col.1:27)? And who is “Christ in you”? He is that born-again man. He is the spiritual man. He is being created, recreated, in the image of Jesus Christ. Remember, Jesus said, “the words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life” (Joh.6:63). Those words went into His disciples and they recreated His spirit and His life in them. So there is a man in you, a spiritual man in you that is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Paul is talking now about someone who has partaken of very much of the Kingdom: the heavenly gift, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the powers of the age to come. Then they fell away and he says, in such a case when somebody’s gone that far and decided to go back, God’s not going to grant them repentance. There are people who are in lesser cases who do repent and do come back to the Lord; we know that. But look at what’s being said here. They crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame. Well, what happened here was the old man conquered the new man, didn’t he? He put the new man to death. They walked willfully against the Lord and crucified the spiritual man.

And Paul goes on to say this: (Heb.6:7) For the land which hath drunk the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receiveth blessing from God: (8) but if it beareth thorns and thistles, it is rejected and nigh unto a curse; whose end is to be burned. I know a lot of people don’t believe that, but the fact is, yes, it is to be burned. “Rejected” here is the word adokimos. It means “reprobated” in the sense of “not standing the test; rejected by God.” Well, notice in this particular scenario the new man was conquered; therefore, the Bible tells us that this is exactly what can happen. Another example is found here: (Jas.5:19) “My brethren (so this was written to Christians), if any among you err from the truth, and one convert him; (20) let him know, that he who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall cover a multitude of sins.”

A soul can die because there are two men living in your land: there’s the new man and there’s the old man. And if you walk after the new man, he will conquer the old man; and if you walk after the old man, he will conquer the new man. (Jud.11) Woe unto them! for they went in the way of Cain…. Now, what did Cain do? Of course, Cain killed his brother, the spiritual one in the family. The old man conquered the new man, so to speak. And if you really want proof of that, when Seth was born he was called a replacement for Abel (Genesis 4:25). Why was God replacing Abel? Because when a person comes into the world they begin to walk after their flesh very naturally and that fleshly man puts to death the spiritual man. We’ve all gone astray, each one after his own way (1 Peter 2:25), and that spiritual man represents the one that Cain killed, which is Abel. So there had to be a replacement, a born-again spiritual man, and the next one that came along was Seth. You see, that’s why he was a replacement. It even says it there very plainly in Genesis 4:25 that he was a replacement for Abel. So “they went in the way of Cain” putting to death the spiritual man “and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire” (11).

Many people are living after the lusts of their flesh. They’re selling their birthright, just like Esau, and they’re doing things because of gain and they believe doctrines because of gain, not because it’s the truth or what they need. And “they perished in the gainsaying of Korah” (11). Korah was someone who was usurping the authority that God rightly gave to Moses and Aaron. (12) These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. How can you be twice dead? Well, you have to be twice born. You have to be born again and died again. Does that happen? Yes, it does. The old man conquers the new man when a person walks after their flesh. (Rom.8:12) So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh: (13) for if ye (notice it’s brethren; this is brothers and sister here; this is the people of God) live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live. If you walk after the flesh, you’re feeding the flesh and, if you feed the flesh, the flesh will conquer your spiritual man.

There are many people still sitting on a pew, folks, and there are many leaders still leading churches and they’ve been dead for a long time. The Bible even says, she that giveth herself to pleasure is dead while she liveth (1Ti.5:6). There are many people who are dead. They had a relationship with God. They walked with God. They had a conscience and they loved to please God. Yet, in some way, now they love to please man. They love to please religion. They love to please their flesh.

In 1 Chronicles 10 we see the story of the Philistines conquering Israel. They conquered the people of Israel and conquered Saul and his three sons. (1Ch.10:3) And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers overtook him; and he was distressed by reason of the archers. (4) Then said Saul unto his armorbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith, lest these uncircumcised come and abuse me. But his armorbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took his sword, and fell upon it. (5) And when his armorbearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell upon his sword, and died. (6) So Saul died, and his three sons; and all his house died together. What do you think that’s talking about? Saul and his house fell together. It’s interesting that Saul led God’s people to their death. Saul represents a ministry in our day that is leading a people called “Israel” to their death, but why would Saul do such a thing? How could he do such a thing? What would cause him to do such a thing?

Well, Saul had a very good start, but shortly after that he had a very bad continuation. After Saul won some battles for the people of God, God give him a very specific command. (1Sa.15:1) And Samuel said unto Saul, the Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. (2) Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I have marked that which Amalek did to Israel, how he set himself against him in the way, when he came out of Egypt. Who is it that oppresses us and stands in our way when we seek to come out of the world? Well, it’s the old man, right? Who was it that sought to destroy Israel when they wanted to come out of the world, come out of Egypt? It was the Egyptians, the old man, and that’s what Amalek represents here. Amalek is those who resisted them coming out of the world and going to the Promised Land. (3) Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

God commanded Saul to wipe them out, to not leave anything. And you may say, “That’s really merciless!” Well, it is merciless until you stop and figure out who He’s talking about here in the spirit, not in the letter. Although the letter was true and it happened, it was a type and a shadow that’s been given to us (1 Corinthians 10:11). So, if it’s for us, what does it mean? We’re not going to go around killing Amalekites, are we? No. We have to see this in the spirit and, in the spirit, what is it saying? It’s saying we must put to death our enemies that resist us coming out of this world, every “man,” every “woman,” every “child,” all of them, all the “beasts,” they all have to die. And God doesn’t give any “if”s, “and”s or “but”s about it.

But Saul didn’t obey and he spared somebody. (8) And he took Agag the king of the Amelekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. (9) But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but everything that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. They spared Agag. And what does Agag represent? He was the leader over the flesh; he represented the mind of the flesh, the brains of the outfit, right? He was the mind of the flesh and Saul spared the mind of the flesh. God said, “Go and kill them all. Don’t leave a man or leave a woman and don’t even leave a child. They all have to die.” And you know that we can’t, this old man can’t, enter the kingdom of heaven. (1Co.15:50) Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God…. Jesus said, “For whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Mat.16:25). Except you lose your life, you won’t gain your life. As long as this man lives, we’re in danger of losing our life. I’m talking about we, the spiritual man, are in danger of losing our life as long as the old man lives. That’s why God says, “Don’t have any mercy on him, put him to death, kill him immediately. Don’t have any mercy.” So Saul spared this Agag, whom I believe represents the mind of the flesh.

And what did God say about that when Samuel caught Saul sparing this man? He rebuked Saul. (1Sa.15:17) And Samuel said, Though thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed thee king over Israel. The problem was that Saul became too big for his britches and he didn’t want to do what God had commanded. He began to reason for himself, like a lot of people do nowadays, especially the leadership over God’s people who like to reason for themselves. You know, God doesn’t care about our reasoning; He just wants us to obey what He has written but people try to worm their way out of it. And God said, (23) Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. There it is. There’s your reprobation right there: “He hath rejected thee from being king.”

And what did Saul say? (24) And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words, because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice. Well, isn’t that true of a lot of preachers today, folks? They fear the people. They want to obey them. They want to please them. They want to make sure they keep paying their tithes and so on and so forth, right? Isn’t it just that way? And we see shortly after that, in Chapter 16, God anointed little David to be king. He didn’t become king right there; Samuel just anointed him from that time forth. And at the same time, of course, “the spirit of God departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him” (16:14). From that point on everything was downhill for him. Why? Because he didn’t kill the old man. He didn’t lead God’s people to kill the old man. And so what happened? He led them to their death because the Philistines conquered them. See, the old man conquered them.

Another type is, I think, pretty neat, in the story of David and Goliath. You remember the story of how little David had killed his lion and his bear (1 Samuel 17:34,35); he’d had experience and he just flat out told Saul, “Look, this guy’s no problem; we can take care of him” (verse 36). But “Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth” (17:33). And that’s true. The old flesh from our youth, it’s been conquering us and keeping us under. It’s been a mighty giant to us and we just don’t think it can be conquered. The problem is when people who call themselves preachers don’t think that he can be conquered. It’s because they don’t even know the Gospel; they haven’t read the Bible and they haven’t received a revelation from God. You don’t want to sit under anybody like that. That’s a Saul ministry because they don’t know that you can conquer the giant. That was the bad report, by the way, that was given to the people of God when they went in and looked at the Promised Land and found these giants there. You know, the ten spies died in the wilderness because they didn’t believe they could conquer the giants, but Joshua and Caleb did believe and they walked into the Promised Land in their bodies, folks. They were the only ones who walked straight into the Promised Land. They never even died.

Well, Saul had an idea. David, you know, was telling Saul, “Look, I took care of the lion and the bear when they came out against the sheep, came out against God’s flock, and this uncircumcised Philistine, I could take care of him, too, by the grace of God.” Then an interesting thing happens. (38) And Saul clad David with his apparel, and he put a helmet of brass upon his head, and he clad him with a coat of mail. (39) And David girded his (Saul’s) sword upon his apparel, and he assayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. And David put them off him. Well, who had proved them? Saul was the only one who had proved his own armor, right? So what Saul was saying is, “That giant can’t be conquered; I ain’t going out there. Here, you take my armor and you go; you take care of him for me and I’m not going out there.”

You know, nobody can conquer that giant for you. Everybody has to conquer their own giant, folks. And to tell you the truth, the Lord’s already done it at the Cross. Now all we have to do is accept that we were crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20). The old man, the one who’s ruled over our life and brought us into bondage, the one who’s lived in the land even before the born-again spiritual man comes into the land, that one is the one who’s ruled over us and is like a giant to us. And Saul and his ministry said, “You can’t handle that guy; he’s been a warrior from his youth and you’re just a little-ol’ nobody.” But, I’ll tell you what, even little-ol’ nobodies can handle them. You know why? Because Jesus and you together is the maximum that’s necessary, right? Amen.

So David said he hadn’t proven it. What had he proved? He had never worn any of man’s armor because his armor was the Lord. In fact, he told Goliath, “Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied” (45). That’s all he had was the Name. That was his armor. (46) This day will the Lord deliver thee into my hand; and I will smite thee, and take thy head from off thee; and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day unto the birds of the heavens, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. That little guy had a lot of spunk, didn’t he? But you know what, it wasn’t just spunk, it was the faith of the Lord inside him. He knew he took out that lion and that bear, and he knew it wasn’t him. He knew it was God. When a person walks by faith, they handle bigger and bigger enemies and it just comes naturally to them.

Well, anyway, David did conquer the giant and he cut off his head. And, of course, Saul spared the head of the flesh but David cut it off. And, not only that, David obeyed God and took out the Amalekites. He took them out man, woman and child. Notice, this was before David came into the kingdom, before he was anointed to be king over all Israel. He’d already been anointed by Samuel and he was in the wilderness with his men, fighting the battles of Israel. While Saul was ruling in Israel as the official head of the kingdom, it was David who was out there fighting the battles for Israel. And I think that’s what’s happening today, folks. David hasn’t yet assumed the throne. He hasn’t yet come to the anointing of the kingdom, but right now he’s out there fighting the battles of the kingdom.

(27:8) And David and his men went up, and made a raid upon the Geshurites, and the Girzites, and the Amalekites; for those [nations] were the inhabitants of the land, who were of old, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt. So these were the first rulers of the land, just like your old flesh was the first ruler of this land. In Hebrews 6 God is calling the land this life that we live in. This land has to bear fruit and that old man has to die. (9) And David smote the land, and saved neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and the oxen, and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel; and he returned, and came to Achish. So he saved not a man or not a woman alive. He conquered the Amalekites. David didn’t have any problem leading God’s people to conquer his enemies because he first conquered the old man. Saul didn’t conquer the old man; he didn’t obey; he didn’t put to death the mind of the flesh and so the Philistines came back and conquered both him and the people he was leading.

Now, that’s a ministry that we’re living amongst right now, folks. These ministries all around the world right now don’t believe in conquering the flesh. They like to live peaceably with the old man. You know, we may want to live with the old man, but if we do, the old man is going to conquer us. You can’t both live in the same property. They’re going to come back and conquer you. They took Saul out and that’s the reason. He didn’t obey God. He didn’t put to death the old man. You know what happened? When they conquered Saul, they took his head off and put it in the house of their god. What do you think that means? See, he was supposed to take the old man’s head off.

You know, when Samuel greeted Saul returning from the slaughter of the Amalekites, Samuel rebuked him. (15:28) And Samuel said unto him, the Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbor of thine, that is better than thou. Then Samuel immediately took his sword and he hewed Agag in pieces (verse 33). He put him totally to death, didn’t leave but tiny little pieces of him. He knew how important it was to put this leader of the old man to death. Saul didn’t know that. He was having mercy. He thought he had more wisdom. Of course, it’s painful to put to death the old man, but it’s a command from God. We have to lose our life to gain our life and Saul just totally missed out on what the Lord was trying to say to him.

Years ago, actually before moving to Florida, the Lord gave me a vision. I was sitting with my wife in my front yard in some lawn chairs, looking at the highway and power lines out in front of my house, and in this vision I saw that the power lines that were hanging from pole-to-pole were actually almost touching the ground; they were hanging very, very low. And my wife and I were looking at this in our resting position, resting on the grass, resting in our lawn chairs, watching this happening. And as we rested, a tornado came right over those power lines and picked us up and carried us away. And I’ll just share the first part with you of what the Lord showed me. The first part He showed me was that we’re called to rest from our works with the grass under our feet. And all flesh is as grass (1 Peter 1:24), right? We have to have dominion over the old man. And we rest from our own works; we can’t save ourselves. The Lord’s already done it. All He wants us to do is believe what He said and rest in it and trust in Him and He will bring it to pass. But as we rest from our own works, that’s where God’s power comes in. For we who have believed do enter into that rest (Heb.4:3). When you believe God’s promises, there’s nothing left for you to do but to trust and to rest and to cease. If you really believe He’s done it, then trust Him. When we enter into that rest, that’s where God’s power comes in. Now, God professes that He is the power behind the tornados; they all obey Him. And the tornado came and picked us up and carried us away. Well, you know, our ministry changed after that and God did everything miraculously, as far as providing for us. He moved us, bought us a house, bought us a car, paid for everything. Everything we asked and we believed for, God did and He moved us over here. We knew that was what this vision was about.

But there was a second part to the vision. The second part of the vision was that I seem to have come down in front of this church building. I went into the foyer, I guess you would call it, of the church building and I saw an old man standing right in the middle of this foyer and he was like the ruler of this place. I knew he was the pastor but he was a very old man. The Lord showed me afterward the interpretation that this was the old man ruling in this church. And I believe he represented a ministry that I ran into right after this vision and many others that I came to know after that. So when I saw this old man, I knew that I was not supposed to have any relationship with this guy, so I went around him. I literally hugged the outside of the wall of this foyer and then I went into the sanctuary. I got as far away from that guy as I could. And it will do you a lot of good to get as far away from some of them that you’re listening to as you can get, too.

As the vision continued, I went into the sanctuary and I saw in the middle of it a big, double sink. I noticed something in the sink and I ran over there and I saw that the sink was filled with babies. They were all face down in the sink and I thought most of them were dead. I reached in, grabbed one baby and shoved the baby’s face up to the light. The baby spoke and said, “Thank God! I knew He was going to send someone.” And the Lord really spoke to me about this, that the old man is ruling in many of the churches. It’s not the spiritual man, it’s the old man. He has conquered the spiritual man in many cases and in many cases that spiritual man is dead because he doesn’t have any power to rule. This is Saul leading his people to spiritual death. Not physical death – spiritual death. You can be dead while you’re still going to church, but you have no relationship with God. You no longer hear His voice and your spiritual man, that once heard Him very well even as a baby, no longer hears Him.

Anyway, I picked this baby up and the baby said, “Thank God! I knew he was going to send someone.” And I understood that the Lord had sent me. This was a type and shadow of the Lord sending me to save babies from the old man who is trying to clean them up with the water of the Word of God. A person can use the Word of God in an attempt to clean people up. For instance, they can use legalism – they can manipulate the Word to their own advantage, to their own gain, to all kinds of things; they can live unworthily of the Word and then have a doctrine that justifies their unworthy life, like a lot of false doctrines do. All these things bring death to the baby. And the baby here represents that spiritual man, the one who is eternal, the one who has eternal life. Remember, the old man doesn’t have eternal life. That’s why he has to die down here. There are many people who have become twice dead and plucked up by the roots. Their spiritual man died because they followed a Cain, a Balaam, an Eli, a Saul, a Pharisee. They’ve become twice dead. In other words, Saul has led his people to lose their life at the hands of their own fleshly man. They walked after the flesh. They used the Word while doing it and walked after the flesh. And where does it lead? Romans 8 says it leads to death. You might still be standing on your feet, still going to church, still talking the talk, but you can’t walk the walk.

So what the Lord showed me was that when I put that baby’s face up to the light, then the baby got his eyes off the earth. Remember, the babies were all face down. If you’re face down in the water, that brings certain death, doesn’t it? The same water that gives life also brings death, you know. It’s what God told Moses: “I set before you this day a blessing and a curse” (Deu.11:26). The Word of God is both a blessing and a curse. It depends on your relationship to the Word. If you obey the Word, the Word is a blessing. If you submit to the Word, if you have faith in the Word, the Word is a blessing. If you disobey the Word, the Word is a curse. If you walk after the flesh, you must die. Yet so many preachers get people’s eyes on themselves. They get their eyes on the earth. They get their eyes on what they have to do or what they can do. All that’s being “face down” in the water and it doesn’t bring anything but death.

But, you know, you can be “in” the water and “of” the water. “Moses” means “drawn from the waters.” So you can be in the water, you can be of the water, but if you have your face on the Son, the water’s a blessing to you; it’s life. When we keep our face on the Son, He’s the One Who supplies our needs. He is the One Who works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure. He is the One Who’s crucified the old man. He is the One Who’s healed our bodies. He is the One Who’s delivered us from the curse. It’s all accomplished. It’s all over, folks. All we have to do is believe what the Bible says.

You don’t have to be moralized every Sunday, go down and grieve at an altar because you’ve been so bad all week since you haven’t had any faith because the preacher lied to you. You don’t have to do that until you die. Some people ultimately just give up, throw their hands up in the air and say, “What’s the use? It doesn’t work. I tried it.” No, you didn’t try it. You tried their methods and you tried their ways but they lied to you about the power of God and what God’s already done, already accomplished. You’ve had your eyes on the world the whole time. You know, you need your eyes on Jesus Christ, the Son of God. All of this becomes life when you get your eyes on the Son of God.

Well, the Sauls are leading God’s people to death. In Jesus’ day, that was also the overwhelming majority of the leadership of God’s people. Is it that way today? Yes, it is. Because history always repeats. (Ecc.1:9) That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Just as Jesus came as a Davidic ministry to lead God’s people, a remnant of God’s people, to righteousness, truth, purity and the true Kingdom of God, we have a Man-child ministry coming that is to follow the Saul ministry that is in the leadership right now. Right after Saul was conquered, David came on the scene and was anointed of the Lord to rule all Israel. And guess what it says? (1Ch.11:1) Then all Israel gathered themselves to David unto Hebron…. Can you imagine all Israel following after the Man-child ministry? How can that be? It’s because of who “all Israel” is. “All Israel” are those who are grafted into the olive tree through their faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 11:23.26).

“All Israel” is not all the people who rejected Jesus or didn’t believe what He had to say. Obviously there were a lot of people who didn’t believe what Jesus had to say. They were following Saul – to their death. But Jesus, as David, and the Man-child in our day, as David, in whom Jesus lives, of course – Jesus is always going to be the Head over all of God’s true people, the New Testament spiritual Israel. Jesus led all Israel because they all believed in Him. Read Romans Chapter 11. “All Israel” are only those Jews who came out of apostate religion and those Gentiles who were grafted in. “All Israel” are only the people who believe and are born of God, born of the Word that comes down out of heaven. There are many people born of the word that comes from the earth. They’re born of the word that’s a part of their religion. They’re born of the leaven which has no power to bring forth the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

So here we go again. We’re talking about a great revival coming among these people, folks. It’s a real revival, too, because these people who didn’t follow Saul to death are now behind David. As a matter of fact, when we read the next few chapters, we’ll find out that some of these people came to David while he was still in the wilderness. Before he even became king, they came to David and followed and fought with him. They fought the enemies of Israel and conquered the enemies of Israel because they were killing their old man, you see. And Saul couldn’t conquer the enemies of Israel because he didn’t kill his own old man.

You have an enemy in the camp, a spy in the camp here, folks, and he’s working for the enemy. You can’t win unless you conquer the old man, that Goliath in your own life. You know why David was so successful? He’d already killed Goliath. The old man was dead, so now the Lord was ruling. That’s a spiritual type and shadow for us. And that’s why he was able to lead God’s people where Saul couldn’t lead God’s people; he’d already put the old man to death. So leading God’s people to put the old man in the land, the Amalekites, to death was no problem for David because he’d already been there, done that. Saul hadn’t been there, done that. And so Saul led his people to death. He didn’t even believe that the old man could be conquered; he didn’t believe that the giant could be conquered and told David so.

That’s their doctrine today: Just be happy to be forgiven. Never think you’re going to overcome sin. If that’s their doctrine, folks, how are they going to conquer that old man? They’re leaving the old man alive. They’re leaving that mind of the flesh alive. It’s going to come back to conquer them. And it’s happening. Can you see the ministries that are falling right now? Oh, I know they’re still propped up. I know they’re still preaching. I know they still have people coming and they’re still gathering in the tithes. But, you know what? They’re dead. They have turned away from God. They’re fallen. We have a so-called “revival” in the Pensacola area that’s spread all over the United States and the world and everywhere it goes it turns people over to the lusts of their flesh.

Now, I know any of you who fell into that “revival” are not agreeing with me right now and it’s because you have demons in you, that’s why. But I’ve been watching it. Every time this so-called “revival” is prayed over people, those people are turned over to the lusts of their flesh and from then on they don’t care about the Word; they don’t think it’s necessary because they “hear the voice of the spirit.” No matter how contrary to the Word it is, they follow “the voice of that spirit.” And it’s not the spirit of God.

There was a preacher who recently wrote a whole book defending Israel and declaring that Jesus didn’t come to be the Messiah. How could he write that when the New Testament tells us so much and so often that He is the Messiah? Over and over and over, we read “Jesus the Christ.” “Christ” is the word “messiah.” (1Jn.2:22) Who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, [even] he that denieth the Father and the Son. And who is antichrist but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. That’s antichrist. How could so many people be following Sauls like that? Well, I’ll tell you what’s happening. People are following Saul to death. And you know who the old man is? The old man is ruling in the Temple of God. He is the beast ruling in the Temple of God and he’s leading people to their death.

I tell you, we cannot depart from this Word. It’s the only thing that brings the life of Christ in us. It is the Seed of Jesus Christ, this Word is; it declares that in Matthew 13. He’s the sower who sowed the seed that went into the heart that brought forth the fruit 30-, 60- and 100-fold. There’s nothing else that works, just the true Word of God. The Sauls out there are defending their flesh, altering the Word so that the old man can live, while they themselves are living after the lusts of their flesh and teaching their people to live after the lusts of the flesh (2 Peter 2). While they’re saying, “Keep that old man alive now; we don’t want him to die on us,” while they’re doing that they’re dying at the hands of the Philistines. Soon “David” is coming on the scene and we’re going to know it because these institutions and their leaders are going to become so corrupt that any child who’s read the New Testament one time knows there’s something wrong. Oh, let the Word of God be your guide, folks. There’s no safety anywhere but trusting in the Word of God.

Years ago, the Lord spoke to me. He said, “I’m moving the Sauls out of the way and I’m making room for the Davids, and you’re one of my Davids.” Right afterward there was ministry after ministry after ministry that fell for one thing after another. Most of them were the sons of Eli: they committed fornication with the women in the church (1 Samuel 2:22) and they plundered the people of God (verse 16). Well, most of those ministries fell just because of that – the same sins of the sons of Eli who were the ministry over the people of God. Ministry after big ministry, big names fell, one right after another. Why? Same thing: they’d been living after the lusts of the flesh and they got caught. No, they didn’t come forward and repent – they got caught. There’s a difference. Of course, they did their best to do damage control and “stay in business.” That’s what I call it. But the people who had understanding looked at this and they said, “What am I doing here?”

Well, folks, that’s what you’re supposed to do. These things are going to become so corrupt. Babylon, folks, is going to be the hold, the prison, of every foul demon, the Bible tells us in Revelation 18:2. That’s saying there are going to be more demons in the “church,” as we call it the church, than there are outside of the church. And I tell you what, if you want to get demon-possessed, go to church. You think I’m joking, but people are being delivered over to religious spirits, lying and deceiving spirits. They’re being taught how to live in the flesh and they’re being led of Saul to their destruction. They’ve been conquered by the old man and they don’t even know it. They’re quite happy living in the flesh. When they first came to the Lord, many of these people had a conscience. They would have never given in to this, but slowly they’ve been taken over, taken over, taken over.

You know, there is a real Church. It’s “the called-out ones.” And, in the Bible, Jesus called those people who went into the sheepfold (John 10); He called His sheep by name and He called them out. They were those first disciples who came out of the apostate religions of Judaism and followed Jesus. Now, folks, don’t wait for your religion to follow. Not one religion followed Jesus back then and they’re not going to do it today. Don’t wait for them to follow; they’re not going to do it. None of these organizations are going to do it. People do it. Organizations don’t do it. No organization followed Jesus. Not one. And they’re not going to follow Him this time, either. When you see this Man-child coming, if you haven’t recognized from the Scripture that God is repeating history, you’re going to be in trouble because you’re going to continue to follow Saul to his death and destruction. And believe me, it’s not just spiritual, it’s going to be physical, too. There’s a “great and terrible day of the Lord” (Joe.2:31) that the Saul ministries and the people who follow them are going into. They are not going to escape it. No, it’s not the Tribulation period; it follows the Tribulation period, as the Scripture teaches. And it’s there for the enemies of God’s people.

The major enemies of God’s people are religious folks. Who killed all the prophets? Who killed Jesus? Who killed the disciples? It was those who called themselves the people of God. They became so reprobate that they couldn’t recognize goodness, righteousness and truth. Is it happening in our day? Absolutely. They’re following Saul to their death. (2Co.6:17) Wherefore Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord…. You know, when Jesus called forth those disciples to come out of that sheepfold, that was the Church. The sheepfold wasn’t the Church. “Church” means “called-out ones.” The ones who came out followed Jesus and that was the Church.

Now God is going to repeat history. He has another “body of David.” Why do I call it a body of David? Because Jesus is the One Who lives in His Davids and is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col.1:27). He is coming, according to Ezekiel 34, to shepherd His Own sheep. He has had enough of those other shepherds shepherding His sheep. He’s going to shepherd His sheep and He is going to move, live and speak through a pure vessel, a vessel in whom Goliath is dead. He is going to once again lead forth His sheep out of the apostate institutions of Christianity. Why? Because, if you read the New Testament, you can see very clearly. If you’ll just start reading the New Testament for yourself and decide that you’re going to believe everything you see there, the first thing you’re going to realize is, “I’m in the wrong place; what am I doing here? I should be following “the Lamb whithersoever he goeth,” like Revelation 14:4 speaks about.” Yes, and Revelation 14:4. They came out from among them, they followed the Lamb whithersoever He went or is going.

God bless you, saints. We’re going to continue this to let you see more clearly what day we’re in because God is saying that this is what’s happening today: The Philistines are conquering God’s people.

CHAPTER THREE

The “Bulls of Bashan”

Our Father, we praise You. We thank You, Lord, that Your goodness is all we need. We praise You for pouring out Your Spirit upon us today. We praise You for gifting us with ears to hear and eyes to see. And, Lord, please take over today. We just ask You to share, let Your anointing flow and prepare us, God. Give us wisdom and understanding concerning these things that are happening and those to come. And we thank You. Thank You for Your help today, Lord, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Well, over the past years the Lord has shown me a lot about the Saul ministry, which we’re studying, and I’d like to share with you a few of those experiences the Lord has given me. If you remember from our previous study, I’d asked the Lord, “Where are we, Lord?” and the Lord gave me 1 Chronicles 10:1-6. What we learned there was that before the David ministry, there was the Saul ministry. It was that Saul ministry who lost their battle with the inhabitants of the land, with the fleshly man, the old man who lived in the land, and we discovered that this old man represented their carnal nature, their carnal flesh. So they lost their battle primarily because Saul prepared to lose this battle. He refused to obey the Lord and put to death the previous inhabitants of the land and he refused to put to death their king, Agag, for which God basically cursed him. God gave Saul no authority; instead, the inhabitants of the land came back and conquered him and conquered all the people who followed him. Saul led them to disaster. He led them to losing the battle against what’s typed there as their old flesh. Today we also have a ministry that’s basically thinking that the old flesh cannot be overcome and that it’s not really necessary to overcome because we’re forgiven. But they miss the plan of God. David’s gift to be able to conquer the people of God’s enemies was because David had put to death his old man, Goliath, and taken off his head. He’d taken off the mind of the flesh. He did exactly the opposite of what Saul did and was given the victory.

I mentioned to you that the Lord told me many years ago that He was moving the Sauls out of the way and making room for the Davids. By that, I didn’t mean they were going to be physically killed, obviously, because that’s not what we’ve been looking at and that’s not what we’ve been seeing. I meant that they were spiritually dying. There is no defense against the enemy when you’re spiritually dead, “twice dead, plucked up by the roots” (Jud.12). And he called them “shepherds” in Jude. He said that they were “twice dead, plucked up by the roots” because you can be twice born, but die again. You can be born again and die again. So what does the Lord mean by “moving the Sauls out of the way”? Well, we discovered He meant for the elect, for the people of God who were to go on and to be the elect, that this false leadership over them was going to be brought to decimation and disrespect among them, be made dead to them. And after the Lord spoke that revelation to me, as a matter of fact, the same day it came on the news that one of the most, if not the most, famous minister in America had been caught red-handed in fornication. That was just the beginning of a long chain of ministers who fell by the wayside after being caught doing this and doing that. And it’s still happening today, isn’t it? It’s still happening.

I want to share a revelation I received concerning this same minister who fell that first day. God gave me a very vivid dream. I was standing on a mountain, looking down the side of this mountain, and I saw a construction crew very plainly putting up those real high-tension poles, those metal poles that they use for the high-tension wires, in order to bring a power line over the top of this mountain, and I believe the mountain represented the Kingdom of God. So they were coming up the side of this mountain and, while they were doing that, I looked down beside me and there was an old cow lying on the ground. Now, keep in mind when I first saw this I didn’t understand the meaning of it. It was only after it was over that the Lord brought to my attention the meaning of all this. But I looked down on the ground beside me and there was this old cow lying there, very shriveled up, very much on the edge of death. And so while I’m standing there looking at this, a construction worker comes up on a backhoe with a front-end loader. He scoops this old cow up and starts moving this cow out of the way, but not before I reached down beside the cow and picked up a big baby boy. I mean a big handful, a big baby boy. I knew that this baby boy had been birthed from that cow. And so, the front-end loader picks up the cow and starts carrying the cow off, while I have this big baby boy; and I walk over and get on an escalator going up. Let me add one more thing here. While I was on the escalator, I looked beside me and here’s a woman with a normal-sized baby boy. She looks at this big baby in my arms and she says, “That looks like a real baby boy.” And I said, “Yeah, and I wonder how that’s possible,” as I’m looking over at this front-end loader carrying the cow off. My thought was, “How is this possible, that this could come out of that?”

And so to share the interpretation with you, the Lord impressed me that the power line that’s coming, the great power that’s coming, is not going to come through the organizational churches as they are today. They are dying like the Saul ministry. The Saul ministry has brought great destruction to the churches through lack of truth, lack of putting the Amalekites to death, the old man to death, through lack of leading God’s people to put the old man to death. There’s great destruction. Death has come. We can see that here in 1 Chronicles 10:1-6. Basically, Saul and all of the house that was under him, along with all the people whom he led in the war against the man of flesh, the old flesh, they all died. And so this old cow was on the verge of death and I believe the Lord showed me it represented the apostate religious Christian institutions of men dying, passing off the scene. God is refusing to share His power with or minister His power through these people, to them or through them; so He’s moving them out of the way.

This is a repetition of what happened in Jesus’ day. You know, in Jesus’ day there was a powerless bunch of people there who were considering themselves the people of God, yet they were dying. And He said to them, “except ye believe that I am [he,] (or, literally, “I am”) ye shall die in your sins” (Joh.8:24). They were doing it. They were dying in their sins and their Saul ministry was dying along with them. But Jesus got a little remnant out of those people, didn’t He? The disciples who came out of the apostate denominations of Judaism, they followed him. He went into the sheepfold, He called them by name and He called them out, and they followed Him. Basically, that’s what this vision was all about. This vision that the Lord gave me is a modern-day re-enactment of that. The old cow represents that system of worshiping the golden calf, but now we’re seeing the end result of it: death. And the old cow was drying up, shriveled up and dying, but out of that cow God plans on bringing forth fruit. That big baby boy represented the fruit that God is going to get out of this system. A multitude of people, folks, are going to come out of the system very soon because God also has a Man-child ministry ready to lead them, you see. They’re going to come out, they’re going to follow Christ in this Man-child ministry, just like those early disciples did.

Do you know that Jesus came in a body of David – a son of David? He was Son of man and Son of God. Jesus came in that body and the Bible tells us the same thing about Him coming in these days. He’s going to “come to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed (because our testimony unto you was believed) in that day” (2Th.1:10). Paul, looking down the road to our day, was seeing that Jesus was going to come in His people and “be glorified in His saints.” Praise God! That’s exactly what the Bible teaches. (2Co.3:18) But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord (in other words, Christ in us), are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit. So the first-fruits of these people to come into this are those who are believing that they can come into this because they believe it’s a promised Word of God. That’s the reason they’re going to be the first-fruits to come into this. They’re ready to take a fruit that’s born from this old, corrupt, dead system and bring it up the escalator. The escalator represents a rest. An escalator is not stairs or steps. Steps are something that you have to work to go up, but an escalator is something that works for you. And this is what God is going to do. This is supernatural. This is going to be His power, meaning we’re going to get to rest in His power to bring it to pass.

God also pointed out to me that the cow represents this system because a cow eats grass. And you know the Apostle Peter said that “all flesh is as grass” (1Pe.1:24). The “cow system” of Saul only devours grass; in other words, has only a fleshly understanding of the Word. They don’t see in the spirit. They don’t have eyes to see in the spirit, just like the Pharisees and the people under them had no eyes to see in the spirit. Jesus spoke of that in Matthew 13:13,14. They had no eyes and no ears, and so this cow only partakes of a fleshly understanding of the Word and is only able to feed someone milk. I mean, the only thing you can get that’s truthful out of this apostate system is milk and most of the time they don’t have that right. So where we are headed is to meat, folks. Jesus said, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me” (Joh.4:34), to do the Will of My Father. And God’s people are going to do just that. We’re coming into a day when the people who “come … out from among them” (2Co.6:17), like those early disciples did, are going to do the Will of God. They’re going to walk in the steps of Jesus Christ (1 John 2:6). History always repeats. (Ecc.1:9) That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

I believe going up on the escalator represents getting closer and closer to God, becoming more and more Godly, overcoming the world beneath. The power to do that is not coming to the old cow; the power is coming to the fruit that’s born out of the old cow, you see. And as we were going up this escalator, the scene changed and I saw a vision of myself going into a meeting. In this meeting, I looked around and I saw just about all the famous preachers in America, including one of the most famous, who was the man I mentioned previously. He was the one who fell the very day the Lord told me that, “I’m moving the Sauls out of the way and making room for the Davids.” I believe that this man is going to be one of the few who may repent, which is the reason I don’t mention his name. You know, in Jesus’ day, very few people repented. However, I received a dream about this man repenting and knowing about our ministry, talking about it favorably and so on, and I thought, “Oh, praise God!” You know, I would love to see that. I’d love to see them all repent. It’s not going to happen, but I would love to see them all repent. The overwhelming majority of the Saul ministry is never going to repent. They’re not. We have a Saul who became a Paul. He repented. He was Saul who became Paul, so we know that there is a small minority of people who will. There’s a type and shadow there.

But, anyway, I went into this conference of these famous ministers. Of course, I’m not a famous minister, but I went into this conference and this man walked over to me. He walked out, he left the crowd and he walked over toward me and he had some papers in his hand. They were all rolled-up and he handed them to me, like he was passing something on to me, and when they hit my hand I heard the voice of the Lord. The Lord said, “This is his propaganda about what he has accomplished.” And I understood that this man fell because he thought he was really irreplaceable, because of what he’d been doing for the Kingdom, the great success that he thought he was having for the Kingdom. But, you know, any success that we have, folks, it doesn’t come from us. We can’t take any credit for it. It’s by grace. It’s by God. If we think we’re irreplaceable, we’re all wrong because, you know, God can raise up stones to take our place. He said so. He doesn’t need us, we need Him, and that’s the whole point: we need Him. It’s by His grace that we stand. Anything that’s accomplished, He’s the One Who accomplishes it, not us. He uses this body. We, by grace, are used by God to do things and He can do it with anyone else. He doesn’t need us. He can move over and use the next guy just as easily. God wants us, God loves us and we are valuable to Him, but He doesn’t need us. If you say He needs us because He wants us, well, that’s true, I agree, but don’t think you’re irreplaceable because you’re not. Neither am I. So I knew the reason that this man fell because of the word that the Lord sent me. The Lord gave to me that this man thought, “Well, I’m entitled to more. I’m entitled to have a fling. I’ve done so much for the Kingdom and so many people have been saved,” and so on and so forth.

The Lord revealed to me that these men were the “bulls of Bashan.” And you ask, “Well, what are the ‘bulls of Bashan’?” Let’s look at this prophecy: (Psa.22:12) “Many bulls have compassed me; Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. (13) They gape upon me with their mouth, [As] a ravening and as a roaring lion.” That’s the prophecy that the Lord gave to me. And some of you may recognize this prophecy as speaking about Jesus. Why were these leaders called the “bulls of Bashan”? It was because the bulls are the ones that sowed their seed in the cow. We know the seed in the Bible is the Word, right? And the reason Saul led his people to destruction at the hand of the Philistines is because of the teaching that he gave them. His leadership was faulty because he himself was not led of the Lord. And we’ll look at that, too, but first I want to point out that the “bulls of Bashan” is a prophecy. Actually, David was not only a Psalmist but he was a prophet and in many of his prophecies he was speaking about himself. In this chapter, he was speaking about himself, but he was also speaking about Jesus and about the Man-child of our day because history just keeps repeating with larger and larger groups of people. For instance, if we go back to the beginning of the chapter, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (1), we may recognize it because Jesus quoted it in Matthew 27:46. As a matter of fact, a lot of Psalm 22 is in Matthew 27.

So we recognize that as Jesus, Who was on His Cross and being crucified. We know that our Lord was crucified after 3½ years of ministry and that He was a literal Man-child. The Man-child that’s coming now is a spiritual Man-child, meaning the death that the spiritual Man-child is going to die is spiritual. It’s a death to self. It’s a crucifixion at the hands, by the way, of a lot of wicked, false leadership. What leadership? Well, in Jesus’ day it was the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, other leadership and the Sanhedrin false prophet; this leadership was crucifying Jesus and using the Roman government to do it. Is it going to happen in our day? Yes, it’s going to happen, but in a spiritual way. First comes the natural fulfillment, then the spiritual, as we’re told in 1 Corinthians 15:46. Prophecies are usually first fulfilled naturally and then later, spiritually, they’re fulfilled again. Well, here we see Jesus going to His Cross and so shall the Man-child. (8) Commit [thyself] unto the Lord; let him deliver him: Let him rescue him, seeing he delighteth in him. The religious leaders were saying the same thing at the foot of the Cross. (Mat.27:43) He trusteth on God; let him deliver him now, if he desireth him…. Let the Lord save Him, if He wants to save Him. But the strong bulls of Bashan were these religious leaders who had ruled over that cow system and led their people to death and destruction. It’s happening now that God is going to get a group of people out of there; a remnant is going to go on and go into the presence of God. But we see there’s also going to be a persecution against the Man-child at the hands of these Saul leaders.

Verse 16 is very similar to verse 12, about the bulls of Bashan. (Psa.22:16) For dogs (God calls these apostate leaders greedy “dogs.”) have compassed me: A company of evil-doers have in-closed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. This is obviously the crucifixion of the Man-child being spoken of here, at the hands of the Saul ministry, the Pharisee ministry, the Eli ministry. (18) They part my garments among them, And upon my vesture do they cast lots. That’s Matthew 27:35 again. We can see the fulfillment all the way down through Psalm 22:22: (22) “I will declare thy name unto my brethren: In the midst of the assembly will I praise thee.” You know, Jesus did this.

So we see that this bulls of Bashan prophecy is something that was fulfilled in Jesus’ day, but also in the Man-child’s day in our time it’s going to be fulfilled with a great persecution raised up at the hands of the apostate Saul ministry. As you know, Saul persecuted David. He attempted to kill David and crucified him in many ways. Saul spoke against him, he led Israel against him, but, of course, God preserved him. God anointed David to fight the battles of Israel while he was in the wilderness and even before he was anointed king. And so the story back in 1 Chronicles 10 is very much going to be fulfilled in our time with the old cow, you know, and it’s got to be moved out of the way for the real power to come. The real power, in this case, was David followed Saul after Saul’s death here in chapter 10. David was anointed king over all Israel. And we’ll come to that part a little later, but here I want to continue in the beginning part of chapter 10. I just wanted to tell you that this Saul leadership is going to destruction for all but those who repent and come out of it. Those who are under it, under submission to it, are being called to come out of it now. Jesus’ ministry, folks, was to call a remnant out of apostate Israel to come and follow Him and go to the Kingdom of God. And, once again, the Man-child’s ministry today is the same because Jesus is being manifested in the Man-child ministry. Jesus said this would happen, too. (Joh.16:21) A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but when she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born into the world. (22) And ye therefore now have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one taketh away from you. He said a baby would once again be born to a woman; and, He said, “I’ll see you again, you see.” He is. He’s coming to feed His sheep, shepherd His sheep. Praise be to God! We’re looking forward to all that, aren’t we? Praise be to God!

So this old cow dying is talking about this apostate system of what we call Christianity around us. It’s all going to a crucifixion, folks. It’s all dying. It’s dying basically at the hands of their own flesh, dying because they haven’t been taught that this old man has to die, as we’ve already read.

I was thinking about those bulls of Bashan and how “bull” could be short for “baloney” because, I’ll tell you, they have a lot of baloney with them. I remember a fellow back when I used to be an apprentice for Exxon many, many years ago. I was a young guy; it was before I knew the Lord. There was a fellow who worked alongside me for about three years and he would faithfully bring his bologna sandwiches to work. I mean, they were just bologna between two pieces of white bread. He’d bring two of them to work every day. Every day. And I asked him, “Don’t you eat vegetables?” “No,” he said, “I don’t like ‘em.” So I asked again, “Is the only thing you like bologna?” “Yeah, I like bologna.” Then I asked, “How can you live on bologna? Don’t you know what that stuff is, man? That’s not the best stuff in the world. It’s what’s left over when the butcher uses all the stuff for other things.” Well, I don’t know if that’s really true or not, but it kind of was in my mind anyway. I asked, “How can you live on bologna every day?” “I like bologna,” he answered again. I told him, “You must.” I mean, bologna, that’s all he had was bologna with ketchup on it. That’s what he ate all the time.

You know, you really can’t live on that. Think about it, folks. A lot of people out there are living on baloney. Those bulls of Bashan, you know the seed that they’re putting in that old cow is bringing it to death and destruction? But we know the sower went forth to sow and the Man-child Jesus went forth to sow the seed, and that seed that He sowed in our hearts will bring forth Himself, 30-, 60- and 100-fold (Matthew 13; Mark 4; Luke 8). This is what we’re looking forward to, right? And so we have to not depart from the Word of God, the true Word of God.

Also, I had another experience when I first came to Pensacola. I was invited to quite a few churches and some strange things started happening. In this one particular instance, I walked in at the back of the church and was looking down front as I was walking in, and all the way down front there was the pastor standing. He was facing me and there was a woman who was standing and facing him down in front. Suddenly this woman wheeled around and pointed her finger right at me. She never saw me enter because I walked in the door and she was looking the other way at this pastor. So suddenly she wheeled around and pointed her finger right at me. I was the one coming in the door and everybody was seated in the pews and so on and so forth. And she started prophesying. And I’ll tell you, she prophesied for, I don’t know, it was a while. It seemed like a long time because I was kind of nervous in front of people in situations like that, so I just kind of froze and looked at her.

She had her finger pointed right at my nose and she started prophesying at me. Well, I didn’t know what the Lord had planned, but He planned to open a door for me and He used this woman, who’d never been in this church before in her life, she told me, and she never went back there either. I came to know her after this, got a little acquainted with her. But she prophesied at me and she said, “I’ve never seen the Word of God in anybody like I see it in that man right there.” Then she went on to prophesy what I was going to do and so on and so forth. Well, it kind of opened the door because everybody was paying attention to me then and even the pastor was. They were probably thinking, “Who’s this guy?” Well, I’m a nobody and I like it that way.

But anyway, the pastor started asking me questions, you know, and he didn’t have a real deep love of the Word or knowledge of the Word. He was basically leading these poor people astray, just like a Saul leadership. He was definitely that. I mean, eventually we came to find out that he was in fornication with some of the people who were in his mission and that he was cavorting with his secretary. He was also cheating people by convincing them he needed their money in order to support this mission full of people and telling them lies. He even lost the water one time while I was there; they came and turned the water off, but he went out there and turned it back on. He did the same thing with the electricity. So he was just a dishonest person. But the poor people were thinking this was normal Christianity, especially people in the mission who were first coming to know the Lord and then got this guy for an example. And I thought, “God help them.”

Well, anyway because of this prophecy, God was opening a door for me to preach and teach, and I did. I started preaching and teaching and God was delivering the people and they were becoming happy. I baptized almost the whole church because the pastor wasn’t ever teaching baptism. So I taught them about baptism and began baptizing them. And it never was an important thing to that pastor. He had come out of a rock band, a very famous rock band, and he was used to being charismatic. He was gifted in song, he was gifted with a guitar, and so it was easy for people to follow him.

But when they started hearing the Word, some of them became kind of excited, you know, and he could see that he was losing his grip on them. And I felt like some of that jealousy that was between Saul or in Saul for David was showing up. As a matter of fact, the Lord spoke to this man, who was a prophet of sorts. He came and told me, “The Lord spoke to me. He said that I’m Saul and you’re David. He said this to me three times.” So the pastor finally asked me, “What does this mean?” And I gave him something, but I didn’t feel like the Lord wanted me to give him everything, so I didn’t tell him everything that I knew and the Lord was teaching me through this experience, too. And I asked the Lord one time, “Lord, what do you want me to do with this guy?” He was a mess and he was leading these poor people. You know, they were thinking it’s normal to do some of those things and he was teaching them wrong. And I asked the Lord, “Lord, what do you want me to do about him?” He said, “Nothing. Let the Philistines take him out.” That’s what he told me, just as clear as a bell. And I said, “Oh, okay. You know he’s a Saul.” I guess that’s what happened to Saul; letting the Philistines take him out represents, of course, his old man taking him out.

And it was really strange one time because two of the ladies in that church had the same dream, the exact same dream about this man and how he was basically going to get taken out. Well, they saw him going down the interstate and running off the road and into the water, and he was drowning in his vehicle in the water. And they saw me there and I went out in the water, trying to get the door open to get the guy out of the vehicle to save him but I couldn’t get him out. That was exactly what happened. I mean, I was trying to save the guy. I was trying to share with him the Word. I was trying to show him the ways of Christianity. I was trying to show him the ways of faith. And he would catch on to some things, but it wasn’t important enough to him. He wouldn’t cease doing his little conniving things in the background. And so I kept praying for him, working, trying to help him to see through it and help him to be delivered, but many things happened there. In the mission, for instance, we cast out a lot of demons. I never saw so many demons to be cast out in a group of people in all my life. I learned that missions are a place for a lot of people who come in off the road, who have problems, who need help. And so we ended up casting out a lot of demons. Some very supernatural things happened there. But the Lord told me that this man was a Saul. And, you know, I started more and more taking over the ministry teaching, teaching more and more and he taught less and less. I asked him one time, “Aren’t you going to teach anymore?” He said, “No, I just feel kind of dried up.” I knew that the Lord was doing this so that I could help these people.

It was the same situation with Saul and David. Saul wasn’t ready to go out there and take on the giants, but he was glad that David was taking care of it. But then when the women started singing their songs and saying, “Saul hath slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands” (1Sa.18:7), Saul became jealous. The Bible says he “eyed David from that day and forward” (9). He was worried about this guy taking over the kingdom, which was God’s plan. And, basically, it happened because Saul was not leading the people to crucify the Amalekites and Saul refused to put to death Agag, who was the head of the corporate body of the beast, the old man, and so, because of that, God moved on and chose David and anointed him.

I had some other instances of the same thing. Basically, what happened during that particular time was some of those people moved on, some of them came and fellowshipped with us. We taught them, we shared with them and so on and so forth. This man moved to another town. He prophesied that I was supposed to come over there and teach leaders in his particular building, but I just began to pray that God would open people’s eyes. I did it in the first church here in this particular town. I prayed, “Lord, open the people’s eyes. Help them to see that this man is not who they think he is.”

God answered that prayer. People had visions and dreams of this man. One man, out of whom I cast 12 demons, literally had supernatural strength. He came in as an alcoholic when I was preaching and he was immediately totally sobered up. He got saved, but then he started continuing with some of his old habits. He started watching pornography. Then these demons entered into him and he almost killed this pastor and his secretary. He did take his deacon out. He ran the deacon through one of those big plate glass doors and sent him to the hospital. The demons just manifested in this guy.

Well, the pastor was in the mission when this happened, along with a lot of other people. He was basically leading them astray and I was casting demons out, praying for the people, helping the people along. So I asked the Lord to show people who this man, this pastor, really was, and two women had the same dream in that case. Another woman had a dream that she saw this man outside the window and he was trying to gain pity from her because he was outside in the cold and so on and so forth. So she went to the church window and opened it, and when he came in he was a dragon. And the Lord impressed her to go down to the library and look up the man’s name, which she did, and found out that his last name meant “dragon,” amazingly. And then that guy who had all the demons, he also got a vision. He saw a man standing behind the pulpit, speaking into the microphone, and the man was a serpent and all the people were going to sleep. So God started showing people all these dreams and visions and they started departing from him. But that pastor just went over to another city and did the same thing, and I prayed that God would open the people’s eyes there, too. Then the same thing happened. The church there fell all apart. I tell you, folks, God’s people are in bondage. We need to pray for God’s people that God will open their eyes and help them to see that some of them are sitting underneath Saul ministries. They need to come out from among them and be separate (2 Corinthians 6:17).

After this, the same thing happened to me a couple more times. For instance, I was invited to another church, a non-spirit-filled denomination. I was invited there to share. I’d met the pastor in a home school meeting, he and his wife, and they invited us to come and share. I told him, “Hey, you don’t even know what I believe.” He said, “Well, I know you told me you preach discipleship.” I said, “Yes, that’s true.” So he invited me over there and I was very graceful with them. You know, you have to be careful and help people to try to receive some things from the Lord. So, anyway, while I was there fellowshipping, there were an awful lot of sick people there because they really didn’t believe in divine healing or deliverance. They didn’t believe in any of those things. That all passed away. So, basically, I was sharing with people and I prayed for some after some of them gained knowledge. I went to their Sunday schools and shared in their Sunday schools and things, too. They asked questions and I shared my experiences and shared words with them and so on and so forth. It worked out to where we were able to pray for a few people in that church who were healed and cast out some demons in that church.

The elders, of course, did not believe in these kinds of things and didn’t believe in being filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So I prayed over some people who were healed and cast demons out. My wife, for instance, went to one of their ladies’ meetings. She saw a vision of one of the women there and in the vision the woman had a very angry face. My wife knew it wasn’t physical, she knew it was spiritual. She said she knew that woman had a demon of anger. And so they started going around the room testifying and when this woman’s turn came, she stood up and said, “I just don’t understand why I’m so angry,” as a confirmation to my wife. So my wife told the woman, “Well, I’m going to get my husband to call you. I think he can help you.” The woman said, “Okay.” When my wife came home, she told me about it. She said the woman had a crippled foot and that she was full of this anger. So I called her up and I was being very careful because, of course, they don’t get training in that regard. I just shared with her that, “My wife saw a demon in you. This anger that you’re having a problem with is a demon spirit.”

Thankfully, this lady was very young in this religion. She hadn’t been heavily indoctrinated and so was open to the truth. Anyway, she came to our home and we commanded the demon to come out. The demon came out and she felt the deliverance. Then we told her that the Lord also wanted to heal her foot. We prayed for her foot and God healed her foot. We prayed for her to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She did. She started speaking in tongues, in Hebrew, and I recognized it as Hebrew and wrote it down and made sure I was getting the interpretation right. I went to the Concordance and so on and brought it back. She was actually prophesying concerning her family and it was a very good prophecy. She was just delighted, you know, that she had all this, that all this blessing came upon her. And so I said, “You know, it would probably not be a good thing for you to go back and tell the elders this.” In this particular church, the elders had equal authority and the pastor was an elder. And I warned her that it probably wouldn’t work out well, but she was just overflowing. It kind of reminded me of when Jesus said, “Now don’t go and say anything to this guy,” and, of course, he went and just blabbed it everywhere (Luke 5:12-15). Jesus couldn’t even go into the town because everybody knew Him. Well, she did that. She was actually working part-time for the bookstore of this particular church. And so, when some of the ladies who were there were talking to her, she told this great, wondrous thing that God had done for her. Those ladies went right to the pastor and told the pastor and the elders and so on. So this was on top of other healings and deliverances we had done, and so the elders decided they were going to call me on the carpet. There were five elders there and they had made an appointment for me to come and they were going to grill me on what I was teaching.

Some of the things they asked me about were joining a church. And I had told some of these people, “No, you don’t join a church. You’re baptized into the body of Christ. It’s not such a physical thing as that. Nobody can hire you, nobody can fire you. You’re born into the body of Christ and there is no joining a church.” And a few other things like the baptism of the Holy Spirit and healing and deliverance. They had objections to all these things and so they started asking me, “Why are you teaching this?” and, “Why are you teaching that?” It was the Sauls, the bulls of Bashan, around me, and I just backed everything up with Scripture. I said, “Well, I teach it because it’s in the Bible.” I told them, “This is what it says about being filled with the Holy Spirit. This is what the Bible says about casting out demons. This is what the Bible says about joining a church. This is what the Bible says about baptism.” They kept asking one question right after another and I just kept giving them Biblical truths. They were keeping the minutes of the meeting and I found out it made them look so bad that they were trying to change them afterwards, but one of the elders spoke up and said, “No, you can’t do that. That’s dishonest, that’s lying. This is what happened.” They were trying to change it and he wouldn’t let them change it.

Even though I gave them all completely Scriptural answers, they didn’t agree. They didn’t use any Scripture, but they didn’t agree. And at the end of the meeting they said, “Well, here’s what we want you to do. We either want you to quit teaching these things” (which I was not teaching there; these was people from their assembly coming to our meetings and I was teaching them there). “We either want you to quit teaching our people this or we want you to separate.” I said, “Well, I’ll tell you what, give me another week and I will go to the Lord to find out how to answer you.” I didn’t say “what” to answer them, I said “how” to answer them.

A week later, they called me back on the carpet and asked, “What’s your answer?” I said, “Well, I did seek the Lord and I found out how to answer you. I want to share with you why I teach this, this, this and this.” I just started giving verses, verses, more verses, just overwhelming them with verses and responsibility. Because when you give verses to people who say they’re Christian leaders but they don’t act according to the Word of God and they don’t believe the Word of God, when they can’t even back it up with the Word of God, you’re making them responsible. At the end of the meeting they just were angry. One of them jumped up, one of the elders there, by the way, whom I had prayed for and he had been healed. He had taken me to other people in this assembly. I commented to him about their long list of sick people and asked why they didn’t pray for them in faith. He said, “Well, why don’t you take me and let’s go do this?” So I went with him. We prayed over three people in the assembly and three of them were healed, and so he saw this. He asked me to pray over him to receive the Holy Spirit.

Another man, his wife had run off with a so-called charismatic leader who believed in speaking in tongues, and so he was angry about that. And I pacified him a little bit. I just told him, “No, it was wrong; it was an evil thing that this man did. That doesn’t say that he was walking in the Lord at all and I don’t blame you for being hurt about it.”

But, despite all that, these elders were all ganging up on me while I was just giving them Scriptural answers. They finally ended up saying, “Look, we just want you to stop teaching these things.” And I replied, “I can’t do that. I can tell you right now I’m not going to back away from the Word of God, not one iota.” They said, “Then we want you to separate from us.” I answered, “Okay, well, it was your decision, not mine.” So I went outside the church, I shook the dust off my feet, just exactly the way Acts 13:51 says, and in a very short time their denomination decided that this pastor was not fit to be a pastor. They made him, I believe, a basketball coach instead of a pastor. Well, then the church was floundering because they were using their elders, who didn’t know the Word of God in the first place, to teach them. Pretty soon people just started leaving; it fizzled and the doors closed. So that was the second time I was in a church, sharing truth, and God decided just to close the doors. I mean, He made them responsible. These were Saul ministries.

I’m telling you, folks, a lot of these Saul ministries are going to close down because people are going to come out of them. They’re going to see through them, they’re going to see that they’re dead. I’m talking about anybody with eyes to see and ears to hear is going to see that they’re dead and the people who stay are going to be dead. Remember, Babylon is going to be full of all these doleful creatures (Isaiah 13:21); in other words, unclean beasts. Revelation 18:2 speaks of the same thing. Ultimately, it’s going to be full of demons. And you need to accept the truth and come out from among them and follow Jesus because this whole thing is going to die, decay and fall all to pieces. That’s what’s going to happen. It’s going to get worse and worse and worse. Two of those men later repented but it was too late. Their church was gone. God just scattered it, tore it all to pieces. Those two men later contacted me and repented for what they’d done. They realized that there was dishonesty there, that they were trying to change the minutes of the meeting in order to make it look like they were justified in running me off. They were giving lies to the people about me, but God didn’t let them get away with it. He tore that whole thing down. The same thing happened to another church of the same denomination after that. After I was there, the whole thing shut down.

When Jesus came, He shared the truths that were the Word of God. It made the people responsible. He told those Pharisees and Sadducees, “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin” (Joh.15:22). And so what God did with those people is He reprobated them. He reprobated them and He took away even that which they did have, as Matthew 13:12 says.

When I was going to this elders meeting, God gave me this verse and I actually asked the Lord, “Lord, what are You going to do in this thing? All these people are coming against me. What are you going to do? Show me, Lord.” Then I opened the Bible and my finger came down right on this verse: (Eze.2:6) “And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briars and thorns are with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions: be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house. And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forebear; for they are most rebellious. (7) But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that which I give thee.” And He goes on to speak about eating the roll of the book. Then I said, “Okay, Lord. Would you give me one more confirmation of this?” When I flipped my Bible open and stuck my finger down again, I saw this: (Jer.1:17) “Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at them, lest I dismay thee before them. (18) For, behold, I have made thee this day a fortified city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. (19) And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.”

Well, I’ll tell you, I was pumped up and ready for that meeting and the Word of God was just going forth and it was making them responsible. Basically, God didn’t let them get away with what they did. He tore their little church fellowship all to pieces. God had demonstrated healing, He had demonstrated deliverance, He had demonstrated the baptism of the Holy Spirit but they denied the Word over and over and over. They had never heard it so plainly, I’m sure. God just tore that Saul ministry down, though some of those people went on to a David ministry in a type and shadow. This was part of the training God was giving me. He did this with me four times. Church after church closed down, closed down, closed down. And, you know what, I think it was a sign of things to come. I think in itself it wasn’t all that significant. These churches were not churches; they were fakes. They didn’t teach the Word of God. They had “a form of godliness, but … denied the power thereof” (2Ti.3:5). The Bible says “from these also turn away” (5). And, thank God, some people had an opportunity to do that, either because the doors closed or because they saw it was no good and they left first, one or the other. But God did His will there and He helped some people.

Folks, we’re looking at the same thing happening all around us in Christianity. They’re becoming more and more corrupt. They’re falling to pieces and falling into all kinds of sin, corruption and false silly doctrines, but the people are beginning to realize that something is wrong. I’m talking about anybody who has eyes to see. The out-of-church movement is as great as it’s ever been right now.

People are coming out from among them. They’re studying the Word of God themselves and I praise God for it. I hope you are seeing that and I hope you’re praying and asking God to show you in the Word. You don’t need to do anything but sit down and read God’s Word to see what the truth is and to see what a true, Scriptural assembly is supposed to look like. Follow God, friends. Don’t follow these dead denominations or non-denominational denominations.

CHAPTER FOUR

Speaking as an Oracle of God

Before we continue with this study of the Word, let’s pray. Father, in the Name of Jesus, we praise You for Your goodness to us, Lord. We praise You for continuing to draw us unto the likeness of Jesus Christ. Father, we praise You for Your mercy working in our heart, and for Your desires being in us, we praise You.

We give thanks unto You, O Lord, for opening our eyes and helping us to understand what’s going on around us, Lord, so we can cooperate with You in this process of sanctification and deliverance from this old world and crucifixion of the old man. Thank You, Father, thank You. And Lord, we know that history’s going to repeat and we can see the signs all around us. It helps us to know where we are. It gives us comfort. It gives us the ability to cooperate with You in what You’re doing. And, Lord, we praise You. We praise You in Jesus’ Name that You’re opening our eyes and our ears to walk more with You every day. Praise be to God! Thank You, Lord.

Well, as we’ve been studying the apostate ministries, especially those of the Pharisees, Saul and Eli, we’ve discovered that the days we’re in right now are days where God is spiritually and, then, sometimes physically, judging these ministries because a greater ministry is coming on the scene. And I shared in several instances how the Lord started teaching me this. When we left off, I was sharing with you about a church to which I was invited. There I began to share with some of its members who came to our meetings, concerning the Full Gospel, concerning the gifts of the spirit, concerning the true government of the Church and things like that. Of course, this included praying for the sick and casting out demons. When all this went back to the elders in that church, they basically called me on the carpet. So while I was thinking the next day about going to this meeting with these elders whom I knew were going to come against me, I asked the Lord to give me a word and He gave me Ezekiel 2:5-8. It was all about these rebellious people whom I was about to meet. The Lord gave me a confirmation, too, because I asked Him again and He gave me almost the same words in Jeremiah 1:17-19, which was a pretty amazing confirmation. I’d like us to read a little bit more concerning this.

First of all, I’m going to tell you about the text in Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a type of the Man-child ministry; he was a type of the David ministry that was to come upon the scene to speak to God’s people and speak to their leaders. In chapter one, we see from verse 26 on down to the end of the chapter that Ezekiel was caught up to the throne of God, where he saw God on His throne. Then, in chapter two, we see that God began to call him “son of man” and He did this all the way through the book of Ezekiel. As you know, Jesus was called the “Son of man” and Jesus was also a type of the David ministry, the Man-child ministry. And we see that in chapter two, at verses one and two, that the Spirit of God entered into Ezekiel. This is what happened to Jesus when He was ordained and to David when he was anointed to sit upon his throne. Also, this is a type of the end-time Man-child. So we see in verse three that the Lord sent Ezekiel to the children of Israel, to the nations that are rebellious. Just like Jesus, Who was coming to His Own people, and David, who was to rule over Israel, Ezekiel was going forth to a rebellious people with a rebellious leadership. (Eze.2:8) But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house: open thy mouth, and eat that which I give thee. So the Lord is telling Ezekiel, “You can’t be rebellious like they are.”

What is it that they were not doing that Ezekiel was doing? Well, He says, eat that which I give thee. (9) And when I looked, behold, a hand was put forth unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein (This book represents the Bible.); (10) and he spread it before me: and it was written within and without; and there were written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe. (3:1) And he said unto me, Son of man, eat that which thou findest; eat this roll, and go and speak unto the house of Israel. Eat the roll and go and speak. Now, we see this same little parallel going all the way down through about verse 11 or 12. And it is, eat the roll and then go and speak to the house of Israel. Don’t be like the rebellious house. You eat the roll and then you go speak to them. What’s the problem with the rebellious house? Well, they don’t eat the roll; they just go and speak. They like the position of authority and they’ve usurped the position of authority, just as Korah, Dathan and Abiram did in the wilderness (Numbers 16). They usurped the position of authority. They hadn’t overcome yet, but God says, to “he that overcometh, … to him will I give authority” (Rev.2:26). And how do you overcome? Well, first of all, you have to eat the roll of the book and then you have to walk in that through your faith.

Let’s read on down just a little bit more here. (Eze.3:2) So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat the roll. (3) And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. Praise the Lord! Remember, also, John, in the book of Revelation, ate the roll of the book, but he was also a type of the Man-child (Revelation 10:9,10). He was called up to the throne and received a revelation to give to the churches in the time of tribulation. It’s very neat how God does this over and over.

We have to eat the roll of the book. (Psa.119:89) For ever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven. And we’re told that if any man speaks, let him speak as an oracle of God (1 Peter 4:11). In other words, we are to say what God says. We are to eat this roll, first of all, for our own life, and we overcome in our own life. We learn to walk and be an overcomer in our own life before we’re qualified to go forth and exercise authority over God’s people. In this way, He’s preparing here a Man-child ministry to go forth and speak to God’s people. (Eze.3:4) And he said unto me, Son of man, go get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. This is very important, folks. We can’t speak with our own words because they have no power to regenerate Christ in the life of other people. It’s only His Seed that brings forth His life in His people. So God commands that the son of man here, Ezekiel, go and speak as an oracle of God with His words. (5) For thou art not sent unto a people of a strange speech and of a hard language, but to the house of Israel. Folks, in our day, the Man-child is once again about to go forth to the lost sheep of the house of spiritual Israel. But the Lord said, “I haven’t sent you to the lost, I haven’t sent you to those whose language you don’t know. I’ve sent you to Israel.” (6) Not to many peoples of a strange speech and of a hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, if I sent thee to them, they would harken unto thee.

It was true in Jesus’ day that when the overwhelming majority of the Jews blasphemed the Word of the Lord, that God turned to the Gentiles and they did harken, they did receive. Now the same thing is about to happen. Now the Church has been grafted into the olive tree called “all Israel,” so the Church is part of “all Israel.” Everybody, by the way, who believes in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and walks by faith in that, is grafted into the olive tree. Romans 11 is very plain. But natural Israel is not involved in that. They were broken off because of unbelief in Jesus Christ as their Messiah and as their Savior, so they’re basically the other nations that God’s going to turn to today. When much of the church blasphemes God this time, God’s going to turn back to the Jews, which it also says in Romans 11. So we see a parallel here in what is being told to Ezekiel. God said, “If I sent thee to them, they would harken unto thee.” We’re coming to a time, folks, when there’s going to be a lot of people in the so-called church who are just religious people who are going to fight against the move of God and when they blaspheme, God’s going to turn back to the Jews.

(7) But the house of Israel will not harken unto thee; for all the house of Israel are of a hard forehead and of a stiff heart. We know that was true about natural Israel when Jesus the Man-child came to them and now it’s true about spiritual Israel when the Man-child of our day comes to them. There’s a perfect parallel going throughout history. The church is very rebellious. The so-called church is full of people who believe they are members of the church through a born-again experience with the Lord, but they’re rebelling because they’re building their own kingdom. And they’re of a hard forehead and a stiff heart. (8) Behold, I have made thy face hard against their faces, and thy forehead hard against their foreheads. (9) As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house. (10) Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, all my words which I shall speak unto thee receive in thy heart, and hear with thine ears. (11) And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord God; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear. God’s people were in captivity then, just as they are today. They’re in captivity to Babylonish religion and Babylonish society, and God is sending His Man-child unto them, but first He tells them, He tells Ezekiel, “all my words which I shall speak unto thee receive in thy heart, and hear with thine ears. And go, get thee to them of the captivity” (10). Any other way is like that rebellious house back in Ezekiel 2:8 and that’s basically what a lot of the leadership is made up of. Ezekiel was going to the Saul ministry of his day, as Jesus went to the Saul ministry of His day. And now we see who it is that God is going to choose to do this. It’s a people who have received His words into their heart and who hear with their ears: they are going to be sent to God’s people.

As I was thinking about another church that I went to, I remembered four different churches that God just closed down. He took away their authority, their power, their buildings, everything, because they weren’t listening to the Word of God. I was invited to go to this one church through my daughter because she was a very good pianist and she had played for us for many years. She was invited to go there because they lost their pianist in this church. It was a denominational church but we came to know the pastor and his wife because we were all in the same home school organization and so they knew about Jennifer and they invited her. Of course, the first thing I did was pray, “Lord, I really don’t want to go to this church unless You want me to, but if you want me to, I will.” Because at that time Jennifer couldn’t drive, we would have to take her. “So Lord, I really don’t want to go to this church unless You want me to, unless You have a plan. Please tell me.” And the Lord said He wanted me to go, that He had ordained this, so we went. We were invited cordially and we didn’t, of course, tell them that we weren’t of their particular denomination or persuasion. It wasn’t a Full Gospel-type church, so we had to walk very lightly and carefully, and share just what we felt the Lord would have us share.

When you go into a situation like that, you see people who are in drastic need because they don’t believe much of the Gospel. They don’t believe in a healing Savior, they don’t believe in a delivering Savior, they don’t believe in a providing Savior, they don’t believe any of the miraculous part of Christianity. And the overwhelming majority of what we call Christians are hung up in some apostate situation like that, so they’re in bondage. And so when we saw the needs of the people, it was very hard not to say to them, “Hey, Jesus healed me of this” or “God provided for me in this way” or “faith works like this.” Sometimes you’re able to get just a few little words out here and there, and you kind of feel your way through this thing. You know, you don’t want to slam the door in your own face before you get started, so as Paul said, you’re weak to the weak (1 Corinthians 9:22) and we were. We were being very careful and trying to have some kind of fellowship with the people, to be friendly with the people and, as Paul said, “become all things to all men, that I may by all means gain some” (1Co.9:22). That’s what we were doing whenever we had opportunities to share witnesses and testimonies of miraculous things that God was doing for us, but they were hung up in their own particular form of unconditional eternal security, so there were lots of problems there. Now this church had five elders and a pastor, and as we got to know some of the elders, we were invited to their houses and we shared on an individual basis with some of them. We were just being friendly and being careful and being slow because they couldn’t handle that much, but there came a time when we had to be useful and when we were invited to preach and to share, I did share.

I shared testimonies of what the Lord had done for us as far as miraculous things, healings, deliverances and so on and so forth. You know how you can look in people’s eyes and you can tell when they’re receiving something and when they’re enjoying it, or when they’re just kind of turning away and just putting up with you? You can read it in their eyes very easily. I could tell that some of the people were receiving, from their expressions, and that some of the people were receiving from the things they said afterwards, but I could also tell that the elders were becoming defensive, except for one elder there who was totally receiving. He was fully into it and being blessed and was joining us in the battle for hearts. So we did this a couple of times and we shared in different Sunday schools and so on, and pretty soon we were coming to the place where we were doing about all that we could have done because the elders were being more and more protective and more and more were rejecting what we were saying to the people.

Finally, it came to the place where, when we came to share, we found that the pastor was sick and four of the elders were sick; none of them were there. The only one who was there was that one elder who was receptive. The people were looking around and asking, “Where are our elders? Where’s our pastor?” Well, they were all sick and we knew God had done this. God was judging them because they were resisting the Word of the Lord, since we weren’t sharing anything but the Bible with them. Every time I’d share a testimony, I’d back it up with some verses. But their religion literally comes from the Dark Ages and they hadn’t moved one peg since it was created. You talk to them about verses and they talk to you about their forefathers or their particular religion and what they believed. There was no Scripture. They had a very hard heart in their very Saul ministry and were rebellious about doing things God’s way. They were not crucifying the old man so that this new man, who looks like Jesus Christ, can come forth.

That’s the situation we were in. And when we saw that we had reached about all the people we could reach without causing a big ruckus, I just said my farewells and we left. That one receiving elder also left at the same time. But you know what happened? We shook the dust off of our feet when we went out and God started closing that thing down. Remember the previous church I told you about? These people were buying some land, they were getting ready to start building a new church, and when we did this, everything folded down. Their denomination suddenly came in and said this guy wasn’t a pastor. They took the pastor away. They didn’t have any pastor for the church, so the elders were pinch-hitting for him and more and more people started leaving. Pretty soon they had to rent out the building to somebody and it went downhill. From that day on, it went downhill. Well, the same thing happened with this church. It went downhill from that day on. They had to rent out part of the building to a Christian school and still people started leaving. That church was hemorrhaging people and just went all the way down until they lost the building and it was gone. This happened to us about four times.

You know, Jesus said, “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin” (Joh.15:22). God started holding those elders accountable because they heard the Word. Of course, they could deny the Word, which is what they were doing, they were denying the Word. They couldn’t deny that the Bible said this, but they were denying the Word. And they couldn’t deny that we were praying for the sick and that the sick in their assembly were being healed. They couldn’t deny that because it was happening. God was confirming it with signs and wonders. And so now they were held responsible and God judged them. God closed their local denomination down there and He moved on, thankfully. God doesn’t need churches like that. Those are fake churches.

If God has to bring down a church like that so the people will go searching elsewhere, fine. Those people there who heard a little bit and learned a little bit, possibly they’ll step up a little bit to something that teaches a little bit more of Christianity. We generally do that. We don’t make sudden moves. We might start out in a denominational-type church that doesn’t believe in the Full Gospel and move on to one that does believe in the Full Gospel, but not the full, Full Gospel. We overcome by degrees and we have to give people time to do that. People don’t, a lot of times, change suddenly. We have to be graceful with them and give them time. But for God to close down some of these dead religions is a good thing, a very good thing, and God’s about to do this on a massive scale. What He was teaching me was training for me, as much as it was helpful to anyone else. It was training for me. I understand what God is about to do. He’s about to do this on a large scale around the world and multitudes of people are going to come out from under the Saul ministries. God’s going to judge those ministries and they’re going to die, just as we’ve looked at – die spiritually, if not physically. They’ll die spiritually. And so this is what God has done throughout history and history is just going to repeat.

(Jer.23:21) I sent not these prophets, yet they ran…. We’ve already seen from Ezekiel’s example what it is to be sent of the Lord. It’s, first of all, to get the Word in your heart. God doesn’t care about religion. He doesn’t care about your Sunday school books. He doesn’t care about anything. If anybody speaks, let him speak as an oracle of God. Let him say what God says because God has already said it and He said it very well and it’s supernatural. It’s powerful. The Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12) and it will accomplish that for which He sends it. I sent not these prophets, yet they ran: I spake not unto them, yet they prophesied. (22) But if they had stood in my council, then had they caused my people to hear my words, and had turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. See, the whole point is that if we first put the Word of God into our hearts, we’re able to pass on that Word to others. It will deliver God’s people. It’s supernatural. It will drive the wicked out from your midst and it will deliver those who are honest with God. This is God’s plan and it always has been God’s plan.

Let’s go back to the beginning of the chapter. (1) Woe unto the shepherds that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the Lord. Shepherds like that, they’re destroying God’s people. People are not coming into the image of Jesus Christ. They’re not prepared for life. They die before their time because they don’t believe in a Savior Who provides, heals, delivers, Who does all these things. They don’t come into maturity. They don’t bear fruit without the true Word of God. So these shepherds are destroyers. God is talking about the Saul ministries here and I’ll prove it to you. Woe unto the shepherds that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the Lord. (2) Therefore thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, against the shepherds that feed my people: Ye have scattered my flock…. Now, that’s the second time He’s said that. What does it mean “scattered”? It’s talking about denominating God’s people, dividing them up. Instead of being one, they are now divided up into these sectarian groups for the sake of the sectarian groups, not for the sake of the Lord. Jesus said when He prayed, “that they may be one, even as we [are] one” (Joh.17:22). And when we read in Revelation, the church of Philadelphia was all of the church at that particular city. It wasn’t a Baptist church, the Methodist church, the Pentecostal church, the whatever-denomination church. No, it wasn’t. What has happened? Well, wolves came in to divide the flock. That’s what we were told. (Jer.23:2) … Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them; behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord. I will visit upon you. I will cause you to pay for what you have done, is what the Lord says.

About the time we started this series, I receive two short dreams from Shirley Hinkle. Two short dreams here. The first one of them she had back in July of 2005 and the second one was just a few days after that. The first one is speaking about these Saul shepherds having to pay for what they’re doing to God’s people. “I dreamed that our former pastor walked into the room where a group of us were standing and I wondered to myself, ‘What is he doing here?’ I thought maybe we’re to pray for him. So I walked over to him and laid my hand on his head. I said to him, ‘You are full of lust and pornography.’” Now Shirley is a prophetess and, so, in her dream she was prophesying to him: “You are full of lust and pornography.” You can’t imagine how common this is today among Protestant churches. I heard the percentages one time and I was just amazed. I’m wondering how they found all this out, but it was an extremely high percentage of ministers that are into pornography.

“‘You are full of lust and pornography.’ As I said these words, his head turned to mush under my hand.” In other words, he had a mind that was corrupted by the curse. “I pulled my hand back, revolted, and had turned to walk away and, as I did, he leered and then sneered at me. I started to wake up and that is when I saw that he was just a shell of a man full of demonic spirits.”

I believe that this was not an individual prophecy here; this was not an individual dream about an individual man. I believe this pastor represents a great group of people out there. She continues, “God spoke in my heart and He said, ‘As he stole from My people, I am taking his mind from him. He is given over to these spirits.’” Well, what did he steal? If he lost his mind, what was it that he stole? He stole the mind of the Spirit from God’s people. What is the mind of the Spirit? It is the Word of God. These men stand in the doorway and they won’t enter in to all the precious truths and understandings of God’s Word and they won’t let the rest enter in either (Luke 11:52). What they are stealing from God’s people is going to be stolen from them; their understanding is going to be taken away. Remember the prophecy of Isaiah that Jesus pronounced upon the Jewish leaders in that time, that their eyes and their ears they were going to close, and He was basically reprobating them (Matthew 13:14).

So what they had stolen from God’s people, God was taking from them. And then a few days later she had this second dream: “All of these people were in booths at a restaurant.” A restaurant represents a congregation of people gathered together to eat and that sounds like the church because we gather together to eat the Word of God. We just read in Ezekiel that God said, “Here, take the book and eat the roll.” So we’re commanded to eat that. When you eat the Word it goes into you; it nourishes you in the ways of the Kingdom and it becomes who you are because what you eat is actually what your cells are made of. We need to be the Word made flesh. Jesus was the Word made flesh and we are His spiritual offspring, the Word made flesh. So, basically, a restaurant is a place where you eat. But if you’re eating a bunch of leaven and if you’re eating a bunch of things that inoculate you from the truth, then there’s destruction coming from these ministers unto you.

And so, she said, “All of these people were in booths at a restaurant and I walked in and it was the congregation of a former church. I began to go from table to table under the anointing and exposing all the lies of the teachings and the sins in the lives of the people. Some looked at me like, ‘What are you doing?’ They had no comprehension at all. Others said, ‘Yes, we see it.’ And then others were getting very angry at me for exposing all the lies. And I raised my right arm to heaven and I began to pray in the spirit with a loud voice and with authority. Then, as I was walking out, I turned to the people and said, ‘The associate pastor was never supposed to leave his wife for the other woman. He played the harlot. He sold his body to prostitution. He left her.’” And you’d be surprised how often this is happening in Christianity, too. But it’s not Christianity, is it? No, it’s not. Of course not. This is all too common. “Then the next scene in my dream, my husband and I were walking down a hallway away from the restaurant.” In other words, they were walking away from those teachings. “We could hear the former pastor from the other side yelling. We knew he was mad at me for exposing him. He was yelling really loud as he came around the corner, but the weird thing was he was walking on his knees. His legs were twisted up behind him and he was being led by his head usher.” In other words, he was spiritually crippled. He was not able to walk with the Lord. “For a split-second I felt pity for this man who was all disfigured and then I saw his face as he was yelling. And my husband and I just stood there quietly watching at first. This pastor was so mad and yelling so loud that his hair was all matted and he snarled with his face all contorted. Then, all of a sudden, I looked at him and said, ‘Everything you have stolen from My people (she said this in the spirit of prophecy), everything you’ve stolen from my people (Which is what? Their walk with the Lord.), I have taken from you. Judgment has come to your house.’ I then brought my right hand down like a gavel was in it.”

This sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? It’s what we just read here in Jeremiah. (2) … I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord. (3) And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and multiply.

Yes, God’s people, in a spiritual way, have been taken captive to all nations, exactly as the Jews were physically captive. We are now captive to the nation, full of patriotism and things that make us pledge allegiance to our nation, rather than the nation that we truly belong to, which is the nation of spiritual Israel. (4) And I will set up shepherds over them … Here is where He’s loosing these Saul shepherds. He’s loosing His people from them. He’s bringing them out of captivity back to their own land, to the Promised Land, to live on the promises of God, so to speak. (4) And I will set up shepherds over them, who shall feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be lacking, saith the Lord. That sounds good, doesn’t it? And especially concerning the days that we’re coming to, right? “They shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be lacking, saith the Lord.” That’s kind of what Jesus said about those under Him. None were lacking except “the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fullfilled” (Joh.17:12).

The Scripture continues. (Jer.23:5) Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch … This is those shepherds whom we just read about whom He’s raising up, those new shepherds whom God is raising up in these days to take the place of those foolish Saul shepherds. They are a righteous branch. (5) … And he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. (6) In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called: the Lord our righteousness. Our righteousness. This represents a corporate name. It’s a group of people. “The Lord our righteousness” is David in our day, folks. The Lord said He would multiply the seed of David to rule over the house of Israel. In our day there’s a corporate body of David whom He says are these shepherds He’s going to raise up. And He tells us that in the last days we’re going to understand this (23:20). In the last days. (16) Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they teach you vanity; they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord. We have to teach what comes out of the mouth of the Lord. (Mat.4:4) … Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

(Jer.23:17) They say continually unto them that despise me, the Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace; and unto every one that walketh in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, No evil shall come upon you. These apostate religions of “Christianity,” using the term loosely, these stubborn people, these rebellious people, have been trained to be that way and they’re telling their congregations that they’re going to have peace and security and safety. They’re telling them “You’ll fly away,” and all the other deceiving doctrines out there, such as ultimate reconciliation, unconditional eternal security, everything is okay – it’s all peace and safety, peace and safety. But God says differently.

(18) For who hath stood in the council of the Lord, that he should perceive and hear his word? who hath marked my word, and heard it? Of course, we know Ezekiel did. (19) Behold, the tempest of the Lord, [even his] wrath, is gone forth, yea, a whirling tempest: it shall burst upon the head of the wicked. (20) The anger of the Lord shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the intents of his heart: in the latter days ye shall understand it perfectly. (21) I sent not these prophets, yet they ran: I spake not unto them, yet they prophesied. (22) But if they had stood in my council, then had they caused my people to hear my words, and had turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. Yes. Amen. That’s what we need, folks. We need a ministry that God is sending and raising up, starting with the John the Baptist ministry, leading on to the Man-child ministry, leading on to the Two Witness ministry, leading on to the raising-up of the five-fold ministry. And this is all going to be wave after wave of a coming revival in the earth happening all during the time judgment is going forth, while both spiritual and physical judgment is going forth. Spiritual judgment is much more detrimental than physical judgment. Physical judgment can take people out who might even go to heaven, but spiritual judgment takes away their seeing and hearing, bringing reprobation upon a people which are not able to walk with the Lord anymore. That’s an eternal judgment there, so it’s far worse to be in that kind of a situation. (2Co.11:13) For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ. (14) And no marvel; for even Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light. (15) It is no great thing therefore if his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.

Folks, Satan’s ministers look like ministers of righteousness. They’re in pulpits. They teach God’s people. They fashion themselves, it says, as “ministers of righteousness.” In other words, they usurp this position. Like Korah, Dathan and Abiram, they usurp this position. They didn’t come to authority by overcoming, by hearing the Word, by eating the roll, by having eyes to see, etc. They “fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works” (15). There it is again. But notice that the judgment upon them starts down here, here and now, folks. It’s not just going to be passing-off into eternity. Now this judgment is catching up. God is going to judge these ministries. He’s going to judge their whole organizations. There’s going to be a reprobation set in.

What we need to do, of course, is make sure that we’re eating the roll of the book individually, every one of us. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a minister or not, we all need to eat the roll of the book and not be like Korah, Dathan and Abiram, upon whom the judgment fell. As you know, Korah, Dathan and Abiram were usurping not only the High Priest’s position but the priesthood because Korah, you know, was a Levite, but he was usurping the authority of Aaron and Moses. (Num.16:20) And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, (21) Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. Where was this? This was one of the trials in the wilderness. Where does the Korah, Dathan and Abiram rebellion happen? In the wilderness. What’s the wilderness? The Tribulation. The first 3½ years of the Tribulation are called “wilderness” in Revelation 12 and the second 3½ years are called “wilderness” in Revelation 17. So here they are in the wilderness with this trial of usurpers.

They’ve been there all along, folks, but now God’s dealing with them. Now God’s sending His Man-child. Now God is going to speak the Word before them, make them responsible and tear down their organizations. (21) Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. (22) And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation? Well, but all the congregation was following them, you see. (23) And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, (24) Speak unto the congregation, saying, Get you up from about the tabernacle (tent) of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. (25) And Moses rose up and went unto Dathan and Abiram; and the elders of Israel followed him. (26) And he spake unto the congregation, saying, Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their sins.

Oh, yes. And God was planning just such a consumption, wasn’t He? (27) So they gat them up from the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, on every side…. Folks, what is this? What is this saying in our day? This is talking about a revival of God’s people coming out from among them, coming out from among these usurpers who have taken a position that’s not theirs. It’s similar to what Jesus spoke about in John 10, when He called His sheep by name and called them out of the sheepfolds. This is what’s coming. (27) … And Dathan and Abiram came out, and stood at the door of their tents, and their wives, and their sons, and their little ones. (28) And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works; for [I have] not [done them] of mine own mind. (29) If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the Lord hath not sent me. (30) But if the Lord make a new thing, and the ground open its mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down alive into sheol; then ye shall understand that these men have despised the Lord.

What is it to be swallowed up by the earth? The earth is our flesh. Adam’s flesh was made out of the earth, so to be swallowed up by the earth alive is to be consumed by the old man. That’s to be totally reprobated. You know, the Bible says, “She that giveth herself to pleasure is dead while she liveth” (1Ti.5:6). In other words, you can be dead while you’re alive. They were swallowed alive by the earth, by the flesh, you see.

(Num.16:31) And it came to pass, as he made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them; (32) and the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. (33) So they, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into Sheol (the place of the dead): and the earth closed upon them, and they perished from among the assembly. This is repeated again when we see Saul, and everybody that appertained unto Saul, died on Mt. Gilboa, and then David came out of the wilderness to be king.

This is where we are one more time, folks. We’re right here. There is a rebellion and it’s not going to be over until the Tribulation period, until God has reprobated all of the wicked and brought in all the righteous. Reprobation represents this dying while you’re alive, being dead while you live. (Jud.11) Woe unto them! for they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah. (12) These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Twice-dead and plucked up by the roots. And it also speaks about the shepherds, those who followed after Cain and Balaam through their lusts to lead the people. They were twice-dead and plucked up by the roots. Twice-dead means you have to be born again and die again.

Yes, there are multitudes of people who have had a new birth in their spirit, but they refuse to be reborn in their soul; they refuse to follow their spirit and to eat the Word of God and to be an overcomer. And what is God going to do? Well, He’s going to reprobate their leadership. That will enable the people to see that there’s something wrong with this, especially when they’re able to compare with a new ministry that God is bringing on the scene. These twice-dead shepherds are going to be falling into more and more sinful lusts of their flesh; that way the people will be able to see it. Even today it happens that ministers fall into the most corrupt, sinful ways and yet the people who don’t love truth and don’t love righteousness, those people don’t depart from about their tent. Those people go down with their ministers, still justifying their ministers, because they’re in idolatry with their organization they’re in. They won’t see that these men have become corrupt. Well, God is going to corrupt them. He’s going to corrupt them so that all of the people of God will be without excuse when they continue to follow them.

God is delivering His people in these days. It’s a great thing that He’s doing. What’s really happening is similar to what Jesus speaks about: (Mat.24:15) “When therefore ye see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the.” Literally, it says in the Numerics, “a holy place,” not “the holy place,” but the translators thought, “It couldn’t be; there’s only one holy place.” So they put “the holy place” but the original says “a holy place.” The Numeric pattern proves it’s a holy place, so what is Jesus talking about?

When therefore ye see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in a holy place (let him that readeth understand) [That’s in parentheses because He’s telling you, “Hey, look a little deeper here; there’s something here.”], then let them that are in Judaea flee unto the mountains: let him that is on the housetop not go down to take out the things that are in his house: (18) and let him that is in the field not return back to take his cloak. (19) But woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! (20) And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on a Sabbath: (21) for then shall be great tribulation….

Daniel speaks of an “abomination that maketh desolate” (Dan.11:31). And who is it who is “standing in a holy place”? Well, it calls to mind 2 Thessalonians 2. So who is it who’s standing in a holy place? And what is a holy place now, in our day? Is there any holy place? Well, there is no such thing as THE holy place anymore, but there are holy places all around the world. They are assemblies of God’s people who are truly God’s people. So it’s an abomination for anybody to stand in the holy place who is an antichrist. He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth (Mat.12:30), Jesus said. See, we don’t have any choice: we’re either going to speak the Word and agree with the Word or we’re antichrist. It’s either Christ, Who is the Word, or antichrist. God’s been very merciful, but with the knowledge, the understanding, the anointing that’s coming upon the scene right now, He’s no longer going to be merciful because we’re coming to the end. (2Th.2:3) Let no man beguile you in any wise: for [it will not be,] (that is, our gathering together unto the Lord) except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. Folks, before we gather unto Him there’s going to be a falling away and the son of perdition is going to be revealed. Why do apostate ministers read this the very opposite of what it’s saying? It’s because they want to make sure they get out of here. (4) He that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God. There he is in the holy place, right? And the word “temple” here is the word naos. Everywhere else the apostle Paul used that term, he used it to talk about the temple comprised of the people of God, not a temple building. You know, hieron is the word they used when they spoke of the building, but here he’s talking about the people of God, just like he used it everywhere else. So that he sitteth in the temple of God (that is, amongst God’s people), setting himself forth as God (4). Now, if you’re not paying any attention to God and you’re ruling in the temple of God, then you’re the god there. The whole problem is that these men think that they can do what they want to do, they can say what they want to say, they can lead you any way they want to lead you. They don’t have to do it according to the Word, they can make up their rules, they can make up their own organization. But, you see, God already has an organization. It’s an organism. It’s called the Church and it’s supposed to be one; it’s supposed to be one with Him and it’s supposed to be one with the Word. It’s supposed to be led by people who have eaten the roll of the book and who hearken unto the roll and then go and lead God’s people. So they set themselves forth as God.

(5) Remember ye not, that, when I yet was with you, I told you these things? (6) And now you know that which restraineth, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. The falling away is what restrains the revealing of the son of perdition. What’s the falling away? It’s this reprobation of these people. God’s taking away their seeing and hearing. They’re falling into corruption as we speak. (7) For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work: only [there is] one that restraineth now, until he be come out of the midst (Numerics). What is restraining the revealing of the son of God? The son of perdition in the midst of God’s people. See, we ought to be a spotless, blemishless people. Talking about them in their corporate body, Jude called them spots in your love-feasts, these apostate leaders. Spots. They are spots in the body of Christ. They have to be removed before He can come for His people. Only [there is] one that restraineth now, until he be come out of the midst. (8) And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord shall slay with the breath of his mouth…. The Lord is going to destroy these wicked leaders of God’s people and every other son of perdition who leads God’s people astray.

We are on the verge of a great corporate move like this. God’s given me a little training several times in watching how He does this and I know He is about to do it now on a worldwide scale. I know that He is training up other people around the world to understand what’s actually happening here. There is a corporate body of the son of perdition leading multitudes of people astray, but God is sending some help. He’s sending a new anointed ministry like we saw in Ezekiel, anointed with the Holy Spirit. This ministry will be empowered by the Holy Spirit to go forth and deliver His people. Praise be to God! Thank You, Father!

CHAPTER FIVE

The Truth Shall Make You Free

As we continue our study, let’s ask the Lord for His blessing. Father, in Jesus’ Name, Lord, we desire so much, Lord, to be partaking of Your unleavened bread, and we do our best to stick to Your Word by your grace, but we trust in You, Father, to continually open our eyes that we may know the truth, Lord. Lord, we know that “the sum of thy word is truth” (Psa.119:160) and so we desire not to leave anything out and we desire not to add anything in, that it might be unleavened. Lord, we praise You and we thank You, Lord. Just please continue to open our eyes and give us Your grace, Lord, for You said, Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (Joh.8:32). So we thank You for that promise, Lord, and we claim it as ours in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

We are studying apostate ministries from the Scriptures and we left off in Jeremiah 25, but I’d like to go back and look at Jeremiah 23. (Jer.23:16) Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they teach you vanity; they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the Lord. I think that’s very obviously common nowadays. At one point in the Scriptures (1 Kings 22; 2 Chronicles 18), Micaiah was the only truthful prophet among 400 other prophets who all prophesied lies, and I think history pretty well repeats. There’s an awful lot of false prophecy out there and, of course, false prophets, in the larger sense, here as leaders of God’s people. (17) They say continually unto them that despise me, The Lord hath said, Ye shall have peace; and unto everyone that walketh in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, No evil shall come upon you. And this is pretty common among prophets who hang out in one certain denomination. They generally agree with the people and they usually justify the people by the same means and methods that that particular denomination or sect of Christianity does.

(18) For who hath stood in the council of the Lord, that he should perceive and hear his word? who hath marked my word, and heard it? (19) Behold, the tempest of the Lord, [even his] wrath, is gone forth, yea, a whirling tempest: it shall burst upon the head of the wicked. (20) The anger of the Lord shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the intents of his heart: in the latter days ye shall understand it perfectly. Of course, that’s where we are; these are the latter days. (21) I sent not these prophets, yet they ran: I spake not unto them, yet they prophesied. (22) But if they had stood in my council, then had they caused my people to hear my words, and had turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. I’ve shared with you some of my experiences that the Lord taught me about His method of dealing with congregations of people, about three churches at which I had fellowshipped where God revealed the truth with these groups, and then He just closed them down because they wouldn’t listen. And I have one more I’d like to share with you, an experience that I think is very much according to this text here.

I was teaching among a group of people some years ago, which I will call “The Kingdom People.” That’s because they considered that they were the ones who were walking in the Kingdom. But, of course, they were just another denomination, as far as I could see. They had their ideas and they credited themselves with having deep understanding, deep knowledge of the Word and justified themselves because they had this. Basically, they had a gnostic spirit among them. Gnosticism is hidden knowledge; it’s people who justify themselves because they have this secret knowledge that nobody else has. That means God favored them because He gave them this secret knowledge that no one else has; therefore, they must be the super group. They must be the Man-child ministry. I mean, obviously they believed in that, at that time, and they thought they were going to be the Man-child people. They liked me because they loved the spirit of the Word, except a lot of it was just spiritualizing. It was really the spirit of the Word. There’s a difference. There are many wonderful hidden things in there, but if you begin to twist the Word for your own gratification, then you can spiritualize it and pervert it any way you want.

One of the things that they did, or do, in this particular group, which is all over the nation, is that we understand that what was given in the Old Testament was called “the letter” by the Apostle Paul. (2Co.3:6) For the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. He spoke rather negatively of it, but he wasn’t talking about the New Testament. In every text we read it’s very clear he’s talking about the Law, not the New Testament. Well, when the Jews were under the Law, under the letter of the Law, they had to obey it just as it was written. They couldn’t afford to say, “Well, this actually means this, so therefore I will keep this; I will do it this way.” They couldn’t get away with that because they would have been breaking God’s Law. So, in the New Testament, we understand that we’re not under the letter of the Law, we’re under what that letter points to. We’re under the fulfillment of the letter, which is, in most cases, written in the New Testament. We’re under that.

However, this group was treating the New Testament the same way that we can legally treat the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, we are not under the letter of the Law and we don’t put other people under the letter of the Law. In the New Testament, we are under the fulfillment of that, which is the Spirit. If we treated the New Testament in that way, we would say, “Okay, this is what we see here written in black and white, but this is the letter and we don’t have to obey that. We obey the spirit of that. Well, that’s what this group did a lot. Basically, they were destroying the Word of God. I heard some of them used to call it “the black letters of death” because they knew that the “letter killeth” in the New Testament. So, remember, if the Jews under their covenant did away with the letter, then God would judge them very quickly. Now, if we, under the New Covenant, do away with what’s written in the text of the New Testament, the same thing will happen. We’ll be judged because we’re disobeying God’s Word. Is there a spirit to a lot of things that are written in the New Testament? Of course, but we can’t do away with what is written. The apostle Paul said, “Learn not [to go] beyond the things which are written” (1Co.4:6). Yet, they were picking and choosing what they would obey, this particular group was, and they had this pride of this deep revelation.

Now, I’ve discovered gnosticism can work with just about any kind of revelation, just about any church, just about any sect, any group. It’s not a doctrine in itself. It’s just the fact that you have this secret knowledge that makes you special; you’re justified because you have this secret knowledge. But there’s nothing further from the truth. The truth is, the thing that God is looking for in His saints is fruit. Fruit, not knowledge. Jesus said 30-, 60- and 100-fold fruit. So a person can have a lot of knowledge, but knowledge makes a person responsible. (Luk.12:48) And to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required…. So, sure, God can give you secret understandings in His Word and He can give them to anybody, but I’ve noticed that people can use this for false doctrines, thinking that they have this secret understanding. The devil is very sneaky. He wants you to be prideful; he wants you to be justified by something other than faith in what Jesus did at the Cross. And if you’re justified or feel justified in that you have this great secret knowledge, well, he has you, you see. And then, of course, you’re always smarter than your brother, so you’re always turning and judging your brother. And this denomination was doing that. They would point out other denominations around. They didn’t consider themselves a denomination, but they were. They would point out other denominations, talking about how they’re always in Babylon, so forth, in critical ways, being judgmental of these people.

And I was very graceful for a while. I would share with them, “Hey, look, these are your younger brothers and sisters.” I didn’t consider them older, but I had to speak with them in that way or they would not have received me at all. I said, “Look, if you consider these your younger brothers and sisters, you should be praying for them, not judging them. I mean, certainly the system is Babylonish all around us, but you should be praying for them and loving them and sharing your truth with them and receiving things from them.” Frankly, there wasn’t a lot of faith in these groups, there weren’t a lot of signs and wonders in these groups whatsoever, but they had what they thought was this deep knowledge. The devil had deceived them. It some cases, it was just destroying the written Word of God. And of course, they liked me because I saw spiritual things in the Word of God, and I liked to share them, but I wasn’t about to destroy what was written and go beyond the things that are written. So, basically, they twisted and perverted the written Word.

Well, one day I think the Lord had decided that I had just about enough of ministering gracefully among these people and an opportunity opened for me to share in their congregation. I didn’t know what I was to share. So I went to the Lord and the Lord told me He wanted to bring a word of correction. And I thought to myself, “These people are too proud to take any correction. They’re not going to take any correction because they’ve lifted themselves up. They were the top of the heap here, so to speak. Who’s going to correct them?” So I was surprised what the Lord brought out of me when I did finally get in front of them.

I basically told them, “Look, you’re pointing out Babylons all out there, but you’re sitting right in the middle of Babylon. If I know anything about this Book, you’re sitting right in the middle of Babylon. You’re prideful, you’re arrogant, you’ve lifted yourself up, you’re judging your brothers and sisters. You’re not judging the system that they’re captive to, you’re judging them in particular.” And I went on like this for a few minutes, sharing with these people. This is not me because I don’t like to get up in front of people like that. I get kind of nervous. I don’t like to do such things as that, but I knew what the Lord had told me to do and so I did it.

Just as I suspected, they did not take it very well. I mean, they were prophesying against me and everything else. There were shouts of, “Why don’t you sit down?!” People wanted me to quit preaching and, after a few minutes, I did and I sat down, too. But there were some people prophesying in there. One lady, who was one of their favorite prophetesses in that particular group, she prophesied some pretty bad stuff about me while I was standing there in front of the assembly. She stood up and prophesied and called me a “viper” and all kinds of things like that – real nice things. So I just stood there and listened to her. When she got through, I said a few more words and somebody else shouted, “Why don’t you sit down?!” I mean, I really made a bunch of friends that day, you know. I had been graceful with them up until this particular time when God said, “Okay, that’s enough. Now this is it, this is the end of it.” So I shared this with them and this woman got up and prophesied a nice long prophecy pointed right straight at me. So after a minute or two I finished and I sat down. A few people had words with me afterward and I went home. I said, “Okay, that’s the end of that, I’m through with this.” But the Lord said, “No, you’re going back.” I said, “Lord, I just made an enemy out of everybody over there. You want me to go back?” He said, “Yes, I want you to go back.” I said, “Oh, Lord. Okay, I’ll do it, I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”

I didn’t know why the Lord wanted me to go back because I was sure everybody was my enemy. And the first thing you know, when I got there, there weren’t nearly as many people as there was the time before. But I had people walk up to me and tell me, “I sure never thought we’d ever see you here again.” And I said, “Well, that kind of makes two of us because I didn’t really think you’d ever see me here again either.” So after a couple of people said similar things to that, the lady prophetess walked in and she was kind of looking at me funny and I was wondering, “Okay, where is this going to go?” So it was about time to start their meeting when this lady asked if she could share something and it was agreed that she would, and so she got up there. Remember now, she’d had this long prophecy all pointed against me, all throwing daggers at me. So she said, “When I went home after the last meeting that we had, the Lord spoke to me clear as I’ve ever heard him speak to me at all, and He said, ‘I want you to go back there and I want you to tell those people that everything that man told you was the truth.’” I thought, “Oh, boy. So that’s why You wanted me to come back, Lord.” And so she went on to say what the Lord had told her, that everything that I’d said was truth concerning this organization. And I believe that was the last time that woman was ever seen there again. She was gone.

But anyway, where were all those prophecies coming from? You know, all the prophecies that I’d heard that were glorifying this particular sect, their ideas, their doctrine? I mean, if a person has a problem with pride and gnosticism, if they have a problem with that, certainly God wouldn’t prophesy anything to them that would build up that pride or make them even worse. Like this text we’re looking at here, I believe that God was angry with these people and I believe it was because of their pride, because of lifting themselves up, because of being judgmental toward everybody else. When I got up and spoke, I said, “Look, you guys don’t have any peace among yourselves.” I continued, “The people you’re judging out there, they have more peace among themselves than you do. They don’t constantly judge one another about being in the flesh like you do, throwing it back and forth at one another and soon you split up and you go your own way. And after awhile, you’re the only one who believes this, so you come back together again and after awhile you split up again.” I said, “You’re so busy judging one another, that’s Babylon; it’s confusion.” I pointed this out to them. But their prophecies were false. They were false prophecies to glorify one another. This is quite common in the sects of Christianity: false prophecy in order to glorify one another, in order to curry favor with one another, to be lifted up in front of people.

Well, to make a long story short, that didn’t last long, either. But, again, that spirit of gnosticism uses any kind of truth. Even the old-line denominations will pridefully join together into groups because their forefathers believed this or they spoke this. Sometimes it’s totally unscriptural, but they’re so proud of it. This sectarianism is brought about by this pride of religion and it’s nothing but a bunch of religious spirits.

In 1 Chronicles 10, which is one of the places we read, there’s some more to be seen if we take a little different route. You remember we saw in 1 Chronicles 10 that the Philistines were gathered together to fight against Israel. Now, we found that the Philistines represented the old man that lived in the land, the one that the spiritual man, the Israelite, was supposed to kill, to utterly wipe out, take their land and live in their house. And, of course, we found that we are the land and these two men are the carnal man and the spiritual man in us. (1Ch.10:1) Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa. (2) And the Philistines followed hard after Saul and after his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Malchi-shua, the sons of Saul. (3) And the battle went sore against Saul … And we discovered that for the old man to conquer the new man is to be “twice dead, plucked up by the roots” (Jud.12). It is to lose your battle with the flesh. And so everybody who followed Saul in this battle lost because Saul did not teach them, he did not lead them. He did not guide them to kill the Amalekites, the people of the land, and to wipe out Agag, who was their head, the mind of flesh, so to speak. Saul did not lead them to do that. God was angry with him because He had commanded him to not leave anybody alive.

Of course, we know every one of us has to put to death the old man. We’re not to give him any leeway, no place where he can climb down off the cross. We are to put to death that old man or we don’t have life. It’s either the old man or you. So we understand these verses are talking about spiritual death to a Saul ministry, which is on the scene right now. That Saul ministry is still continuing down their road of rebellion against crucifying the old man and of being obedient to God, just like it led to Saul’s death and that of the people who followed him. And that’s the spiritual type, of course, of these apostate ministries and the people who follow them. They’re going toward spiritual death, just like the Pharisees led God’s people astray and led them to be what? Doubly more a son of hell than themselves, Jesus said. (Mat.23:15) … Ye make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves. So they were raising up sons of the devil and Jesus said to them, “Ye are of [your] father the devil” (Joh.8:44).

(1Ch.10:3) And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers overtook him; and he was distressed by reason of the archers. We know who the archers are, right? The archers shoot the fiery darts that are the words of the devil, the attacks of the devil upon your soul and upon your mind. They’re those thoughts that he fires in there that are very, very destructive to you, if you don’t quench them with the shield of faith. Well, they were overtaking Saul. And we know and saw that Saul was demon-possessed anyway. Because of his rebellion, God turned him over to the devil, just as many ministries have been turned over to the devil now. Their leaders have demons in them.

(4) Then said Saul unto his armor-bearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith, lest these uncircumcised come and abuse me. But his armor-bearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took his sword, and fell upon it. In other words, like Judas Iscariot, Saul’s own hand brought his death. And it is true that, in every man’s case, if a Christian is going to die, be twice dead and plucked up by the roots, it’s going to be his fault. You know, you can’t blame it on anybody else.

(5) And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell upon his sword, and died. (6) So Saul died, and his three sons; and all his house died together. Folks, that’s where we are right now. This is what the Lord told me. Looking at this text, I asked the Lord, “Where are we, Lord?” And this is the text the Lord pointed out to me. This is what’s happening. Of course, the Lord told me that years ago, too. He told me that He was moving the Sauls out of the way. And I learned what He meant by that was they’re being moved out of the spiritual Kingdom of God, they’re being moved out of the way. Their leadership is being separated from the true people of God, the true elect. This revelation is coming to God’s people that these men are dead, their doctrine is dead, their teaching is dead, their church is dead. And so they ask themselves, “What am I doing here?” Has that ever happened to you? It certainly happened to me. It’s happened to a lot of people in that they suddenly realize, “What am I doing here? This is a dead church; these people are dead; there’s no life here.” So they move on. Well, that’s kind of like this text here: (7) And when all the men of Israel that were in the valley saw that they fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook their cities, and fled; and the Philistines came and dwelt in them. Can we see what God is saying very plainly here? When they realized that the Saul ministry was dead, they fled the cities. What is a city? It’s a congregation of people. So when they realized that Saul and his house were dead, just like many of you have realized this before, they fled the cities. And guess who took over the those cities? Nothing but Philistines.

You know, in these days, folks, all of the elect are going to come out from among them (2 Corinthians 6:17). They’re going to flee. And the revelation’s coming to the church now. When they realize that this system is dead, they’re going to flee it. Many of you have already fled it because you got that revelation. And you know what’s going to be left there? Nothing but the old man. Remember the revelation I shared with you, how that the Lord took me, caught me up in a whirlwind? When I came down, I was in front of this church that I recognized was just like a lot of churches that I would have to deal with. And who was running this church but the old man; he was trying to clean up the babies with the water in the sink but he was killing them. And everybody who followed Saul died because he represented the old man. He rebelled against the Lord.

In Revelation 18, something very similar is said. (Rev.18:1) After these things I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority; and the earth was lightened with his glory. (2) And he cried with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and is become the habitation of demons, and a hold (which means “prison”) of every unclean spirit, and a hold (or a “prison”) of every unclean and hateful bird. (4) And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come forth, my people, out of her…. Here it is, folks. They’re fleeing the city. Saul is dead, they realize it and all the people who were following him are dead. His people realize it and they flee the cities. Who’s left there? Demon-possessed beasts. “Come forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues: (5) for her sins have reached even unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.”

Saul was a sinner. Saul rebelled against the Word of the Lord. He did it his way and that’s what we see here, too. And what happened to Saul because of this? (8) And it came to pass on the morrow, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his sons fallen in mount Gilboa. (9) And they stripped him, and took his head, and his armor, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to carry the tidings unto their idols, and to the people. They stripped him and took off his head. Well, what is it to be stripped? What happened to Saul when he died? He was stripped of all of the works of righteousness that he had done. The Bible tells us, (Rom.13:14) But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to [fulfil] the lusts [thereof]. Put on Jesus. We’re putting on Jesus’ works. The bride in Revelation 19:8 had on the lampros garment – the bright, shining garment – which was what? The righteous acts of the saints. So what is it to be stripped? It is to be taken over by the old man. The Philistines conquered Saul, they took him over, and they took off his head. And what does it say they did with that? (1Ch.10:10) And they put his armor in the house of their gods, and fastened his head in the house of Dagon. So his head was now ruled by Dagon. The Bible says, in 1 Corinthians 10:20, that the gods that the Gentiles sacrificed to were demons. So here we’re seeing that Saul was ruled by demons. We already knew that, right? Yes, we discovered that already. He was demon-possessed. God turned him over to the demons, so the mind of the flesh ruled over the mind of the spirit and Saul spiritually died, and the people who followed him spiritually died. But we’re getting to the good story here, not only the fact that God’s people came to this revelation and they fled those congregations or cities. That’s a wonderful thing that’s about to happen, folks. Multitudes of God’s people are about to come out from among them, just like Revelation 18 commands. Multitudes. There’s a great revival coming and God’s people are going to be delivered of Babylonish corruption and these false leaders. Praise be to God!

(11) And when all Jabesh-gilead heard all that the Philistines had done to Saul, (12) all the valiant men arose, and took away the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to Jabesh, and buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh, and fasted seven days. (13) So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against the Lord, because of the word of the Lord which he kept not; and also for that he asked counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, to inquire [thereby,] (14) and inquired not of the Lord: therefore he slew him, and turned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse. So we see that Saul died “because of the word of the Lord which he kept not” and because he sought unto familiar spirits, rather than unto the Lord. As a matter of fact, when David came into the kingdom, one thing he did was to decide, “And let us bring again the ark of our God to us: for we sought not unto it in the days of Saul” (13:3). So Saul sought unto demons, but he didn’t seek unto the ark of the covenant. He didn’t seek unto the oracle of God. Why was that? Well, in 1 Samuel 16:13, we notice the beginning of Saul’s problem was when he disobeyed in not putting to death all of the Amalekites, including the mind of the flesh. God decided enough is enough and so He sent Samuel out with his horn of oil. (1Sa.16:13) Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Now, this is when David was very young, even before David slew Goliath, when Saul said of David that, “You’re just a youth” (1 Samuel 17:33). And, of course, that was also before his wilderness experience. This anointing of David was for his own spiritual growth up until the time he became king years later. So Samuel anointed David at this time and the power of the Lord was upon him to put to death his old man, which was Goliath and, of course, he took off Goliath’s head and put it in his tent. We see David took the mind of the flesh and conquered it, brought it under subjection. Saul was the opposite. So the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he was anointed at this time.

This was David’s first anointing. The second anointing is in 1 Chronicles 10 and that was when he actually became king. So the Davids, folks, they’re on the earth at this time. They’ve had their own anointing. They’re going through their own wilderness and they’re being prepared to come to the position of authority that God has planned for them. So God anointed David with the power of His Holy Spirit. The very opposite happened to Saul. (14) Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. So God basically turned him over to the demons because of his rebellion against the Word of God. This was the beginning of the situation. Why did Saul seek unto familiar spirits? Why did he seek unto demons for direction instead of serving the Lord? (28:5) And when Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly. Saul was afraid of the old man. He was afraid of Goliath. He wanted to suit up David to go fight Goliath for him, but David said, “No, I haven’t proved this; you proved this. I’m going to go in the Lord.” (6) And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not…. Well, of course, Saul wasn’t obeying God when God was giving him orders, so God just didn’t give him any answers anymore. (6) And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. (7) Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor. (8) And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and went, he and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night: and he said, Divine unto me, I pray thee….

Divination, of course, is a demonic spirit of prophecy. He said, Divine unto me, I pray thee, by the familiar spirit, and bring me up whomsoever I shall name unto thee. (11) Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said, Bring me up Samuel. Of course, then the woman got the revelation, “Aha! You’re Saul.” But she did, according to the Scripture here, bring up Samuel. Some people say, “No, it would have to be a familiar spirit.” Well, that’s true, but God can do anything He wants to do and I’ll tell you what, look at the answer that God gave him through whomever you think this is: (14) “He said unto her, What form is he of?” In other words, this one whom she’s bringing up. And she said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a robe. And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground, and did obeisance. (15) And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. (16) And Samuel said, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and is become thine adversary? In other words, “Hey, I’m on the Lord’s side; why are you asking me?” (17) And the Lord hath done unto thee, as he spake by me: and the Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thy hand, and hath given it to thy neighbor, even to David. (18) Because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, and didst not execute his fierce wrath upon Amelek, therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this day. (19) Moreover the Lord will deliver Israel also with thee into the hand of the Philistines; and to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me: the Lord will deliver the host of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.

Because Saul refused to put the old man to death and refused to lead his followers to put the old man to death, they died at the hands of the Philistines. Back in 1 Chronicles 10 we see that the basis, of course, for the Saul ministry becoming demon-possessed is their rebellion, their refusal to put to death the old man, their refusal to deny themselves, to take up their cross and follow Jesus. And that caused them to be delivered over to demons.

Folks, it’s happening. It’s been happening. False demon doctrines have been taking over these apostate ministries right and left. In this town where I am right now, there is a movement that has gone all over this country. It’s taken out, and is still taking out, the whole top-end of what people consider to be the leadership of Christianity, as far as spirit-filled people. I’ve seen it. I’ve gone to the meetings that they called a “revival” and I saw demons being imparted to people. I know that nobody in there who had discerning of spirits could have believed that this was a move of God. And I prayed for people who were friends of mine who were in there and sold on this thing and God gave them dreams and visions about this.

I prayed for one lady who had very good revelations, dreams and visions, “Lord, please give her a dream or a vision. Help her to see what’s going on here; help her to see that this so-called revival is passing on demons to people.” And one week later this lady contacted me. She said, “David, you’ll never guess what happened.” I asked, “What?” She said, “Well, I was in the revival and I looked up and the ceiling disappeared and there was this great red dragon stretched over the whole building.” The dragon, by the way, in Revelation 12, is the devil inhabiting people. The dragon was the devil and Bel was the dragon in Jeremiah 51 that has swallowed up God’s people. Bel was the god of Babylon. It was the false Jesus of Babylon. It was the Baal of Babylon, the false virgin-birthed son of God and it swallowed up God’s people. Now, this revival was being ruled over by this dragon. Of course, she thought because she was so pro-revival here, that this was an attack on the revival, but it wasn’t. It was what the revival actually was. Then she heard a noise and she turned. She looked at the back doors and they opened up, and in came this Trojan horse into the middle of the room. She saw all this in an open vision. And you know what a Trojan horse is, right? It’s what was considered to be a gift to the receivers, but hidden inside was the enemy. So all these “revival” attendees thought this was a gift of God.

Many supernatural signs and wonders are goofy ones: mooing like cows and barking like dogs and things like that, falling and jerking and twitching and all kinds of things that make Christians look silly. The devil loves to make Christians look silly. But, anyway, it was a very bad witness all over this town. And the money situation was a very bad witness all over this town, too. That church was left destitute and in deep debt because the preachers ran off with all the money. Well, those people are still laying hands on people out there across this nation and around the world and whenever it happens, folks, husbands and wives divorce and people are turned over to the lusts of their flesh. You know why? Because it’s a Trojan horse. They think this is a supernatural gift from God. They like the feeling that they get when it comes over them, but what follows that feeling is that they get turned over to their youthful lusts. Husbands rebel, wives rebel against their husbands, husbands go after other women. It’s been common. If you follow it just a little while, you’ll see what I’m talking about. I’ve seen it and I’ve seen what happens to people when they get it.

They’re being turned over to demons. Why? Because it’s a Saul ministry and the people underneath them are the same way. They’re just loving the supernatural. I agree it’s totally supernatural. Many of these people get a prophetic spirit that’s just out of this world. The only thing is, it’s all a lie. They hear the voice of the one whom they consider to be Jesus and it’s not, and he leads them contrary to the Scripture. Everywhere this thing goes, people drop the Word of God. They get away from the Word of God. And this has taken out many who are considered to be leaders of the Full Gospel movement in this country and around the world. A lot of people don’t know it, but when they lay hands on you, if you are not protected, they will impart those demons to you and you will have trouble in your family. When they start crying, “Fire! Fire! Fire!” and they lay their hands on you, you better run, run, run, I’m going to tell you right now because you need to plead the Blood of Jesus when you get around people who want to lay hands on you and impart their gifts to you nowadays, folks. It’s a dangerous thing. God protects some and they never receive anything because they’re honest with God. They’re not just saying, “Give me whatever You have, God. I’ll take whatever You have. I want what these people have.”

That’s a dangerous thing, folks. We should desire what God has in the Word. We should desire not ever to depart from the Word. First of all, nobody would buy into this false revival thing if they first decided, “I believe this Word.” What happened to Saul? He did not submit to the Word of God. He did it his way and so he was deceived. He was turned over to demons. It’s happening, not only with that strong delusion, but many, many others. It’s happening. The Saul followers are falling right and left. And they no longer study the Word of God and don’t respect the Word of God. Families are broken up, terrible troubles ensue. But I have good news for you, folks. (1Ch.11:1) Then all Israel … (notice this now) All Israel gathered themselves to David unto Hebron, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. (2) In times past, even when Saul was king, it was thou that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: and the Lord thy God said unto thee, Thou shalt be shepherd of my people Israel, and thou shalt be prince over my people Israel. (3) So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron; and David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the Lord; and they anointed David king…. Here’s where he was anointed. This is the same anointing as what Jesus had. (Luk.4:18) The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me…. See, that was the beginning of His position of sitting upon the throne of David, as we’ve already looked at in Luke 1:32. It was prophesied of Jesus that He would inherit the throne of David. And, of course, the Man-child in our day will inherit the throne of David, but in Luke 4:18 is where this anointing came upon Jesus because He had already gone through His wilderness. And what happened before He went into His wilderness? Well, He was baptized by John in the Jordan River. And what happened? The Holy Spirit came upon Him. But then we find that Jesus spoke of an anointing after He came out of the wilderness.

Now, the same thing was true of David. Before David went into the wilderness to have his own lessons from God, he was anointed. Here he’s coming out of the wilderness to take a visible position in the Kingdom of God as king and so he’s anointed. What does it mean, “all Israel gathered themselves”? That’s everybody who wasn’t under Saul’s ministry, everybody who fled Saul’s ministry, everybody who wasn’t destroyed because they submitted to Saul’s ministry: they’re all running to David. We’re coming to this place right here very, very soon. This is a great revival that’s the second part of the good news I mentioned already. We’re talking about a great revival of delivering people from the Pharisees unto Jesus. If you read the Gospels and the book of Acts, who was it who followed Jesus? Well, it was all Israel which followed Jesus. First of all, we need to know just who Israel is: (Rom.2:28) “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: (29) but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”

So when we’re talking about all Israel following David, we’re certainly not talking about the people who died with Saul. Now, who’s all Israel? It’s those who are circumcised in heart. What is that? That’s when the old man is put to death. Those are the people who have killed their Amalekites. It is the people who have killed their Goliaths. It is the people who have put to death the old man. That’s what circumcision represents – the cutting-off of the flesh. So that’s what an “all Israelite” is. We see all Israel followed David, but who followed Jesus in His day? Well, that’s the amazing thing, folks. All Israel followed Jesus. How could that be? It’s because the rest of them weren’t Israel; they were cut off in Romans 11. If you read Romans 11:17-26, it talks about how the Israelites were broken off because of their unbelief and how the Christians were grafted in because of their belief in the true Gospel and Jesus Christ. And then Paul says how, if the Israelites don’t continue in their unbelief, they will be grafted in. Finally, he tells us who these people are, who are in the olive tree, the ones who are grafted in and the ones who stayed in the olive tree in Jesus’ day. In verse 26, Paul says those faithful apostles and the people who came out, those disciples of Christ who came out from among the Saul ministry and followed Jesus, these people who are in the olive tree are “all Israel.”

You know, all Israel followed Jesus. All Israel followed David because the rest of the people weren’t Israel. They were in unbelief and they were broken off of the olive tree, which was called “all Israel.” (9:6) But [it is] not as though the word of God hath come to nought. For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel (There it tells you again plainly.): (7) neither, because they are Abraham’s seed (his physical seed, in other words), are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, it’s not the children of the flesh, it’s not the physical Israelites who are the children of God, but it’s the children of the promise who are reckoned for the seed. Who are the children of the promise? It’s those who believe the promise. They’re grafted in to the olive tree because they believe the promise. Who is that? That’s us, the ones who are circumcised in heart, not in flesh. You see, that’s us. That’s the believers.

So “all Israel” followed Jesus. Did every believer believe in Jesus when He was there, or did some of the disciples bring in some of these people? The people who followed Jesus brought in some of these people, but during the New Testament, we see that the Israelites who were faithful, who believed in the Gospel, these were the ones who the Bible calls “all Israel,” not the ones who refused to cut off the flesh and follow Jesus. Even though they were circumcised in flesh, they weren’t circumcised in heart, so they weren’t Jews. That’s what the Bible says very plainly. And I believe that, if you don’t want to be a Saul, you’d better make up your mind to believe what the Bible says. Wow! We’re talking about an awesome revival here; just like when Jesus came, there was an awesome revival. People were being delivered out of the Saul ministries and they followed Him. That’s where we’re coming to right now, folks – a great fleeing from the cities because they realize Saul is dead. Where do they go? Well, in Jesus’ day they went out into the wilderness, where at first they saw John the Baptist out there and later they met Jesus out there, and He taught them about wilderness living, didn’t he? They came out of their fine synagogues and their beautiful temple and they sat on a rock with Jesus and found out the true Word of God. Wow! This is awesome! This is a great revival that’s coming down the road. We’re looking for something awesome – a great, great move of God. Praise be to God!

(1Ch.11:3) So all the elders of Israel came to the king to Hebron; and David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the Lord; and they anointed David king over Israel, according to the word of the Lord by Samuel. And the first thing David did, by the way, was to conquer Jerusalem. (4) And David and all Israel went to Jerusalem (the same is Jebus); and the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, were there. (5) And the inhabitants of Jebus said to David, Thou shalt not come in hither. Nevertheless David took the stronghold of Zion; the same is the city of David. So the beginning of the building of the New Jerusalem Kingdom of God on earth is going to start with the Man-child’s ministry here. Wow!

You know what’s said of David? (9) And David waxed greater and greater; for the Lord of hosts was with him. That term, “waxed greater and greater,” is only used in one other place in the Bible. (Est.9:4) For Mordecai was great in the king’s house, and his fame went forth throughout all the provinces; for the man Mordecai waxed greater and greater. And who was Mordecai? Well, in Hebrew his name means “little man” or “Man-child.” “Waxed greater and greater.” It’s only in two places in the Bible. It’s spoken of David and it’s spoken of Mordecai, two of our Man-child types that we’ve studied. Folks, this is awesome! We’re coming to the end of the Saul ministry. It’s true that this is a death spiritually; it’s not a death physically. The Saul ministries will still persecute the saints, but they’re dead in their sins and God is going to give the leadership over to David of the people who are the true elect of God. (Mat.22:14) For many are called, but few chosen. Many who have been called will fall by the wayside because they will continue to follow the Saul ministry unto death.

But the few who are chosen, as in Jesus’ day, they’re going to follow Jesus and they’re going to follow in our day the Man-child. They’re going to go, once again, into the wilderness to multiply the fishes and the loaves and to receive the Doctrine that comes down out of heaven, the Bread of heaven that gives life. God’s people are going to grow up very, very quickly because of the anointing. The anointing is first poured out upon David at the beginning of the 3½ years and upon the rest of them in the middle of the 3½ years, exactly as happened in the book of Acts after the 3½ years of Jesus’ ministry. A great and mighty, mighty move of the Spirit is coming. It’s something in which we’re all going to rejoice. The signs and wonders that Jesus did are going to be done again and they’re going to be seen all around the world – great signs and wonders, great miracles.

We’ll continue our study with a look at the Eli ministry.

CHAPTER SIX

The Law of Spirit vs. the Letter

Let’s pray and ask for the Lord’s help as we continue our study.

Oh, Father, we love You! Father, we praise You! Father, we ask You to take over this study. Lord, don’t let David run this thing. We just ask You to take care of everything. We just ask Your grace, Your mercy, Your wisdom. Lord, bring everything to my remembrance that You would have me to teach in this chapter. And, Lord, we love You. We appreciate so much that You’re opening up Your Word to us, Lord. We know You have some wonderful things hidden there for us, Lord, and we desire them. We need Your food, Lord. We praise You and we thank You for it, in the Name of Jesus. Amen.

Well, we left off studying about the Pharisee and Saul ministries, and we’re getting ready to look at the Eli ministry and what replaces them. We discovered that the Saul ministry was replaced when Saul died at the hands of the Philistines, meaning, of course, that his old flesh put him to death, which is the spiritual revelation there. But then we discovered something that’s really encouraging and that is that “all Israel gathered themselves to David” (1Ch.11:1). That’s the ministry that we’re about to see come on the scene here. All Israel. That’s exciting, isn’t it?

But we also discovered that all Israel was not all natural Israel. It’s not even all the natural church. (Mat.22:14) For many are called, but few chosen. But God is going to get a remnant out of His church, those who do not die at the hands of the Philistines, because they’re not following Saul. So be careful whom you follow, folks. (15:14) “and if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit.” So we saw that all Israel gathered themselves together unto David. 1 Chronicles 11 and 12, by the way, are talking about all the mighty men and all the people of Israel who were gathered unto David.

We found out that “all Israel,” according to Romans 2, is those who are circumcised in heart, not in flesh. Circumcised in heart is when the old man is cut away, the flesh is cut off. And we also discovered, in Romans 11:26, that all Israel literally is speaking about those who are grafted into the olive tree through their faith in the real Gospel of Jesus Christ. A lot of the people of God back in those days didn’t enter into the olive tree or were broken off of the olive tree through their unbelief (11:20), but everybody who was in that olive tree was called “all Israel.” Paul also warned that even though Israel be as the sands of the sea, it’s only a remnant that’s going to be saved (9:27), so a lot of people are deceived in their doctrine right there, you see. All Israel is going to follow David in these days – the Man-child David. All Israel followed Jesus and all Israel, by the way, followed Joseph. As a matter of fact, I want to point out something in Genesis. As you know, Joseph came up out of prison and became second in the kingdom to the king. (Gen.41:46) And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. David was 30 years old when he was anointed and Jesus was also 30 years old when He was anointed. It’s not an accident that these parallels are being shown to us here. And, as you know, Joseph, when he came out of prison, interpreted Pharaoh’s dream about the seven years of plenty and seven years of famine.

We’re coming to our seven years of famine very quickly. That’s not within the scope of this study, but I would like to point out a couple of other things to you. (54) And the seven years of famine began to come, according as Joseph had said: and there was famine in all lands…. See, this is not just a local economic stumble here; this is going to be a worldwide economic stumble. There was famine in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. The land of Egypt here represented the Kingdom. There’s kind of a reverse revelation here. Joseph was under Pharaoh, and Pharaoh was the sun God or, you might say, as a type, the son of God. And Joseph was under him to rule over his people and to make sure they didn’t starve to death out there in the world. So there was a famine of the grain in all of the world, but there was bread in Egypt. Now, we can see two types there. We can see, first, a famine of the Word of God, which is the Bread of the Kingdom. And that certainly is coming because, as you know, Saul died and he didn’t have much of it in him anyway. You know, he wasn’t following the Ark of the Covenant; he was following a bunch of demons. And, folks, there are a lot of similarities in our day; the same things are happening.

But it’s not just a famine of the Word, which had been stored up over the previous years to be ready to be poured out here in the seven years of famine; but, second, we can also see a literal famine. A real lack of everything to sustain life is coming. So there was a famine in all lands, but there was bread in Egypt because Egypt represents the Kingdom of God and Joseph has been, he is, the first-fruits Man-child to come forth, in order to administer the Kingdom of God on earth. (57) And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was sore in all the earth. You know what this is talking about, folks? A revival. Just as we saw over in 1 Chronicles, this is a revival. Note again that “all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy grain.” You know, if you wanted the Word of God in the days of Jesus, where did you have to go? You had to go to Him because you sure couldn’t get it from the Pharisees. And if you wanted it in the days of David, you had to go to David. He was a true prophet who wrote many Psalms and was really anointed to share the Word of God. And God’s doing the same thing in these days. He’s preparing a first-fruits ministry to share the Word of God, which is not the only fruits, it’s just the first-fruits. God wants to replicate Jesus Christ. Jesus is God’s charagma: He is the tool whom God uses to recreate Himself. So this is what is going to happen in the seven years of famine: a great restoration of the Kingdom of God through recreating Jesus Christ.

(42:5) And the sons of Israel came to buy among those that came: for the famine was in the land of Canaan. Well, Canaan here is being used negatively. These people did not have bread in Canaan, which is the negative identification of the Promised Land. Canaan was the previous inhabitants who ruled in the Promised Land, so it’s being used negatively here because it’s not always called the land of Canaan. But God’s people heard that there was bread in Egypt during the seven years of famine and all Israel came to Joseph because we’re talking about Jacob, who was Israel, and all of his sons, who were the patriarchs. Literally, all of Israel came to be fed – all Israel, as we’re talking about in previous parallels here, and that is, of course, all of the people of God who were circumcised in heart – all the true people of God. The true remnant who’s coming out of the world, all of them are going to recognize the new leadership that God’s going to raise up and the ones who don’t are going to fight against it. That’s just history. That’s the way it works.

(45:6) Joseph said, for these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years, in which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest. (7) And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance. This is what’s in our future, folks – to save His true remnant “alive by a great deliverance.” Oh, glory to God! We see a big revival coming here, people out of all the world coming to the Bread of life that God has prepared for them. Oh, thank You, Father!

Now I’d like to share another parallel from 1 Samuel where, once again, we can see the same parallel, beginning with the birth of the Man-child. (1Sa.1:1) Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim, of the hill-country of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite (Elkanah is the man we’re looking at here and his name means “God has obtained.”): (2) and he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? (3) And this man went up out of his city from year to year to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, priests unto the Lord, were there. So these are the three who we’re going to be looking at: Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, that ministry. What is God going to show us about that? Well, let’s read just a little bit further.

(4) And when the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions: (5) but unto Hannah he gave a double portion; for he loved Hannah, but the Lord had shut up her womb. Well, now think about this. This sounds very similar to Jacob and Rachel and Leah, right? Rachel was the beloved wife, but she couldn’t have children. Well, you know what, man can’t bring forth what God wants to bring forth here. It’s not possible and what God is showing in all of these parables is that it’s not possible to bring forth the fruit of Jesus Christ by man. Think about Sarah bringing forth Isaac. Sarah was incapable of bringing it forth. Isaac came forth by a miracle. He was the seed of the promise. And think about Rachel bringing forth Joseph, the Man-child. Rachel could not bring forth fruit. And Hannah, which means “favored,” here in this case also could not bring forth fruit.

Isn’t it interesting that it’s always the favored wife who couldn’t bring forth the fruit? You know, the Lord had a couple of wives, but the first one was very obstinate and stubborn. The Bible says very clearly that He divorced her and married a new wife, and this new wife was His favored wife from the very beginning. We’re talking about a born-again Israel now, the second, new-creation Israel that’s created in the image of Jesus Christ, the last Adam, and not in the image of the first Adam. So this is the favored wife. Whether you know it or not, some of you folks out there have been totally deceived by a bunch of religious zealots who want to drag you back under the Law, but the truth is God’s plan was the New Testament from the beginning. The Law was just a type and shadow to lead up to that plan. And the Law is still blinding many, many people today, like the veil that was over Moses’ face (2 Corinthians 3:12). They don’t understand that the Law, which was just a type and shadow, passed away in Christ.

But the second wife was the favored wife, whom He loved from the beginning. Jacob loved Rachel first, but he only got to marry her second. She was the favored wife but she couldn’t bring forth the fruit. And we can’t either. We have no ability to bring forth the fruit of God. It has to be done by a miracle. It has to be done by God. The virgin Mary was a good example of that. She brought forth the fruit of Jesus Christ, the Man-child, and it had to be a miracle from heaven. Now, she could bring forth the seed of David, but she couldn’t bring forth the seed of God, so she could be the mother of the son of man, but she couldn’t be the mother of the Son of God, and Jesus was both, you see. And we are, too. We are both. The true Church in Revelation 12 gives birth to the Man-child. And that’s not a simple matter, either; it’s going to take a miracle from God. To recreate Jesus Christ in any one of us, it takes a miracle from God. He’s already provided it, we know that, and we’re praising God for that, but that’s where we are. Hannah was the one in typology, in parallel to all these other impossible births, who was to bring forth the Man-child. This is the revelation in our day – Revelation 12; this is going to happen and it is happening.

(11) And she vowed a vow, and said, O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thy handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thy handmaid, but wilt give unto thy handmaid a man-child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life, and there shall no razor come upon his head. That was because of the Nazarite vow. A Nazarite was one who did not shave his head and, of course, that leaves a man with long hair. In 1 Corinthians 11, we see that the bride is the one with the long hair, which symbolizes submission to the husband. We’re talking about a Man-child here who is submitted to the Lord; that’s what the symbolism is here. And praise be to God because if we were all submitted to the Lord, we’d all be first-fruits!

(20) And it came to pass, when the time was come about, that Hannah conceived, and bare a son; and she called his name Samuel, [saying,] Because I have asked him of the Lord. So “Samuel” means “heard of God.” God heard her. God heard her prayer and He fulfilled it. By nature, it was impossible for her to do it, but the Lord did it. (21) And the man Elkanah, and all his house, went up to offer unto the Lord the yearly sacrifice, and his vow. (22) But Hannah went not up; for she said unto her husband, [I will not go up] until the child be weaned; and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the Lord, and there abide for ever. Wow! This is a baby who, when he’s weaned, is going to appear before the Lord and abide there forever. You know, a person who’s on the milk is somebody who is “without experience of the word of righteousness” (Heb.5:13). What is it to be weaned from the milk? Jesus said, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me” (Joh.4:34). Many people are constantly on the milk and they never get off the milk. They stay on the milk and they think that’s all they’re supposed to do, just go to church and listen to the milk and go home and continue their worldly life. But it takes meat to grow up and walk in the steps of Jesus Christ, doesn’t it? We have to be weaned, be separated from the milk. Milk’s good, but you can’t live on it; you can’t grow up on it; you can’t be strong on it alone. We need to go beyond those first principles and a lot of people are not going beyond the first principles (Hebrews 5:12). We have to. So we need to be weaned from the milk. But the Bible says that he would appear before the Lord and there abide forever. Wow! In other words, here’s somebody who’s going to walk in the presence of God all the time.

Does that remind you of anybody? Yes, I would think Jesus Christ. Is God actually going to do that? Well, that’s what sons are. You see, Jesus was the Son of God and He lived in the presence of God. (5:19) Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner. Wow! It’s like Jesus’ eyes were on the Father the whole time, weren’t they? He was living in the presence of God, not in the flesh, in the Spirit. The Man-child is caught up to the throne, but he teaches the woman in the wilderness. Does that mean he leaves the throne? No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t ever leave the throne. He’s caught up to the throne; He stays there. David ruled from the throne and it was spoken of David’s throne that that was the throne of God on earth. So when we’re caught up to the throne of God, it’s not talking about some place way out there in space; it’s talking about a position of authority over God’s people. Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing. When a father teaches a son, he does it by example. (30) I can of myself do nothing: as I hear I judge: and my judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. So He was constantly seeing and hearing the Father.

He must have been before the throne then and that’s the whole point. It says, “and there abide for ever.” The Man-child ministry is one in which the first-fruits are going to be standing before the throne all the time and ruling from the throne all the time because they are in the presence of God in the spirit. People think about being caught up in the clouds, but that’s not the kind of catching-up we’re talking about here. We’re talking about, for instance, when Moses went to the throne of God. It was on top of the mountain but he also went to the people of God and brought them out of Egypt, into the wilderness to meet God on His throne, right? So the typology is there. He wants to bring all of God’s people to His throne. He wants us all to be manifestly sons of God. So that’s the Man-child. In spirit, He’s going to live in the throne room.

(1Sa.1:25) And they slew the bullock, and brought the child to Eli. Now, many of you already know that Eli is an apostate ministry. But Samuel was raised up in the house of Eli; David was raised up in the house of Saul; Moses and Joseph were raised up in the house of Pharaoh. We all started out there, did we not? We all started out in one of these apostate ministries. So here Samuel, as a baby, is being brought to be raised up in the house of Eli. (28) Therefore also I have granted him to the Lord; as long as he liveth he is granted to the Lord. (This is Hannah speaking to Eli. She’s giving Samuel over to the house of God.) And he worshipped the Lord there. (2:1) And Hannah prayed, and said: My heart exalteth in the Lord; My horn is exalted in the Lord…. You know, that sounds very much like Mary in Luke 1, what they call the “Magnificat,” where Mary glorified the Lord when she was bringing forth the birth of Jesus Christ. Here, Hannah, in her prayer, which is very, very prophetic, said some things that I dare say she probably didn’t understand, but I think there is some understanding we can gain from it. (5) … Yea, the barren (Of course, we know that Hannah was barren, right?) hath borne seven; And she that hath many children (which, of course, was Peninnah) languisheth. So what did she mean, she had born seven? Well, we’re talking about a Man-child here, but the Man-child is not an individual, is he? And why seven? If we go to Micah 5:5, we see that Micah prophesied that when the Lord returned to his people that he would raise up seven princes, “seven shepherds, and eight principal men,” or eight princes among men, to defend God’s people from the Beast.

It’s seven because there are seven churches and God is raising up the leadership to go to the seven churches. John, who was also a type of the Man-child, was given the revelation of the end-time to give to the seven churches and he sent by means of seven messengers, or seven angels (angelos). Angelos is not translated correctly. They put the word “angel” there, which is the Greek word, but if they translated it, it would be “messengers.” And “angel,” or angelos, in the New Testament, is the same word used for “ministers,” meaning “earthly messengers.” We know that God sent seven messengers to the seven churches and today He’s going to do the same thing. They’re not seven individual messengers; it’s a corporate body of messengers to the seven churches. So she said something here that didn’t make sense concerning her being barren and bringing forth seven, but it does make a lot of sense prophetically. And then in verse eight, about halfway down, it says, (8) … To make them sit with princes, And inherit the throne of glory…. This is her Man-child that she brought forth to inherit the throne of glory. Praise be to God!

(10) They that strive with the Lord shall be broken to pieces; Against them will he thunder in heaven: The Lord will judge the ends of the earth…. I believe this is talking about the Eli, Pharisee and Saul ministries, and a lot of ministers in our day who are going to resist and fight against the truth, as they have throughout history. In Jesus’ day, the leadership over God’s people fought with Jesus; they accused Jesus; they crucified Jesus. They did the same with His disciples, also. They strove with the Lord and He destroyed them.

(10) … And he will give strength unto his king, And exalt the horn of his anointed. Oh, praise God! Who is this king and His anointed? Well, in this case it was Samuel, but it was also Joseph, Moses, David and Jesus, all those good types. Praise be to God! He will exalt the horn, the strength of His anointed. (11) And Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. And the child did minister unto the Lord before Eli the priest. (12) Now the sons of Eli were base men; they knew not the Lord. How could they have been the priests of Israel and not know the Lord? Well, honestly, it doesn’t take very long to read the Word of God to find out that a lot of ministers nowadays don’t know the Lord. They don’t know the Lord but do they have some kind of association with religion? Yes. When you come into the Kingdom and you get a born-again spirit, you have a consciousness of God, but, quite frankly, if you don’t obey that born-again spirit, it soon dies and you become what the Bible calls “twice dead, plucked up by the roots” (Jud.12). Who was Jude speaking about when he said that? Apostate ministers, that’s who he was talking about. And so you can be in the pulpit and be dead as a doornail. Saul died at the hands of the Philistines and I believe that it’s talking about being dead in the spirit while he lived. We know that many of you have come out of churches after you realized they were dead. They were really not walking in the spirit; they were really not sharing the living Word of God. They were dead and you came out because of that. Praise God!

(1Sa.2:13) And the custom of the priests with the people was, that, when any man offered sacrifice, the priest’s servant came, while the flesh was boiling, with a flesh-hook of three teeth in his hand; (14) and he struck it into the pan, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot; all that the flesh-hook brought up the priest took therewith. So they did in Shiloh unto all Israel that came thither. Shiloh, of course, was the house of God in those days, so this is basically the ministers gathering up their tithe, but these people were abusing it. And it’s a very good type of exactly what’s happening today. They were abusing their position as priests of the Lord, as ministers of God’s house, by plundering God’s people. Now he’s going to point out two main things here about the sons of Eli that are exactly the problems with the leadership of the church in our day. How are they plundering God’s people? Well, let’s read on a little bit here.

(15) Yea, before they burnt the fat, the priest’s servant came, and said to the man that sacrificed, Give flesh to roast for the priest; for he will not have boiled flesh of thee, but raw. Of course, that wasn’t according to their custom. (16) And if the man said unto him, They will surely burn the fat first, and then take as much as thy soul desireth; then he would say, Nay, but thou shalt give it me now: and if not, I will take it by force. So here you have some ministers basically taking what they feel belonged to them, by force. The only thing was, this was a sacrifice. This was a sacrifice made by the person who was freely giving it, but they were taking it by force. That’s an abuse of a sacrifice. Do you know that in the New Testament God has a sacrifice? It’s a freewill offering. There is nothing in the New Testament about taking something by Law. Who is it who takes by Law? Well, you’re looking at it right here. It’s the apostate Eli ministry which is robbing and plundering God’s people and taking from them by Law, taking from them because of their position. We don’t have any such custom in the New Testament of demanding a tithe. Jesus said, So therefore whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple (Luk.14:33). He didn’t say 10%; He said everything you have. And Jesus said, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law” (Mat.23:23). Jesus said tithing was of the Law, not of grace. There’s no commandment in the New Testament whatsoever for you to do this. Not one.

But here is what’s commanded: (2Co.9:6) But this [I say,] He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. So it’s just according to how much you give and that’s really not according to the Law. The Law was 10% -- bring into the storehouse 10%. But now He’s saying very plainly, “No, the more you give, the more you’ll receive.” (7) [Let] each man [do] according as he hath purposed in his heart…. Well, that’s certainly not the Law at all. That’s not demanding it; that’s a freewill offering. Do as you feel in your heart. This is a man’s personal sacrifice to God and to the ministry, and, of course, the ministry today is abusing that because they are dragging people back under the Law, which is forbidden. The Law separates from Christ; it separates from grace and, if you seek to be justified by the Law, you have to keep the whole Law. (Gal.5:3) … He is a debtor to do the whole law. (4) Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would be justified by the law; ye are fallen away from grace. So it’s not good for ministers to say you have to keep the tithe because you can’t be saved that way.

If you’re seeking to be justified by the Law, then you have to keep the whole Law in order to be justified, but we’re justified by grace and God says this is what God wants from His New Testament, born-again people. These are not people who are lost people, who are just following rules and regulations. These are people who have the grace of God in their heart. God expects more. (Luk.12:48) And to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required…. Now, in the New Testament, when you’re born again and you receive the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in your newborn temple; therefore He expects more because you have God in you and you are the temple. You don’t go to the temple, you are the temple of God. Wow! God’s in us. (Col.1:27) … Christ in you, the hope of glory. God is the One Who is living the Christian life in us, you see. That’s the whole point. So you would expect more from someone like that. You don’t have to force somebody like that to do something and, if you had to, they obviously don’t have God in their heart. So what does the Lord say? (2Co.9:7) Let each man [do] according as he hath purposed in his heart: not grudgingly, or of necessity … It’s not even necessary. Wow! But don’t let the preachers hear me say that because I know I’ll be in big trouble.

Well, it’s not going to be edifying to a person to not give because giving is the heart of God and giving is how, of course, God multiplies it back to us. (6) But this [I say,] He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. In other words, God wants to bless us and He’s telling us that if it’s in our heart to give, then good, do it. But He’s not putting you under Law. It’s not of necessity. Anybody who does put you under the Law is departing from the New Testament and they’re doing exactly like Eli’s sons, who were using the Law to force the giving.

So he says, (7) … For God loveth a cheerful giver. (8) And God is able to make all grace abound unto you; that ye, having always all sufficiency in everything, may abound unto every good work…. That’s a powerful promise that covers everything, doesn’t it? And it’s just because a person gives out of the heart, not because they’re under the Law. You know, sure, if you give under the Law, God will give back. When I first learned that the Lord wanted me to give, I did, and for a short time I went under the Law. But when I realized that it wasn’t Scriptural, I started to give according to the Spirit because now I had the Holy Spirit to speak in my heart and tell me what to do. In the New Testament, that’s why the Holy Spirit is given. You don’t need a law. It’s “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom.8:2). You don’t have need to have anybody to tell you, “You must do this.” Instead, you want to do it because God is working in you to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). That’s what New Testament salvation is all about. God is putting it in your heart. That’s the kind of person God wants. He doesn’t want a person who has to be forced or they won’t do it. What kind of a son is that? That’s a servant, but it’s not a son and God is creating sons.

So if we look back in 1 Samuel 2, we see a problem with the overwhelming majority of apostate ministries nowadays. They want to force the people to give something that should be a sacrifice on the part of the giver. They should just want to give it out of their own heart. In other words, give them the freedom to make the sacrifice the way they see that they want to do it. But, in the apostate ministries, the giving is being forced and that’s exactly what we’re seeing here in 1 Samuel.

But the priest’s servant said, (1Sa.2:16) Nay, but thou shalt give it me now: and if not, I will take it by force. (17) And the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord; for the men despised the offering of the Lord. See, the offering of the Lord is holy because it comes out of holy hearts, people who want to give. They see a need and they are meeting that need. And it may be the need of their brother. Jesus said, “Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, [even] these least, ye did it unto me” (Mat.25:40). It may be a need of the brethren. It may not be bringing it in to the storehouse, which is a church building or an organization, because the storehouse was not in the church. In the Old Testament, it was in the Temple and we are the Temple. God is going to judge His people by the way they treat His Temple, by what you do to the least “of these my brethren.” Did you feed them? Did you clothe them? Did you visit them in prison? See, that’s how He judged the nations when He returned because that’s His Temple. So it’s very important that the sacrifice be a willing sacrifice in our covenant and not be demanded by Law. The people in ministry who force the giving are despising the offering of the Lord.

(1Sa.2:27) And there came a man of God unto Eli, and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Did I reveal myself unto the house of thy father, when they were in Egypt [in bondage] to Pharaoh’s house? (28) and did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up unto mine altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? and did I give unto the house of thy father all of the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? (29) Wherefore kick ye at mine sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in [my] habitation, and honorest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people? An Eli ministry gets fat from the offerings of God’s people because they have departed from the Word of God; they are plundering God’s people. It’s not permitted and they will be judged for it, exactly like Eli’s sons were being judged for it.

You know, we are warned over and over in the Scriptures: (Isa.56:9) All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, [yea,] all ye beasts in the forest. (10) His watchmen are blind … Did you know, by the way, that Eli was blind? He became blind. (10) His watchmen are blind, they are all without knowledge; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark (In other words, they do not know when the enemy’s coming. They don’t know how to warn God’s people. They don’t know that they are the enemy.); dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. (11) Yea, the dogs are greedy, they can never have enough; and these are shepherds that cannot understand: they have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter.

How many of God’s people are supporting this debauchery in God’s church? See, it’s totally contrary to the Word of God. What you are supporting, folks, when you’re doing that, is an Eli ministry. It’s going down the drain fast at this particular moment. They’re going to die. They’re all going to die. I’m not talking physically, I’m talking spiritually. If they’re not dead already, they’re going to die. They’d have to repent and come out of plundering God’s people. There’s nothing in the New Testament about being under the Law for giving.

We are, of course, stewards of what belongs to God in the New Testament. (Luk.14:33) So therefore whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. We are stewards; we’re not owners. So, therefore, a person who tithes is a thief because he thinks the 90% belongs to him and the 10% belongs to God. Well, you just stole 90% because Jesus said the rest of that belongs to Him, too. So, if we’re not a thief, then we listen to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit tells you what to do with your house, He tells you what to do with your car, He tells you what to do with your money. He tells you not only what to give and how much, but where to give it and to whom to give it. He is the One. He is the Lord, since you have the Holy Spirit.

In the Old Testament, they did not have the Holy Spirit commonly, so they needed a rule and regulation to tell them what to do. It’s not so now. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made you free from the law of sin and death, so you’re free from that law and now you’re under the law of the Spirit. And the Spirit is the One Who knows your brethren, He knows the needs; He knows exactly what He wants to do and how much He wants to do, so we have to follow the Holy Spirit with everything. The Sabbath is no longer one day; it’s every day. We cease from our works and enter into His rest every day.

Now, what about the tithe? It’s the same thing. See, when Jesus came, He multiplied the Law. Did you notice that in Matthew 5? Everything about the Law He multiplied, He made it bigger, because now God works in us from the inside out to do His Will. He works a desire in us to do what before we were fighting against with our carnal nature, you see. It’s a wonderful thing. But the Eli ministries are greedy dogs; they can never have enough. It is astounding how they can see so many people in need, even in their own assemblies, and yet don’t lift a finger to help them. Meanwhile, they’re flying their jet planes and doing all these things. How many jet planes do you need?

Well, here’s another good example, I think. (Eze.34:2) Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, even to the shepherds, Thus saith the Lord God: Woe unto the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the sheep? (3) Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill the fatlings; but ye feed not the sheep. (10) Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my sheep at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the sheep; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves anymore; and I will deliver my sheep from their mouth, that they may not be food for them. Well, praise God! And in the same chapter, by the way, He delivered them over to the David ministry. (23) And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. (24) And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David prince among them…. We know David, primarily, is a type of Jesus Christ and Jesus sat upon the throne of David. He still rules upon the throne of David and He still comes in a body of flesh like He did the first time, but it’s a corporate body. That’s what the Man-child is, you see, so nobody really gets the credit but Jesus. Praise God!

(1Sa.2:29) … Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice and at mine offering, which I have commanded in [my] habitation, and honorest thy sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the chiefest of all the offerings of Israel my people? (30) Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me…. Wow! Did you know God could do that? Have you ever heard that doctrine of unconditional eternal security? Look at that big “but now” in the middle of that. “But now.” I did say this, “but now” … You see? Because God’s promises are conditional and we have to have faith in Him. Our part is faith; His part is to supply the power. God can drop us like a rock any time. He can empower you to walk in His steps or He can give you up to this world and I’ll tell you what: there is no promise for those who don’t bear fruit. God is looking for the fruit of Jesus Christ. (30) … But now the Lord saith, Be it far from me; for them that honor me I will honor, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. Obviously, He’s talking about these preachers who were plundering His people and abusing them, and taking an offering from them. You don’t “take” an “offering.” That’s an oxymoron, folks.

(31) Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thine arm, and the arm of thy father’s house, that there shall not be an old man in thy house. (32) And thou shalt behold the affliction of [my] habitation, in all the wealth which [God] shall give Israel; and there shall not be an old man in thy house for ever. (33) And the man of thine, [whom] I shall not cut off from mine altar, [shall be] to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thy heart; and all the increase of thy house shall die in the flower of their age. (34) And this shall be the sign unto thee, that shall come upon thy two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas…. Do you know what “Hophni” and “Phinehas” mean? “Hophni” means “stiff-necked, self-willed,” and “Phinehas,” I understand, means “a trustworthy face, but the mouth of a serpent.” Isn’t that interesting? You know, a lot of people see what they see standing in the pulpit, but that’s all they see. They see what they’re supposed to see and they see what they are permitted to see, but they don’t know what’s really going on there. I remember one of the first churches I was invited to when I moved over here to preach and I stayed in there for quite a while and did a lot of teaching. The pastor of that particular church was an Eli pastor and, no doubt about it, he was doing everything that these guys were doing and more. There was a man who came in one time when I was preaching and he got saved; he came in totally drunk and he got sobered up. God gave him a vision shortly after that of the pastor and he saw a serpent standing up behind the pulpit and speaking through a microphone. He did not understand it and he brought it to me and I told him, “Well, it means just what it says, you know.” And, actually, the pastor’s last name meant “dragon.” He was the dragon, the old serpent. Well, “Phinehas” means “a trustworthy face, but the mouth of a serpent.” (34) And this shall be the sign unto thee, that shall come upon thy two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall die both of them.

I’m going to back up a little bit here. (22) Now, Eli was very old; and he heard all that his sons did unto Israel, and how that they lay with the women that did service at the door of the tent of meeting. Do we ever hear of that happening nowadays? Yes, quite often, don’t we? It seems like sex and money seem to get hold of an awful lot of people who put themselves in a position of ultimate power over God’s people. It seems like men who are not full of God cannot stand too much power, too much authority, too much money, too much esteem of the people, before they begin to take advantage of it. What it’s saying is that a person shouldn’t seek a position in God’s Kingdom unless God puts them there. You know how God puts them there? He prepares them first. They are overcomers. (Rev.2:26) And he that overcometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give authority over the nations. To him that overcometh will I give authority, He says.

Well, you don’t have to do that. “You can just go to Bible school, David. Didn’t you know that? You go to Bible school and you pay for that certificate and they give it to you. Now you’re a preacher.” Yes, but you’re in trouble, too, because there is not the nature of Jesus Christ there because you have not overcome by going through trials yourself. And so what happens when you get out there and you get all this temptation? Because the Nicolaitan error is a great temptation. Putting a man in a position that is not Biblical is a great temptation that most people cannot stand. And the proof is showing up. I mean, they are laying with the women who do the service of the door of the Tent of Meeting. They’re doing it now. The money, the women, the power, the abuse of their power, it’s still the problem.

We know God never designed a Nicolaitan ministry, anyway. He called for a five-fold ministry. That’s what He called for. He distributed the authority among the five-fold ministry. That’s His way of doing things. God’s going to raise up the five-fold ministry. Remember, Jesus the Man-child raised up the apostles who raised up the five-fold ministry. The apostles ordained the five-fold ministers. They are the ones who started that. Once again, history is going to repeat in these days because the Man-child is going to raise up apostles who are going to raise up the five-fold ministry. He is going to restore the real five-fold ministry this time. I’m talking about people who have overcome, who are given a position by God, who were ordained to that position by God. In the Bible, it was apostles who ordained the five-fold ministry, but nowadays Bible schools can do it, so we have gone astray, folks. We’ve fallen into what the Bible calls the “Nicolaitan error” (Revelation 2:6). We’ve gone far, far astray, and the ministers who put themselves in that position, and the people who put the ministers in that position, are not doing them a favor because they really can’t hold up to that. God has to do this. God is the One Who ordains ministers, not men, not organizations and not religions. And so we’ve ended up with quite a lot of the Eli ministry out there. In Jesus’ day, how many of the Pharisees, who were Eli ministers, how many of them recognized Him and obeyed Him when God sent His Son? Well, God is doing it again and they’re going to do the same thing.

Well, God bless you. We love you. Keep us in prayer. We appreciate it so much.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Come Out of Her, My People

God bless you. We appreciate you so much. We want to thank the Lord today for being with us in this study and giving us His grace and guiding us in some of this Word.

Father, in Jesus’ Name, we love You, Lord, and we praise You! We give thanks unto You, oh Lord. God, You’re our light, You’re our understanding, You’re our hearing. Father, give us the grace. Lord, bring all things to our remembrance, Lord, the things that You have taught us, the things that You have sent to us; bring them to our remembrance, Lord. Especially when we study these things, Lord, we know how Your Holy Spirit ties things together for us so neatly and then later brings them back to our remembrance and our understanding. And, also, Lord, I, too, need Your gift of remembrance because I’m not much of a preacher without You, Lord. We just pray that Your grace is here in our midst today, Lord. We can do all things through Christ Who strengthens us and I thank You for Your strength today, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Well, we’ve been studying the Pharisee, Saul and Eli ministries and we’ve been seeing that history keeps repeating; we just keep going through these cycles. I started this series by telling you what the Lord told me, that this is where we are right now, in the midst of a Pharisee, Saul and Eli ministry. But coming right down the road is this Man-child ministry to take over. We’ve been studying in 1 Samuel and Samuel represents the Man-child, in this case. In fact, we’re seeing the same parallel sequence of events explained in a little bit different way, but we can tell it’s a repetition of history. Looking at the news concerning the church and the pastors and teachers and prophets and so on, we can see the great falling away going on around us. We know that it’s happening again and we can tell where we are.

In the previous chapter, we left off where God was pronouncing judgment upon the Eli ministry and what was going to happen to it. Basically, it was the same thing: they were going to die. And we’re talking about a spiritual death, not a physical death, because we know that these apostates are going to be used all the way through the Tribulation period. Even though they’re going to die, even though they will be dying in these days and in the days leading up to and going through the Tribulation, that death is the death of the spiritual man at the hands of the old man because they walked after the flesh. So let’s continue with our study.

(1Sa.2:31) Behold, the days come, that I will cut off thine arm (this is speaking of Eli and his household), and the arm of thy father’s house, that there shall not be an old man in thy house. (32) And thou shalt behold the affliction of [my] habitation, in all the wealth which [God] shall give Israel; and there shall not be an old man in thy house for ever. (33) And the man of thine, [whom] I shall not cut off from mine altar, [shall be] to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thy heart; and all the increase of thy house shall die in the flower of their age. (34) And this shall be the sign unto thee, that shall come upon thy two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall die both of them. (35) And I will raise me up a faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in my heart and in my mind…. Oh, praise the Lord! This is what we have coming, folks: faithful priests “that shall do according to that which is in my heart and in my mind.” That’s not a small statement there. God will give grace. He will send new leadership. Of course, we know that this priest represents a corporate body in our day, spread throughout the earth, that God is sending to restore His people.

(35) … And I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before mine anointed for ever. Oh, praise the Lord! “He shall walk before mine anointed for ever.” What do you think that means? Well, most people think it means he’ll walk before the Lord. I think that’s true, no doubt that this new, faithful ministry will walk before the Lord, but I believe that there’s something deeper than that here. Let’s turn to the New Testament. (2Co.1:21) Now he that establisheth us with you in Christ, and anointed us, is God. Stop and think about that. God establishes us in Christ and anoints us. You know, the word “Christ” means “the anointed.” And Christ was the anointed, but Jesus left an individual body to come back in a corporate body in order to be able to do all over the world what He did in that first body, so the body of Christ is to be anointed. (22) Who also sealed us, and gave [us] the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. The “anointing” is “to be filled with the Holy Spirit.” I dare say most of the church is not filled with the Spirit but, then, most of the church is not anointed. The Lord told me years ago that if we get what the apostles got, we’ll do what they did. Read the book of Acts and find out what they had. When Jesus was ministering to the disciples, “he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit” (Joh.20:22) and “there came from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind” (Act.2:2) and “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues” (4), etc. Now, if you get that, you’ll do what they did. Most of the church today is very dead because they feel that they have been anointed but they haven’t. It’s just words, you know. So, folks, if you don’t want what they have, you won’t do what they did.

So “he … establisheth us with you in Christ, and anointed us.” Why does God anoint us? It’s so that we can walk in the steps of Christ, so that Christ can live through us to the world. We need to be anointed. We have to have this anointing, you see. What it said about Samuel was that, “He shall walk before mine anointed for ever.” In other words, in this case we’re talking about him being the leadership of God’s anointed body that God is sending in the earth. He’s walking before them as the leader of His anointed body to do His works. The Man-child will be a leader of the anointed body of Christ in our day, just as Jesus was in His day.

(1Sa.2:36) And it shall come to pass, that everyone that is left in thy house…. What does “left” it mean? Well, we haven’t gotten that far yet, but his house was wiped out and the people who followed his house were wiped out, at the hand of the Philistines. We know the Philistine represents the old man who lives in the land. There’s a war going on between our spiritual man, who is an Israelite and the old man, who is a Philistine, and the war is for the land, which Hebrews 6 tells us is this life; this life is that land. Now when he says here, “everyone that is left in thy house,” it means, in other words, there are some people who are going to repent of the Saul ministry and not only of the ministry, but of following the Saul ministry. They’re no longer going to be a part of that house and they’re going to survive because their old man is not going to conquer them.

(36) And it shall come to pass, that everyone that is left in thy house shall come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and shall say, Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a morsel of bread. We are the priests of God. As we sacrifice unto the Lord, as we make this burnt offering of flesh to the Lord, each one of us presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice, we are the priests of God. You’re not sacrificing your life unto the Saul ministry. That’s the whole problem; the Saul ministry refused to sacrifice the old man and, therefore, died at the hands of the old man. Now we’re seeing the same thing about Eli. And so if we want to be priests, we have to be following the Samuels. There are people who are going to come out from under the Eli and Saul ministries and follow the David and Samuel ministry, and they will be priests of the Lord.

Notice how this sounds very much like Joseph. Remember how, after selling Joseph into bondage, his own brothers came into the kingdom and it was he who kept them alive during the seven years of famine? He fed them. They came to him. All Israel, as a matter of fact, came to Joseph because the sons of Jacob, or Israel, all came to him in Egypt and Joseph served them; he met their needs. And we saw, also, that as soon as Saul died on Gilboa, along with the part of Israel that followed him, all the rest of Israel followed David. (1Ch.11:1) Then all Israel gathered themselves to David unto Hebron, saying, Behold, we are thy bone and thy flesh. Wow, they’re actually saying they’re the body of David! And so we see that this is about to repeat, folks. These people are dying; not physically, but spiritually they are dying. They’re dying at the hands of the old man because they’ve refused to make war against the old man.

(1Sa.3:1) And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was precious (or “rare”) in those days; there was no frequent vision. It’s the same today. There is “no frequent vision” from the Lord. Yes, many people have visions and the frequency of the vision of the Lord is something that the prophetic office is supposed to be sending forth, but it’s all been polluted. (2) And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place (now his eyes had begun to wax dim, so that he could not see). Notice that when Samuel arrives, the Word begins to speak about Eli’s eyesight being poor and it seems to get worse and worse the longer that Samuel is on the scene. There’s a reason for that and we’ll look at it. But what does it mean for his eyes to begin “to wax dim, so that he could not see”? Well, I think this is talking about a lack of perception, a lack of discernment. As Jesus said, “Therefore speak I to them in parables; because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand” (Mat.13:13). They lost their eyesight in the days of the coming of Jesus and now it’s speaking about the Eli ministry losing their eyesight.

(1Sa.3:3) And the lamp of God was not yet gone out, and Samuel was laid down [to sleep,] in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. So here’s Samuel in the presence of the Lord and here’s Eli losing his eyesight. Now if we go back to one of the verses we read earlier, it says, “and the man of thine, [whom] I shall not cut off from mine altar” (2:33). We see that there are some people who are “under” the Saul ministry who are not going to be “of” the Saul ministry because they’re going to repent. There’s a multitude of God’s people who are going to come out of these apostate churches and follow the David ministry, follow the Samuel ministry, and we praise God for that. This is going to be a reformation that’s coming. Those who stay will die. There’s no doubt about it. If they continue to follow that which is not the leading of the Holy Spirit, not ordained of God, not the Word of God, they will die. (33) And the man of thine, [whom] I shall not cut off from mine altar, [shall be] to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thy heart; and all the increase of thy house shall die in the flower of their age.

Remember, David was raised up under the Saul ministry, but he was David; he continued to grow. And here Samuel is raised up under the Eli ministry. This seems to be a parallel all the way through the Scriptures. So he’s saying that there are people who are of that house, who will not be cut off from God’s altar, but they will be “to consume thine eyes.” Why is this? How could it be that somebody who is righteous and who is going to outgrow that ministry, and who is going to repent, how could it be that these people will consume the eyes of the Eli ministry? Well, believe it or not, Jesus made a statement like that. Of course, we know Jesus was the Samuel, was the man-child of His day. (Joh.9:39) And Jesus said, For judgment came I into this world, that they that see not may see; and they that see may become blind. So here’s the Samuel ministry coming upon the scene and suddenly somebody’s becoming blind. (40) Those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things, and said unto him, Are we also blind? (41) And Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye would have no sin: but now ye say, We see: your sin remaineth. In our day, those people who say they see are becoming blind, but the people who don’t claim to have the understanding, the perception, or the discernment, they’re the ones like the kind of people whom Jesus gathered around Him. It was those fishermen, those tax collectors, those harlots, those sinners, it was they who became His staunch disciples and they didn’t say that they could see. They didn’t claim to be theologians, they didn’t claim to know everything about God, but the people who did were becoming blind.

In John 9 there’s a really neat story about a blind man who’s blind from birth and whom Jesus healed of his blindness. Jesus made mud, He smeared it on his eyes, sent him into the pool of Siloam and the blind man came back seeing. When the Pharisees heard of this, they basically called the healed man on the carpet and wanted to know who it was who had done this. So he said it was the one called Jesus. Then they wanted to know how it was that he was healed, so he related the whole story. Of course, they were just trying to pick holes in the story because these were the jealous Eli ministry that really didn’t want anybody coming in and taking away their position, their kingdom. Jesus spoke of their ministry in Matthew 21 through the parable of God sending His Son and then those people who wanted the vineyard for themselves killing the Son. Well, it’s pretty neat how this man rebuked those Pharisees. After they asked him a couple of times in a row, “How did he do this?” he said, “I told you already. You weren’t listening. Why didn’t you hear?” And they said, “We know this man’s a sinner, that he couldn’t possibly be from God.” To which the healed man replied, (30) Why, herein is the marvel, that ye know not whence he is, and [yet] he opened mine eyes. (31) We know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and do his will, him he heareth. (32) Since the world began it was never heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind. And how is it that these people didn’t know that this man was from God? The healed man told them, “We know that God doesn’t hear sinners, but he opened my eyes.” So this man, who didn’t say he was a theologian, didn’t say he knew everything about God, had a lot more wisdom than these people who were going against the Word of God in trying to justify themselves. This man who was under their ministry, under this Saul-Pharisee-Eli ministry, was now being delivered and it was making them angry. Actually, they excommunicated him; they threw him out of the church, basically because he told the truth, but they didn’t want to hear the truth.

There are some of you today who are coming out from among them. Like the Shulamite in the Song of Solomon, you have tried to bring this Jesus Whom you’ve found back to your “mother” and some of them really don’t want to hear about it (Song of Solomon 3:4). You know what I’m talking about, right? Well, every time that you come out from under those ministries and you bring back the truth to them and they reject that truth, they become a little bit more blind, a little bit more blind. Jesus the Man-child came so that these people would become blind.

When Samuel came on the scene, the anointed of God, the Man-child of that day, born of Hannah, then we begin reading over and over that the Eli ministry’s becoming blind. You see, in this day, folks, notice that God says, (1Sa.2:33) “and the man of thine, [whom] I shall not cut off from mine altar, [shall be] to consume thine eyes, and to grieve thy heart.” You know how grieving it is to those ministries when you go back and try to share truth with them, simple truth from the Word of God, and they don’t want to hear it? And when they deny the Word that you bring to them they become more blind every time. It’s interesting, you know, when the man who was healed mildly rebuked the Pharisees, “they answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out” (Joh.9:34). Who’s not born in sin, right? But they’re obviously pointing out that if he was blind from birth, his blindness was because of sin. Blindness from birth was quite common in those days. But they wouldn’t let anybody teach them, they didn’t want to hear from somebody who was not educated, not puffed up because of their religious system, or not somebody who went through their theological training. They don’t want to hear anything from those people. You can bring them simple, simple truth; every time they deny it, they get more and more blind. They lose perception and discernment, just as this verse says: (1Sa.3:2) “And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place (now his eyes had begun to wax dim, so that he could not see), (3) and the lamp of God was not yet gone out.” Now the “lamp of God” here, in a sense, means his prophetic ministry to the people of God, or it could also be talking about the lamp of the eye, as Jesus spoke about it (Matthew 6:22). But, either way, we know, for instance, in Zechariah, that God is going to raise up a “foolish shepherd (Zec.11:15) in the land” (16).

God has done it in every generation; in every cycle God has done this. (15) And the Lord said unto me, Take unto thee yet again the instruments of a foolish shepherd. (16) For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, who will not visit those that are cut off, neither will seek those that are scattered, nor heal that which is broken, nor feed that which is sound…. Of course, we need to be fed the unleavened bread because that’s the Seed of God that brings forth Christ in us, which is the only kind of fruit that God is interested in. (16) … Nor feed that which is sound; but he will eat the flesh of the fat [sheep]…. Once again, we see the plundering of the sheep, living off the sheep, getting fat off the sheep. (16) … And will tear their hoofs in pieces. The Lord pointed out to me one time so eloquently that hooves are what separate sheep from the world. This represents sanctification, which means separation from the world, separation unto God.

God wants us separate from the world, but connected to Him. When Moses went up on the mountain to meet the Lord, God told him, “Hey, take your shoes off, Moses. You’re standing on holy ground” (Exodus 3:2). In other words, God didn’t want Moses separated from that holy ground. “Holy” and “sanctified” is the same word, right? God did not want Moses separate from holy ground, but out there in the world God wanted Moses to keep his shoes on because we want to be separate from the world, we want to be sanctified. Well, when you take the foolish shepherd who is breaking the hooves off of the sheep, that means they’re doing anything but sanctifying them from this world. Instead, they’re making them worldly.

(17) Woe unto the worthless shepherd that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm…. The arm represents your strength by which you do your works. (Isa.53:1) … And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Our strength is Jesus Christ and we do our works through His power. I know some people have said, “Oh, this is the antichrist.” Well, no, it’s not. It’s talking about the antichrist in the church. It’s talking about the leadership of apostate shepherds that God said He would raise up. (Zec.11:17) Woe unto the worthless shepherd that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened. “The sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye” means his spiritual discernment, his ability to see in the spirit, his ability to discern and understand the Word of God and so on “shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.”

This sounds very much like a verse in Micah: (Mic.3:6) “Therefore, it shall be night unto you, that ye shall have no vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be black over them.” We’re coming to a day when people who have called themselves prophets and spiritual leaders, pastors and so on and so forth, if they have not followed the Lord in putting to death the old man and submitted to the Word of God, they’re going to become more and more blind. God is taking away their discernment. Even as we’re studying, He’s taking away their spiritual discernment and they’re not even understanding that it’s happening. (1) And I said, Hear, I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel: is it not for you to know justice? (2) ye who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; (3) who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them…. What do you think it means to take their skin off of them? You know, our skin separates us from the world, too. It also is a protection against the attack of the enemy, isn’t it? Germs and things like that, our skin protects us against them. It’s kind of a first line of defense, isn’t it? So, again, why are so many of the people of God plundered? Because they are not trained with the true Word of God! The Word of God is our defense, it’s our shield, it’s our high tower and there’s no protection unless you’re trained, given the truth of the Word of God. So (3) … they flay their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the cauldron. In other words, they’re going to devour, they’re going to partake of, they’re going to get fat off of the flesh of the sheep.

People who are not fleshly can’t stand these apostate ministers, but the people of God who are fleshly cannot discern them. Even the world can look at the apostate ministers and see that they are plundering the flock, but these poor people have fallen under their spell. They’re going to sleep listening to their teachings and so they can’t rightly discern. (4) Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he will not answer them; yea, he will hide his face from them at that time, according as they have wrought evil in their doings.

Well, you know, it was the same in Jesus’ day. Jesus spoke to them in parables so that they would not perceive and would not understand and repent, and God would heal them (Matthew 13:15). We know that the same thing is happening in our day. God is not going to grant them repentance. They have done evil in plundering God’s people and very few of them are going to escape. (5) Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people to err; that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and whoso putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him. In other words, anybody who doesn’t flatter their ego, well, they’re going to make war against them, right? Anybody who doesn’t feed their pocketbook or their ego, they’re going to make war against them. (6) Therefore it shall be night unto you, that ye shall have no vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down upon the prophets and the day shall be black over them. (7) And the seers shall be put to shame, and the diviners confounded; yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God. Remember how when Saul was in a war with the enemy and he was losing the war, that he tried to get an answer from God and God would not answer him? And so what did Saul end up doing? Going to the demons. He got an answer from them, didn’t he? Do you think it’s any different today? I don’t think so. (8) But as for me, I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord…. “But as for me,” Micah says. You know what “Micah” means? It means “Who is like God?” Micah, who is like God, Micah says, “But as for me, I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin” (8). Sounds, once again, like we’ve found another Man-child here who is being accosted by the Eli, Saul and Pharisee ministries, right?

(9) Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, that abhor justice, and pervert all equity (which basically means “uprightness,” “pervert all uprightness”). (10) They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. (11) The heads thereof judge for reward (Sounds like the Eli ministry, doesn’t it?), and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us. (12) Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. So judgment came because, once again, God’s people have followed a Saul ministry, a Pharisee ministry, and so judgment came. And, once again, folks, why is this Tribulation coming upon the world? For the same reason. God’s people have not represented Him to this world and it has to be done. We’re coming to the end. God is merciful in bringing these judgments. It has to be done.

So returning to our text in 1 Samuel, we see that even though Samuel had showed up as a child and was not yet matured, had not yet come into his position of authority, God was training him. However, during this whole time, Eli was becoming darker and darker in his understanding and dimmer and dimmer in his sight, but the lamp of God was not yet gone out (1Sa.3:3).

(3) … And Samuel was laid down [to sleep,] in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was (Samuel slept in the presence of God, didn’t he? He rested in the presence of God.); that the Lord called Samuel…. Now, to make a long story short, the Lord called Samuel while he was in Eli’s house.

(11) And the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of everyone that heareth it shall tingle. (12) In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from the beginning even unto the end. Wow! That sounds like it comes all the way down to us, doesn’t it? If God is prophesying that He’s going to judge Eli’s house all the way to the end, He must be talking about the end-time here. We know that there are people in Eli’s house today because, if you walk in the steps of someone, you’re a part of their house; you’re a part of their heritage. In the New Testament, we learned that you pass on your heritage by words and by nature, not by flesh. We are Christians because we have taken on His Name: His nature, character and authority – all those attributes. And, of course, you’d be in Eli’s house for the same reasons – that you had been taking on his nature, character and authority. That’s how you would be in his house in the end times. Well, God says that the days are coming when everything that He’s spoken about Eli is going to be fulfilled and, I tell you, that’s going to happen in our days, folks.

(13) For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever, for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons did bring a curse upon themselves, and he restrained them not. (14) And therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated (“purged”) with sacrifice nor offering for ever. Have we ever read in the Scriptures where God would not forgive and cleanse and purge a man’s sins, a man who is a child of God? Yes, we have. The Bible tells us this very plainly. (Heb.10:26) For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins. What brings the responsibility is the knowledge. Jesus came on the scene so that those who said they saw would become blind and those who didn’t see would see. When Jesus came, He brought the knowledge that made people responsible. And He said, “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin” (Joh.15:22). His knowledge of the Word of God that He gave them made them responsible.

In this situation, Eli is being prophesied to through Samuel. God spoke to Samuel to give this revelation to Eli, which Samuel did. God basically said that Eli’s house would not be purged by sacrifice; meaning, of course, God wasn’t going to forgive him for this. Some of you think God will forgive you for anything if you repent, but I’ll tell you what, they weren’t going to repent. And, did you know, God grants repentance? The Bible says God has to grant repentance. He doesn’t do that for everybody. He didn’t grant the Pharisees repentance; He didn’t grant Saul repentance; He didn’t grant Eli and his house repentance; and it was because they all continued to walk in willful disobedience. (Heb.10:26) For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, (27) but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries. You see, there is a place where God will not grant, a place where the sacrifice of Jesus will not grant, a person repentance because they continued to walk in willful disobedience.

(1Sa.3:19) And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground. Oh, praise God! Have you ever heard the old saying that the heavens were brass? People prayed and they didn’t feel like their prayers were getting into the heavens, but instead that they were bouncing and coming back. Well, none of Samuel’s prayers bounced, folks. His name means “heard of God.” In other words, God heard what he said. God heard and when Samuel made a pronouncement it came to pass, and when he prophesied it was the truth. So be happy that we have a ministry like that coming down the road, folks.

(19) And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground. (20) And all Israel from Dan even to Beersheba knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord (Note that this is even though he was a child at this time). (21) And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh (which was the house of God); for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord. He revealed himself to Samuel in the house of God by the word of the Lord. (4:1) And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Wow! There it is, folks, “to all Israel.” Samuel was sending this word forth to all of Israel while the Eli ministry was still in official authority here and so the rest of this chapter is about what happens to those who follow the Eli ministry. As the Word of the Lord was coming to them and making them responsible, it was making them more and more blind and more and more apostate. God was taking grace away. Every time they would reject the true Word of God, they’d lose more grace. Today we see them stumbling around, very foolishly, with false doctrines and bad spirits. Why? They’re becoming more and more blind and their grace is being taken away.

(3:21) And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh; for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord. (4:1) And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and encamped beside Ebenezer: and the Philistines encamped in Aphek. So, once again, those who are under the Eli ministry are going up against the Philistines. As you remember, this happened with Saul. His battle against the Philistines was lost and we discovered that God said the reason for that was that Saul didn’t put to death the old man when God sent them out to do that. So now the Philistines were coming back to conquer them and Israel, under the leadership of the Eli ministry, was going forth to battle with the Philistines.

(2) And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel: and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines…. Once again, we see the same thing that happened to Saul. The apostate ministry brought destruction at the hands of the old man and the people who followed that apostate ministry died at the hands of the old man, the Philistine. (2) … And they slew of the army in the field about four thousand men. Notice that responsibility brings judgment. Responsibility came because Samuel sent forth the Word to all Israel and, here, all of a sudden, judgment comes upon the apostate ministry and the people who follow them.

(3) And when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the Lord smitten us to-day before the Philistines? They didn’t understand why they were losing the battle with the Philistines. These are the elders. These are the elders of the church in our day. Why did God smite us? What can we do about this? They did not understand. Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that it may come among us, and save us out of the hand of our enemies. (4) So the people sent to Shiloh; and they brought from thence the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts, who sitteth [above] the cherubim: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. This is false leadership. They had taken possession of the ark of God.

Now, let me ask you a question here. You are a child of God because you have the Presence of the Lord in your Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the covenant was a part of the Temple. It was the presence of God in the Holy of Holies. So, of course, we together, the corporate body of Christ, we are that temple and our spirits are the Ark of the Covenant because God dwells in our spirits. So, because you have the Spirit of God, does that save you? I mean, here they sent to the House of God, they took out the Ark of the Covenant, they brought it with them and they put it in their midst because they thought this would save them. They thought the Ark would save them, but is that really true? (Mic.3:4) Then shall they cry unto the Lord, but he will not answer them; yea, he will hide his face from them at that time, according as they have wrought evil in their doings. So they’ve plundered the people of God, as the first text tells us, and now God won’t listen to them anymore. This is the same thing that happened with Saul. God would answer him “neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets” (1Sa.28:6), so Saul turned to familiar spirits and God turned him over to demon spirits.

(Mic.3:11) The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money (of course, the sons of Eli were doing all these things): yet they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord in the midst of us? no evil shall come upon us. (12) Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field…. You see, the presence of the Lord didn’t save them. How is it that they could have the presence of the Lord in their midst and still not be saved from the Philistines? How is this possible? Well, the Bible tells us. (Rom.8:12) So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh: (13) for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die…. How is it, if we live after the flesh, we must die? Because if you submit to the flesh, if you let the flesh rule, then it’s going to put to death your spiritual man; you’re going to die. You may still be living, but you’ll be dead on your feet. You’ll be walking in death and you’ll have no victory over the Philistine whatsoever. (13) … but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body (in other words, if you are putting to death the old Philistine, the old man, he says), ye shall live. (14) For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

Now, I ask you, could the people who are following the Saul ministry, the Eli ministry the Pharisee ministry, could they be righteous? Could they be sons of God? And could they be following the Spirit of God? No, they couldn’t because they couldn’t see and perceive that these men were evil. They weren’t following the Spirit of God; they were following these men who were not following the Spirit of God themselves. So we see that you can have the presence of God. Listen, some people think you’re going to be saved because you have the Holy Spirit. That’s not so. You’re not going to be saved unless you follow the Holy Spirit. Having the Holy Spirit will just condemn you because you are capable, you are able to partake of the inheritance in the saints, you see. You’re able to do this. Somebody who has the Holy Spirit can do this, but if you’re not doing it, then your gift is just condemning you that much more. The presence of the Lord was in their midst, but it wasn’t saving them and, as a matter of fact, they lost the next battle.

(1Sa.4:5) And when the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. (6) And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the Lord was come into the camp. (7) And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. Think about this. The old man fears God. He fears God. The old man will not submit to Him, but he does fear God. And they said, Woe unto us! for there hath not been such a thing heretofore. (8) Woe unto us! who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods? Actually, that’s the word elohim. It’s the same word we just read: “God is come into the camp.” It’s talking about our God and they translated it “gods” because they knew it was coming out of the mouth of Philistines, but 2700 times in the Bible this was translated elohim because elohim is plural. God is plural. “Y-H-W-H” is Elohim, the Scripture tells us. The name of the true God is plural. God is One God, but He’s One in unity, not in essence. So it should be read here just the way it’s translated everywhere else, as (8) who shall deliver us out of the hands of this mighty God? this is the God that smote the Egyptians with all manner of plagues in the wilderness.

(9) Be strong, and quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Notice “that ye be not servants unto the Hebrews.” God’s plan is that the old man is a servant to the spiritual man. They were afraid they were going to lose their position of authority over the spiritual man, so they said, “Let’s fight extra hard here; we don’t want to serve the spirit man. We don’t want to serve the Hebrews.” And you know the flesh hates the spirit; the flesh dies when the spirit man’s in control. (9) … That ye be not servants unto the Hebrews, as they have been to you: quit yourselves like men, and fight. (10) And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten…. Even though the presence of the Lord was in their midst, the Israelites were conquered by the old man that lives in the land. They were conquered. It was because they wouldn’t follow the Spirit of God. They were following the Eli ministry and so they were conquered by the old man. We saw the same thing with the Saul ministry. Those who followed Saul died at the hands of the Philistines. Here they followed the Eli ministry and what happened? They were dying at the hands of the Philistines. It made no difference that they were what we loosely call “children of God”; it made no difference that they had God in their midst; they still died. It’s what Jude calls “twice dead, plucked up by the roots” (Jud.12).

And there’s another reason. (Psa.78:56) Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, And kept not his testimonies; (57) But turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers: They were turned aside like a deceitful bow. (58) For they provoked him to anger with their high places…. They had the high places of the altar of Baal and the Ashtaroth in the time of Eli, but Samuel put all that away. (58) For they provoked him to anger with their high places, And moved him to jealousy with their graven images. What is that? That was what Ezekiel called the abomination in chapters seven and nine. The abomination. Here’s an abomination. You know what abominations do? The abominations make desolate. Well, what happens when you’re desolate? God leaves your temple. (59) When God heard [this,] he was wroth, And greatly abhorred Israel; (60) So that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh (Aha! That’s an abomination that maketh desolate.), The tent which he placed among men; (61) And delivered his strength (that was the Ark that came out of the Temple) into captivity, and his glory into the adversary’s hand.

And we know that when the Israelites were conquered, then the Philistines took possession of the Ark of God. The Israelites had brought it there with their own hands. They brought the Ark out of the Temple of God, out of the House of God, with their own hands. They thought it would save them but, instead, the Philistines captured the Ark. (1Sa.4:10) And the Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten, and they fled every man to his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen. (11) And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain. When the Ark of God is taken possession of by the Philistines, it means that you, as the temple of God’s Presence, are being ruled by the old man. It means that the old man is taking the presence of God where he wants to go. He has taken possession now, you see, and that brings death every time. (Rom.8:13) For if ye live after the flesh, ye must die…. It’s death every time. You see, God’s presence comes into you so that you, by His Spirit, would be led by your spiritual man. Instead, in this case, they lost their battle with the old man and the old man had taken possession of the Spirit of the Temple of God. (Psa.78:61) And delivered his strength into captivity, And his glory into the adversary’s hand. (62) He gave his people over also unto the sword (in other words, the death of the Saul, the Eli, the Pharisee ministry), And was wroth with his inheritance. (63) Fire devoured their young men; And their virgins had no marriage-song. (64) Their priests fell by the sword (Hophni and Phinehas fell by the sword); And their widows made no lamentation.

Well, the rest of the story is the rest of 1 Samuel 4. After the Eli ministry was taken out, Samuel came to the forefront and he, like David, ruled over all of Israel. And the rest of the story in Psalm 78 is the exact same thing. We’ll continue this in the next chapter, with the story of the David ministry taking possession and beginning to rule. I’d also like to study a little more about the fall of the Eli ministry and the Ark of the Covenant being taken – what exactly that means – and the raising up of the Samuel ministry.

So God bless you, saints. Thank you. Pray for me, will you? I need your prayers. I thank you very much for that.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Walking in the Steps of Jesus

Thank you, Father! In the Name of Jesus Christ we thank You, Lord, for Your awesome provision for us. Lord, thank You for showing us Your Word. Thank You for opening our understanding, Lord. None of us see the way we need to and the way we want to, Lord, but You’ve promised us that You would open our eyes and our understanding, and we accept that wonderful gift from You. We ask you to guide us through Your Word and help us to be wise to the workings of Satan in this world and even wiser to Your precious promises, Lord. And we thank You for working in us to will and to do of Your good pleasure, and also the life of Jesus Christ. We thank You. We thank You that You’re going to make us all a blessing to one another. We thank You for pouring out Your gifts among Your body, oh, Lord. And we just enjoy studying Your word together, Lord. We just enjoy it. It’s our bread; it’s our food, Lord. Thank You. Thank You so much, Lord. Amen.

We’ve been studying the Eli ministry and gaining some wisdom concerning these days. We’ve discovered that Eli, like the Saul ministry and like the Pharisee ministry, was superseded by a Man-child ministry. And as we studied the sons of Eli, we learned the reason for the failure of the Eli ministry was its corruption and sin. There are still sons of Eli today, by the way. You are the son of those in whose steps you walk. We’re called to walk in the steps of Jesus Christ, but there are those today who walk in the steps of Eli, just like his sons did and they led God’s people to destruction. Those who served them, those who followed them were destroyed by the Philistines. We’ve seen that the Philistine represents the old man, the original owner of the land. Now, we know from Hebrews 6 that we are that land and there was an original owner, the old man, the natural man that came first. And the Israelite represented the spiritual, born-again man. So there’s a war going on between the spiritual man and the carnal man to take the land. That’s where we left off, after we discovered that Eli and his sons led the people in the battle against the old man and lost. They lost the battle and when the Philistines conquered them, they took away from the Israelites the Ark of the Covenant. What does that mean? Well, we’ll study that a little bit more.

(1Sa.4:16) And the man said unto Eli, I am he that came out of the army, and I fled to-day out of the army. And he said, How went the matter, my son? (17) And he that brought the tidings answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people…. Why would Israel flee before the Philistine, if the Philistine is the old man? Well, you know, if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God (1Jn.3:21). If a person is walking in holiness, they have boldness against the old man. They know the Gospel. They know that they can conquer the old man because they know that Jesus Christ already conquered him. But there are a lot of Christians today who fear the old man, who fear to take him on. They see him as a giant and themselves as grasshoppers, like the spies with the bad report (Numbers 13:32,33). They’re not Joshuas and Calebs, are they? So here’s a man who came back out of the army, who was following the Eli ministry, who was following the sons of Eli – Hophni and Phinehas, and they had lost their battle. (1Sa.4:17) And he that brought the tidings answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken. (18) And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that [Eli] fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate; and his neck brake, and he died: for he was an old man, and heavy. And he had judged Israel forty years.

Israel lost their battle. Their spiritual leaders lost their battle with the Philistines and were conquered. What does that represent for them to die and to lose the Ark of the Covenant? Well, dying here is spiritual. It is talking about reprobation. The Bible says, “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh” (Gal.5:17). Also, “the mind of the flesh is enmity against God” (Rom.8:7) and so there is this war going on. If the old man wins the battle, then you, as the spiritual man, have lost the battle and you die. One has to die in this battle. There’s only one who can ultimately rule in this land. The Eli ministry and their followers died when the Ark was taken. What does the Ark represent? It represents your spirit man, in whom is the Spirit of God, in whom dwells the presence of God. We are the vessel in which God’s presence is seen in this earth and this vessel was ordained to be led by your spirit man, not the flesh.

(13) … For if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live. In other words, the spirit man conquers the carnal man. That’s the norm. It’s the norm for the Israelites to conquer the Philistines. That’s the normal Christian life. We are to conquer this old man, take over his house, which is this house, and raise our crops in this land, our fruit in this land. And, of course, the Philistines are used to their own fruit, but they have to be conquered. Again, that’s the normal Christian life. However, things do get turned around if you’re following a false leadership that doesn’t know themselves how to follow God, how to follow the Ark of the Covenant, how to live in the Presence of God; and they don’t. (Jud.10) But these rail at whatsoever things they know not: and what they understand naturally, like creatures without reason, in these things are they destroyed. (11) Woe unto them! for they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire (In other words, whatever prospers you, that’s the way you’re going to go.), and perished in the gainsaying of Korah (who was usurping the authority of Moses, the Man-child). (12) These are they who are hidden rocks in your love-feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots.

These apostate leaders and the people who followed them here in Jude are in pretty much the same situation we’re reading about in 1 Samuel: “twice dead, plucked up by the roots.” These spiritual Israelites here in Samuel, the spiritual man that’s the born-again man, loses the battle with the Philistine. That represents being born again and dying again: “twice dead, plucked up by the roots.” The Philistines conquered them, took over their city and took the Ark of the Covenant.

Now, what is that in a Christian when the Ark of the Covenant is taken by the Philistine? Well, the vessel of God’s Presence has been taken control over by the carnal man, by the flesh. In other words, I know that we’re born again, but we’re going to take God where we want to go and we’re going to do with God what we want to do, and so on and so forth. That’s when your spiritual man is dying. When the Ark was taken, of course, that is a sign of reprobation. The Ark was taken away from the spiritual man while under the Eli ministry and the people of Israel died at the hands of the Philistines under the Eli ministry. But when the Samuel ministry took over after the Eli ministry, they didn’t lose one war with the Philistines. Not one. The Ark of the presence of God came back to Israel, Samuel was the leadership and they didn’t lose one battle during the life of Samuel. God’s hand was against the Philistines during the whole life of Samuel, so that tells you something, doesn’t it? That’s where we’re headed right now. Thank God!

Well, I’m going to look at the next little parable here. (1Sa.4:19) And his daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ wife, was with child, near to be delivered: and when she heard the tidings that the ark of God was taken, and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and brought forth; for her pains came upon her. (20) And about the time of her death the women that stood by her said unto her, Fear not; for thou hast brought forth a son. But she answered not, neither did she regard it. (21) And she named the child Ichabod…. Wow! What is this story about? What’s the moral of this story? Well, this was the Eli ministry, the sons who walked in the steps of Eli, and they had corrupted Israel. They had led Israel to destruction. This wife represents the body of the sons of Eli then and it represents the body of the sons of Eli today, so it represents a corporate body of people who receive the seed of this ministry.

Paul said, “yet [have ye] not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begat you through the gospel” (1Co.4:15). He sowed the seed of Jesus Christ to bring to birth Christ in the life of the people. Well, if you’re sowing another seed which, of course, the apostates do, it’s not bringing forth Christ. And so we have this parable here. This woman, who was the wife of Phinehas, was with child, but she brought forth a fruit that was “Ichabod,” which means “there is no glory.” There is no glory. If the Eli ministry is sowing the seed in you, the fruit that comes forth is not going to have any glory because there’s only one seed that brings forth Jesus Christ. It is the pure unleavened bread of the Word of God. If anything else is sown, you may have an acknowledgment of Christ, but you can never walk in His steps because it’s His Word sown in your heart that causes Him to live in you and you to walk in those steps. So here we have a woman who brought forth the fruit of the Eli ministry and it was without the glory of God.

What’s the glory of God? (2Co.3:18) But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit. So we know that the glory of God is Jesus Christ manifested in you because they’re looking in a mirror and they’re seeing Jesus – Jesus manifested in you. (Col.1:27) … Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is Christ manifested in you through the Word of God that is the glory of God. So Phinehas sowed a seed which didn’t bring forth the fruit of Jesus Christ. There was no glory in it. It was Ichabod. (1Sa.4:21) And she named the child Ichabod, saying, The glory is departed from Israel; because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband. (22) And she said, The glory is departed from Israel; for the ark of God is taken.

Allowing our spirits to be ruled over by the carnal man brings death to the spiritual man and leads to the Ark of God being taken and given into the hands of the carnal man. You see, if you walk after the flesh, you must die. If you live after the flesh, you must die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you shall live (Romans 8:13).

Now, the normal thing is for the spiritual man to put to death the deeds of the body, which would be the Philistine, and carry on with the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of God’s Presence. However, any Christian you see who’s walking in the flesh, what they are actually doing is they’ve given the Ark of God’s presence over to the handling of the Philistine. There’s no glory that’s going to be manifested in that, nor is the glory of God, if you continue to walk that way, going to be manifested in your life. It’s not going to happen. As a matter of fact, the end of that road is death, as this parable is pointing to.

Let’s read on just a little bit more. (5:1) Now the Philistines had taken the ark of God, and they brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod. (2) And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. Dagon was the god of the Philistines. (3) And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. (4) And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord; and the head of Dagon and both of the palms of his hands [lay] cut off upon the threshold; only [the stump] of Dagon was left to him.

So the head and the hands were cut off the god of the carnal man. What is the god of the carnal man? The Bible says that their god is their belly (Philippians 3:19); in other words, feeding self. Their god is their belly. Their god is their own selfish desires, their own selfish will. You know, in this case, what’s the point? Obviously, Dagon had nothing on the Lord God. Anyone with common sense would have said, “Okay, forget about Dagon; I’m going to follow the Lord,” right? But not the flesh because the flesh is the enemy of God and really cannot be subject to God or His laws, the Bible says (Galatians 5:17 ; Romans 8:7). It cannot be. It can never have the Lord as God. It cannot follow God. It is not subject to the laws of God and cannot be. So you say, “Why the palms of the hands?” Think about Jesus. When Jesus was crucified, He took the punishment for our sins. He delivered us from what it was to be carnal. And what happened to Him? Well, He had the crown of thorns around His head. They pierced His hands, right? His head and His hands were pierced. His head and His hands took a punishment for our sins. Why? Because the head and the hands have a lot to do with our walk with God and our walk in this world. If you notice, the mark of the beast, in Revelation 13, talks about the forehead and the hands. Why? Because there is a spiritual mark of the beast and it is to walk after the mind of the flesh and the works of the flesh. Your hand represents your works. So what the Lord showed me years ago was that those who walk after the spiritual mark of the beast will take the literal mark of the beast. They have no choice because the literal mark is just an identifying sign that this person is a member of the body of the beast.

What makes a person a member of the body of the beast is to walk after the mind of the flesh and the works of the flesh. So here we see that God is judging their god. He is judging their works. He is judging their mind – that which the flesh calls god. You know, the son of perdition sits in the temple of God and he makes himself god. The flesh is a son of perdition in one form that we are looking at right here and guess what? We’re the temple of God. The word “temple” used in 2 Thessalonians 2 is not talking about a physical temple because it’s not the word Paul ever used for the physical temple. It’s the word used for the temple of God’s people; and so, even though your flesh might be sitting in the midst of God’s people in the temple of God, your flesh is his own god. And what did God say? God said He would bring him (the son of perdition) to naught by the manifestation of the coming of Jesus (2 Thessalonians 2:8). See, the more Jesus grows in you, the more that old man dies. That’s the whole point. The Philistine has to die. He can’t go to heaven. He has to die. God refuses him. And so God has already judged and delivered us from this problem with the hand and the forehead. Let’s read on a little bit more.

(6) But the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with tumors, even Ashdod and the borders thereof. Why is God’s hand heavy against the carnal man? Well, when the carnal man takes the rule of your life, takes possession of the Ark of God’s presence, it always brings the carnal man under a curse. If you walk after the flesh, you must die. That’s a curse. And all the curses of the Bible are upon those who are rebellious against God’s Word, those who are being moved and led by the carnal man, the Philistine. The curse of God’s Word is against that person and all the curse of Deuteronomy 28 is against that person. It comes upon him because he’s taken control of the Ark of God’s presence. He’s taken possession of the Ark of God’s presence. If you want to know how to get out from under the curse, repent. What does that mean? That means give the Ark back to the Israelite. That’s the one who’s supposed to be carrying the Ark, to be carrying the Presence of God, so give the Ark back to the Israelite.

Now, He’s saying right here very plainly that they brought a curse upon themselves when they brought the Ark to Ashdod. In fact, they brought it to five cities – the five cities of the Philistines. And every time they brought it to a city, the curse fell upon that city. In this case, He points out that they were destroyed and He smote them with tumors. I know some versions use “emerods” here or “hemorrhoids,” but I don’t believe that’s the case, folks. Frankly, I don’t think that’s a good translation. Hemorrhoids don’t destroy and kill people. Not very easily. They may be a bad discomfort, but they’re not destroying many people. So this is talking about destroying people and smiting them with tumors, “even Ashdod and the borders thereof. (7) And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us; for his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagon our god.” You know, even the flesh fears God. The flesh can fear God and, if you are a fleshly person, the fear of God is the thing that you need. (Pro.9:10) The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom…. You need the fear of God. The Bible says, “Fear God, and depart from evil” (3:7). Yes, even the flesh fears God. So notice, they knew that God’s hand was against their false gods. God was destroying their false god. Back in Egypt, God said He judged all the gods of Egypt. Why? So that God’s people would leave Egypt and go into the wilderness to serve God in the wilderness.

(1Sa.5:8) They sent therefore and gathered all the Lords of the Philistines unto them, and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried unto Gath. And they carried the ark of the God of Israel [thither]. And, of course, Gath ended up with the same thing. (9) And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of God was against the city with a very great discomfiture: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great; and tumors brake out upon them. (10) So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. And it came to pass, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought about the ark of God of Israel to us, to slay us and our people. In other words, if you, as the old man, have been saved, if you’ve been born again and you, as the old man, are going to go and do what you want to do, it’s going to bring destruction to you; it’s going to bring a curse on you. You need to repent, which means give the Ark to the spiritual man.

(11) They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and they said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to its own place, that it slay us not, and our people…. Well, amen. That’s just common sense, right? Well, believe it or not, a lot of Christians are living under the curse because they are going their own way, doing their own thing and they won’t repent. When you read Deuteronomy 28 you see that the reason for every curse is because you don’t repent; you don’t give back this Ark of God into the hands of the spiritual man. He’s the only one who can carry it. (12) And the men that died not were smitten with the tumors; and the cry of the city went up to heaven. So it was a great curse that fell upon these people.

The Ark of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months. Why seven? Because seven is the day of rest, the time of rest. When you come into the rest, folks, you’re ceasing from your works. Isn’t that what the rest is, ceasing from your works? When you cease from your works, who’s doing the work? God is and there’s no curse upon that person.

(6:1) And the ark of God was in the country of the Philistines for seven months. (2) And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do with the ark of God? show us wherewith we shall send it to its place. (3) And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, and send it not empty; but by all means return him a trespass offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you. So he said, send it back with a trespass offering. And what was the trespass offering? (4) Then said they, What shall be the trespass-offering which we shall return to him? And they said, Five golden tumors, and five golden mice, [according to] the number of the lords of the Philistines; for one plague was on you all, and on your lords. (5) Wherefore ye shall make images of your tumors, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel….

Why tumors and mice? Why mice? Did they have a plague of mice? Yes, they did. And I believe the word “tumors” here is probably a pretty good translation, but maybe even a better one is “plague boils.” Plague boils. It’s pretty obvious that this is not hemorrhoids because they don’t kill many people, but plague boils, along with mice, do. What do you think that would have caused? There are some people who suggest and, I believe they’re probably right, that this is talking about the boils that come up because of Bubonic plague. Bubonic plague is started by the fleas on mice or rats and it does kill a lot of people. I believe that Bubonic plague is exactly what is being talked about in these two chapters. Do you think it might be restored in our day, since this is actually an end-time prophecy? It very well could be and a lot of other things just like it could be restored. At any rate, great curses are coming upon the world, but notice they are only upon those who are in rebellion against God. The curse is on the old man who’s in rebellion against God; it’s on the old man who’s taken control of the Ark. What about the Israelite who’s in full control of the Ark? Well, we find that out when Eli and his ministry is wiped out, it’s replaced by Samuel. Then the Israelites have control of the Ark. They’re able to conquer the Philistine all the days of Samuel’s life and there is no plague upon them. Do you think it’s a possibility that that could be true for the real true Christians in the Tribulation period? I do. I believe that’s totally Biblical.

So what was the advice of the priests and diviners? (5) Wherefore ye shall make images of your tumors, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the God of Israel: peradventure he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land. (6) Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? In other words, these priests of Dagon, they remembered what happened to these people at the hands of the God of Israel, right? When he had wrought wonderfully among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed? (7) Now therefore take and prepare you a new cart, and two milch kine (milk cows), on which there hath come no yoke; and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them; (8) and take the ark of God and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return him for a trespass-offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go. (9) And see; if it goeth up by the way of its own border to Beth-shemesh, then he hath done us this great evil (In other words, if it goes right on home, they’ll know that God had really done this.): but if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened unto us. I don’t think anybody could imagine this being a chance. Well, why would they use this particular sign? Because, obviously, if you took the calves home and you tied the milk cows to the cart, the milk cows are going to want to go the way of the calves. They’re not going to want to go out of the country, right? So they just knew it was God if the milk cows went across the border and out of the country, away from their calves. And it was God. The Bible says that “they were lowing as they went” (12). They were going, but they didn’t like it. Praise God! So it was God putting it in their heart to go.

Let’s look at the next verse. (13) And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it. (14) And the cart came into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite, and stood there…. Now that’s really interesting. Why would it go to a field of “Joshua,” you know, which is “Jesus”? And “Beth-shemite” means “the people of Shem” or “the people of the Shemites.” The Shemites were the chosen people of God. Also, “Shem” means “name,” so it’s “the people of the Name.” So this could be read as, “came to the field of Joshua of the people of the Name.” Who are the people of the Name? It’s the people who walk in the Name of Jesus Christ. We’re baptized into His Name. We take on His Name at baptism because we go through death, burial and resurrection. Then, as we walk out our death, burial and resurrection in the rest of our Christian life, we’re manifesting the Name, which means “nature, character and authority.” We’re taking on the nature, character and authority of Jesus Christ. Notice that the Ark is now back in the hands of the chosen people of God who were manifesting the Name. Another interesting thing is that the town Beth-shemesh here is the “house of the sun,” – S-U-N – but many times S-U-N is a parable of Jesus – S-O-N. So it sounds to me like Jesus here represents the Man-child and the house of the people of the Name. And the Ark is back in their hands – another interesting fact that’s pretty neat, I think. Well, the Ark of the leadership departed from the Eli-Saul-Pharisees-type ministry and came to the Man-child, the “house of the sun.”

Let’s go on down. Here’s a parable within a parable I want to just take a moment to point out because many times there are very large parables and then there are little snapshots in there, and here’s a snapshot. (19) And he smote of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of God, he smote of the people seventy men, [and] fifty thousand men; and the people mourned, because God had smitten the people with a great slaughter. That’s very interesting. What happens when we see the Lord? The old man dies, doesn’t he? When we behold “as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,” we are “transformed into the same image from glory to glory” (2Co.3:18), but the Bible says “though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day” (4:16). When we see the Lord, we die. In the Old Testament, the people didn’t want to see the Lord because they were afraid they would die. And even Moses, after he saw the Lord, had to put a veil upon his face because his face was shining (Exodus 34:29-35). He was becoming glorified underneath that veil, which the Bible tells us in the New Testament is the flesh. Underneath the flesh, Moses, as the Man-child, was becoming glorified because he saw the face of God. When you see the face of God, your old man dies and that’s good. It’s better the old man than the new man should die and become “twice dead, plucked up by the roots” (Jud.12). But that’s just a little snapshot.

Now I want to go down a little further. (1Sa.7:3) And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the Lord…. Notice it’s Samuel who is in control now. The Eli ministry has been wiped out; they’ve been reprobated. In Jesus’ day, folks, Jesus was the Man-child. He was the Samuel Who came along to replace the Pharisee ministry. And guess what? The Pharisee ministry was reprobated. Jesus said, “Why do ye not understand my speech? [Even] because ye cannot hear my word” (Joh.8:43). He told them, “Ye are of [your] father the devil” (44) and you can’t come to Me. And He spoke to them in parables, lest they would repent (Matthew 13,14). In other words, He wasn’t trying to bring them to repentance whatsoever. Now Samuel is in that position and the Eli ministry’s been reprobated. They’ve been put to death by the Philistines. And the first thing Samuel says is this: (1Sa.7:3) “And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your hearts unto the Lord, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” Amen. See, idolatry, giving in to the gods of the flesh, giving in to the lusts of the flesh, is what causes us to fall under the curse. (4) Then the children of Israel did put away the Baalim (which is the false Jesus, the worldly Jesus, the worldly, Christian Jesus) and the Ashtaroth (which is the mother of God; that’s another one), and served the Lord only. So they put away the false, virgin-birth son of god and the false Mary they were worshipping, and they served the Lord only. Praise God!

And, of course, you know what this brought? The Philistines came against them, but from here on the Israelites conquered them. (7) And when the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to Mizpah, the Lord of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. (8) And the children of Israel said to Samuel, Cease not to cry unto the Lord our God for us, that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines. (9) And Samuel took a sucking lamb, and offered it for a whole burnt-offering unto the Lord: and Samuel cried unto the Lord for Israel; and the Lord answered him. (10) And as Samuel was offering up the burnt-offering…. We are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice unto God. You see, if we will sacrifice the Philistine, we will be free to carry the Ark of God and we will be under the blessings of God. Samuel offering up the burnt-offering represents the same thing as the rest of this parable. We burn up the flesh, we go through the fiery trial to burn up the flesh on the altar so that we are free. (10) And as Samuel was offering up the burnt-offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel; but the Lord thundered with a great thunder (actually, it says, “with a great voice”) on that day upon the Philistines, and discomfited them; and they were smitten down before Israel. Notice the burnt-offering was being sacrificed and now the old man, which represents our burnt-offering, was being sacrificed. Isn’t that interesting? You know, if we will sacrifice the old man, we won’t have any problems.

(13) So the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more within the border of Israel: and the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. (14) And the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel (Cities are the congregations of people.) were restored to Israel … So the dominion was given back to Israel, the cities were returned back to Israel and the Philistines were subdued. Now, isn’t that where you would like your flesh to be – totally under control and serving you, right? That’s the way they did. The Philistines served Israel all the days of Samuel.

Samuel represents a ministry that’s coming in our day, called the Man-child. We’ve already looked at that and seen that Jesus was that ministry and David was that ministry. David came after Saul died on Gilboa. Saul had led the people of Israel to their own destruction and then all the people who were left followed David. The same thing happened with Jesus. You know, the Pharisees had led God’s people to their own spiritual death at the hands of their flesh and here comes Jesus, the Man-child. And those who weren’t reprobated heard the Word, saw the Lord, followed the Lord just like those who followed David. Here we see the same thing with Samuel: they followed Samuel. God is raising up a ministry in these days in which the Lord is manifested. The Lord has manifested Himself in the people of that ministry and it’s actually the Lord Who’s going to lead His people. That’s who the man-child is: Christ manifested in His first fruits.

So “the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.” Praise God! And all the land that was taken was delivered back over to Israel. The land. This is the land: (Heb.6:7) For the land which hath drunk the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receiveth blessing from God: (8) but if it beareth thorns and thistles, it is rejected and nigh unto a curse; whose end is to be burned. That’s right, folks; we’re the land. The Israelite must conquer this land and that’s what we’re seeing here. Under Samuel, that land was being taken back from the carnal man, taken back from serving the fleshly man.

I’d like to go back over to Psalm 78 and finish that little piece of the chapter there because we noticed in Psalm 78 from verse 56 down through 64 that it spoke about the fall of the Eli ministry and that God forsook the Tabernacle of Shiloh, in verse 60, which is exactly what happened. The Ark of the Covenant was taken from the Tabernacle in Shiloh, He forsook it and, in verse 61, He delivered His strength, which was the Ark, into captivity and His glory into the adversary’s hand. That was the Philistines who took the Ark of the Covenant. (Psa.78:62) He gave his people also unto the sword…. Why? Because the flesh man was ruling and the spiritual man was being conquered. “And was wroth with his inheritance. (63) Fire devoured their young men; And their virgins had no marriage-song. (64) Their priests fell by the sword (Hophni and Phinehas fell by the sword); and their widows made no lamentation.” But here is where the story changed, right? God gave the Ark into the hand of the Philistines and He judged them. His judgment fell upon the natural man. Let me point something out to you about that. Your natural man is going to fall under the curse of this world, if it leads your life. You will fall under the curse of this world. Many so-called Christians are going to die in the days ahead because they won’t listen to the Lord; they won’t follow the Lord. Okay. But from the time of that judgment on, the story changed. We notice that since the Eli ministry had been reprobated, God restored this ministry of Samuel to them, gave this ministry of Samuel to them. Everything turned around. So look in the next verse. (65) Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, Like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine. (66) And he smote his adversaries backward…. That was, of course, the Philistines. That’s your old flesh. You want the Lord on your side. You want Him to help you with that old flesh. “He put them to a perpetual reproach.”

(67) Moreover he refused the tent of Joseph, And chose not the tribe of Ephraim…. Now, this is a spiritual statement because Ephraim was the northern 10 tribes. And what did they do? Well, unlike Judah, they didn’t have the true Temple of God. They made their own and they worshipped the golden calf, which they called Jehovah. The 10 tribes fell astray. (Mat.22:14) For many are called, but few chosen. The 10 northern tribes fell astray because they worshipped the golden calf, which is the image of the beast. That’s right. They worshipped the image of the beast.

Is it going to happen again? Yes, it is. Many of what we call Christians now will worship the image of the beast and they will take the mark of the beast because they’ve been walking after the spiritual mark of the beast all their life anyway. They’ve been walking after the mind of the flesh and the works of the flesh. (Psa.78:68) But chose the tribe of Judah (Judah here represents those chosen people), The mount Zion which he loved. (69) And he built his sanctuary like the heights, Like the earth which he hath established for ever. (70) He chose David also his servant (Here’s the Man-child, just like Samuel, right?), And took him from the sheepfolds: (71) From following the ewes that have their young he brought him, To be the shepherd of Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. Praise the Lord! (72) So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart, And guided them by the skilfulness of his hands.

Now, we see in this, of course, the same type and shadow of Jesus. Our Lord Jesus came to sit upon the throne of David over spiritual, New Testament Israel, which is those who are circumcised in heart. The true Jew is the one who’s circumcised in heart, not in flesh. That is the born-again experience. You know, born again, as is taught in most churches, is very simplistic, but the born-again experience is more than just receiving the Spirit of Christ. It’s more than just receiving that initial new spirit that enables you to walk with the Lord. You have to have a born-again soul, too. Peter spoke about your soul being begotten again, or born again, through your obedience to the truth (1 Peter 1:22).

You see, as you walk after the Spirit of God, as you are guided by the Ark of the Covenant, as the spirit man carries the Ark of the Covenant, you’re putting to death that old life. That old life is the thing that keeps you back, the thing that keeps you from manifesting the glory of God, manifesting the presence of Jesus Christ. And God’s plan is to fully bring us to the new birth, in spirit, then in soul and, ultimately, body. God’s going to give a new body, a born-again body to those who have borne fruit in the area of their soul, which is what? Your mind, your will, your emotions. See, a person who is not walking after the mind of the flesh and the works of the flesh, they’re going to continue to grow in Christ and Christ is going to continue to grow in them until they’re born again, spirit, soul and, ultimately, body. The Lord demands of us that we bear fruit.

As the church world sees it, after you’re born again, there’s not much left to do, but that’s false. When you’re born again, according to their estimation, what you’ve received is a new spirit. Now you must obey that Spirit. You must follow that spirit and that’s basically letting the Ark of the Covenant be carried by the spiritual man. If you don’t follow that Spirit, you’re going to die. If you follow that Spirit, then your obedience to the truth begets your soul unto God. You are born again unto God through the Word of God. And so, ultimately, the person who has borne fruit in the soul will receive a new body.

Now, you know, a lot of Christians think just everybody who’s ever named the Name of Christ is going to receive their new body. Well, what we just saw in Samuel, what we saw in the story of Eli, is that the people who were the people of God were reprobated and were given a perpetual judgment from God. We saw in the story of Saul that he turned to witchcraft and demon spirits because he couldn’t hear God anymore, which is a type of many ministers today. And what we saw in the Pharisees, too, that’s all repeated in our day, folks. These are spiritual fathers who have a seed in our day, just like Jesus Christ is a spiritual Father. He’s called the “everlasting father” (Isa.9:6), though, actually, it means the “Father of eternity.” He is the Father of our spiritual man. He is the last Adam. He is the beginning of the born-again man. He is the Father of the born-again man.

And so, in our day, many people think that no matter what, they’re going to enter in the Kingdom of Heaven, but you can see from these stories that that’s just not true; it’s a lie of the devil. What the Lord expects of us is fruit. He expects us to walk after the Ark of the Covenant, to be led by the Ark of the Covenant and that the Ark of the Covenant is carried by the spiritual man. If we do that, we will conquer the Philistines all the days of our life. The outer man has to decay for the inner man to be renewed. That old man has to die for us to bear fruit. He can’t bear fruit without the old man dying. The new man can’t take the land until the old man is conquered.

And so we have this battle. We are the land and we have this battle going on in us and we have to cooperate with God. We have to cooperate with the Ark of the Covenant to conquer that old man so we can bear that fruit, 30-, 60- and 100-fold. Where is that fruit manifested? It’s manifested in your soul. The seed that came out of heaven, which is the Word of God, which was sown by Jesus Christ, that seed goes into your heart and brings forth the fruit, 30-, 60- and 100-fold. You did come to Jesus Christ. You did ask Him into your life. He did come and give you a new spirit. Now He must bear fruit in your life. And that fruit is the life of Christ, the manifestation of the fruit of Christ in you – something that He’s already paid for on the Cross.

He’s already given you this as a free gift, but you must accept it. You must turn down the leadership of the Philistines and you must let the spiritual man lead the battle with the Ark of the Covenant. This is something we all must do. We must bear this fruit by the grace of Jesus Christ. It’s a gift that’s been given unto you. Accept this gift by faith. What is it? It’s perfection. (Heb.10:14) For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. The Lord perfected you at the Cross. He gave you His life. (Gal.2:20) I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that [life] which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, [the faith] which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me. We were crucified with Christ. We don’t live anymore. Christ now lives in us. That’s the way faith works – we profess it before we see it. (1Ti.6:12) Fight the good fight of the faith, lay hold on the life eternal, whereunto thou wast called, and didst confess the good confession in the sight of many witnesses. We give the good confession in the sight of many witnesses. Then, as we continue to believe that our old man went down those waters of baptism and the new man came up, and believe now Christ lives in us – as we continue to confess and believe that, God will be doing it in us. He will be empowering us. He will be giving us wisdom and discernment to not fall into the traps of the Philistines or the traps of the devil, and He will be bearing that fruit in us and we will be His when He comes. Glory be to God!

From all of this story, folks, I want you to be encouraged because the Man-child ministry is coming on the scene. It’s going to restore everything that has been taken from the people of God. Oh, we have some great days ahead, folks! And some of you who haven’t conquered the old man, you will because of the wisdom of God that’s going to be restored to the Church because of the latter rain that’s going to be restored to the Church and because it’s the end and everybody’s going to know it. Everybody who has eyes to see is going to know it. God’s people are going to be highly motivated in these days to come. So praise God!

God bless you and keep praying for Unleavened Bread Ministries. Thank you.

Books Available Through Your Servants at UBM

Unleavened Bread Publishing Inc.

UnleavenedBreadPublishing.org

- Sovereign God For Us and Through Us by David Eells

- Hidden Manna For the End Times by David Eells

- The Man-child and Bride Prophecy by David Eells

- Perfection Through Christ by David Eells

- How Shall We Die? by David Eells

- Destructive Demon Doctrines by David Eells

- The Tongue Conquers the Curse by David Eells

- Are You Following a Wolf? by David Eells

- Weakness, the Way to God’s Power by David Eells

- Speak Grace, Not Condemnation by David Eells

- The Tithe That Binds by Rory Moore

- The Father’s Gift.......The Holy Spirit by Rex Veron

- Numeric English New Testament by Ivan Panin and UBM (Also Available for e-Sword)

Many Audio/Video Teachings Also Available

For Free at UnleavenedBreadMinistries.org

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

History Repeats

Conquering the Flesh

The “Bulls of Bashan”

Speaking as an Oracle of God

The Truth Shall Make You Free

The Law of Spirit vs. the Letter

Come Out of Her, My People

Walking in the Steps of Jesus