Sonlight Devotional

[Printable version]

Omega Message – December 1995

Cecil duCille

Poem: My Heart Is Like A House
or: Secret Place by Steve Chapman

Praise God!  I want to talk with you a little bit about this house.

From the time that I was a child, I would dream a dream repeatedly.  In this dream, this house was like a castle and it belonged to me, but I was afraid of it.  I knew that there were dark passages in this castle and that there were dark spirits down in these passages.  I was always terrified about going down into them.

As my life went on, I would dream more and more that I could go into a room here, or that I cleaned out a little room there.  After I got salvation, I found that I could go into the house, and there was like one whole floor that was free.  There were, however, other floors that I was afraid of.  Other things were there that had to be conquered.

I do not know who wrote this song, but I suppose it must be somebody who had the experience of his or her heart being this kind of house.  Now, actually the Bible and God make us to understand this very thing.  He said that you are His, and that you are His dwelling place.  You might often wonder what kind of place this would be, and that is what I want to talk about today.

I am going to attempt to draw for you two illustrations using words.  The first will be the drawing that symbolizes the soul as described in Ezekiel 1:5.  First let us draw one large circle, then superimposing four smaller circles on it: placing one circle at the top, a circle at the bottom and a circle on either side.  These smaller circles represent the different areas (or dimensions) of the soul.  Let us look at it.

The little circle at the top represents the mind, its symbol being that of the “eagle.”  The circle at the bottom represents the will, its symbol being that of an “ox.”  Our circle on the right is the emotions and its symbol would be the “lion.”  On the left we have the symbol of the “man” that represents the area of our desires.  These dimensions, rooms, or house constitutes the entire entity that we call soul.

The next illustration that I want to draw is that of a three-dimensional box.  This box is a box that we may see all sides, and we will call this box a house, or a room.  Now let us draw a door [eagle] in the front of the box, a door [ox] in the backside, and doors on both the left [man] and the right side [lion].  Now we have a house that has an opening or door in every wall.  (Ezekiel. 1:10)

We have two different levels from which you may have a view as to how the soul functions.  The first level takes the entity of the soul as a whole, and this will be the level from which we will be speaking.  However, before I do that, I want to show you the other perspective—that of looking at each of the four individual units that comprises the soul.  Let us reduce our three-dimension drawing of the house so that we can superimpose it over each of the four small circles.  If you take each of these houses with their four doors respectively, multiply them with the four dimensions of the soul, you find that you have sixteen different entrances to feed the soul.  Do you understand?  You have sixteen different openings or avenues that give access or impute into your soul.

I am not going to take the whole of it today, but I am just going to touch on the mind (the house of the mind).  Now let us return to the first level of viewing which is the over-all view of the soul as a whole entity, superimposing the drawing of our three-dimensional house upon it.

It is necessary for me to say, for the sake of discussion, that to avoid confusion we will be speaking of having only one front door and three back doors.

Looking at our superimposed drawing upon the entity of our mind—if the front door is the mind (eagle) door, what would the back door be?  The back door would be the will (ox) door.  The will is always represented by the ox.  Then the right door would be emotions (lion) door, and the left door would be desires (man) door.

Let us look at the eagle door.  This is your mind, and your mind has four doors.  So your mind has a back door.  What this means is that while some thoughts are coming in through the front door, there are some subsidiary thoughts that are coming in through your back doors—through your will, through your emotions, [through your desires], through your humanity.  God says in Proverbs 4:23,

“Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.”

Let me explain it to you brethren.  God does not want to speak to you through your emotions.  He does not want to speak to you through your will, or through any other opening other than through your mind.  He prefers to speak through our front eagle door, which is the mind.  God wants this whole area offered to Him, so that He can speak to you through that eagle opening of your mind.

Take a piece of paper and draw the large circle that represents the soul.  Draw the little circle at the top that represents the mind.  You have three other areas you know, but I am not dealing with them today.  I will ask you to draw them somewhat smaller.  Nevertheless, that does not mean that they are small.  These are the four compartments that make up your whole soul.  In the middle, I want you to draw a chair that will represent the throne of God.  This is what God calls your heart.

Before you were saved, your mind was involved in many things.  Let us look at one area that is largely affected, or perhaps I should say “infected.”  I was distressed to discover that among us, there were some brethren who still had a problem with pornography.  It is a problem area that we must face squarely.  Pornography is a killer, and before we were saved many of us were involved with it.  We loved to see naked pictures.  We loved to see erotic pictures and things like that.  It is an area in your mind that has to be dealt with.

When we got saved, we accepted Jesus Christ and He began to clean up this problem area in our minds.  My experience with humanity and with the devil has given me a wisdom in understanding.  I HAVE DISCOVERED THAT THESE THINGS WILL REMAIN IF YOU DO NOT MAKE A DELIBERATE, DEFINITE ATTACK AGAINST THEM AND WIPE THEM OUT.

The mind is a vast area before God.  Our perception is that we have this little thing that we call the mind, but the mind is not a small thing.  In the Spirit, it is a very vast area and this area has in it deserts, and it has barren areas—places where wild beasts dwell.  All these kinds of things are in the mind.  God wants you to clean up your mind.  Do you know why?  It is because this is where Jesus Christ is going to be reigning.  He wants you to have the mind of Christ.

We are going to talk first about the problems in the mind.  Without talking about the problems of the mind, you will not have the opportunity to identify areas of trouble and a chance to respond.  Then we will talk about how to get the mind of Christ.  It is not enough for me to just tell you what your problems are.  You will also need knowledge of what to do about them.

The mind is the area that Satan wants most of all.  If Satan can catch your mind, he catches your whole body.  Let us talk a little bit about this problem involving pornography and sexuality.

Pornography has been part of some of our lives.  You see it on the TV and in the movies.  You see it in the newspapers, magazines, and in everyday society.  We have had so much exposure that it has cut a deep path into our minds, and a spirit came in on that path.  When Jesus Christ came in, this spirit hid.  It dives down into some cavern, into some part of our mind, that it might carry on its agenda and still be hidden from observation.

Let me use an example of a door.  Let us say that the light is on the far side of the door.  If light came through this door, what would happen?  As the door was open, the light would shine into the room only as much as the door would allow.  As the light shines into the room it would probably light two corners and one wall.  In the rest of the room there would still be shadows.

Pornography is a dark shadow.  If you have a shadow in your emotions like pornography or sexuality, it means that it would be lurking there in the darkness, and every now and then it would come up in you.  Most of the time you are too ashamed to tell anybody about it.  You would therefore, have this beast continually coming upon you.  THE ONLY WAY TO GET HIM OUT IS TO LET THE LIGHT OF GOD SHINE UPON HIM.  TO GET THE LIGHT TO SHINE INTO YOUR EMOTIONS, YOU WOULD HAVE TO GET GOD’S LIGHT TO SHINE THROUGH YOUR MIND DOOR.  Do you follow what I am saying?

In other words, we are talking about the seat of Christ.  God is going to rule all His Kingdom through your mind.  The rulership of God is coming through the mind into the soul [which is His Kingdom], and from the soul into the body and the world.  I do not want to go into the deep scriptures here, you know.  I do not think this is the time for that; but the point we are making here is that it is the mind that controls the soul.

Of course other factors are trying to exert control over your emotions.  IN OTHER WORDS, EVERYTHING AROUND YOU IS TRYING TO CONTROL YOU THROUGH YOUR EMOTIONS.  BRETHREN, NEVER ALLOW ANYONE OR ANYTHING TO CONTROL YOU THROUGH YOUR EMOTIONS.  NEVER ALLOW IT!  Look at the scripture found in Isaiah 11:3 that says that Jesus Christ would not be moved by “the seeing of His eyes or the hearing of His ears.”  This goes for us!

If somebody can tell you something that will hurt your spirit and [bring a reaction from you] to send you to hell, then you are in bad shape.  You are in danger!  Can you just think of that?  If anyone can come up to you and tell you something that can cause you to get in a flurry and turn your soul off from God, then the devil has shut and locked your front door.  This someone, coming through your back/side door, has locked the front door and God cannot get in.  If you are angry, you cannot listen to God.  Hearing God is impossible while you are angry because your front door is closed.  Do you see what I am saying?

You have to learn how to keep that front door open.  One way to keep your front door open is by getting God at your back doors.  You know that you have three back doors.  There are the two doors at each side and the one at the back.  Now how do you get God there?  It is really quite simple.  The psalmist said in Psalm 119:11,

“THY WORDS HAVE I HID IN MY HEART, THAT I MIGHT NOT SIN AGAINST THEE.”

What this means is that there is an energy and a life coming from your heart that keeps your back doors guarded.

Now I am not telling you to keep your back doors closed.  What would happen to you if for some reason God could not speak to you through your mind door, and your back doors are closed?  Then, for example, in the case where your lion door was closed, you would not hear God if God wanted to speak to you through your emotions.  YOU NEED A GUARD AT THE DOOR.  THE GUARD MUST BE THE WORD OF GOD HIDDEN IN YOUR HEART—HIDDEN SO MUCH IN YOUR HEART THAT IT WILL SHAKE OFF THE ENEMY WHEN HE COMES.

The devil will always try to talk to you through your emotions.  Jesus Christ was forty days in the wilderness fasting.  The Bible did not say that the devil spoke a word to Him during those forty days.  The devil waited until His fasting was finished and He was rife with hunger.  Hungry!  Brethren, I do not think any of you have ever been hungry.  Have you ever been hungry?  I am telling you, real hunger takes you like a madness.  You will just grab anything to eat.  That is the kind of hunger I am talking about.  It is a madness, and you have to control yourself.  This is why you have to fast and pray.  You have to train your mind and your body.  You have to train your whole soul to have food and not eat it.

The point is that we do not know the reason for, or how, to fast.  I have seen so many people fall down in a fast.  They just fall down and eat something.  Fasting is an exercise designed by God.

Young people, you must learn how to fast.  You must train yourselves to withstand temptation.  What was the first temptation that Satan brought to Jesus?  Turn with me to Luke 4 and reading from Verse 3,

“And the devil said unto him, If thou be the son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.”

Now if Jesus were not hungry, the devil would never have brought that to Him.  The type of hunger that Jesus had was a forty-day hunger.  Every cell in His body was crying out for food.  Let me tell you something about a fast and real hunger.  Anything you like, you will smell it cooking.  The devils know how to cook food.  They will cook it, and you will smell it.  There is no temptation as strong as smell.  Do you know that?  Oh, yes!  If somebody used just a certain perfume, then it would work that every time you smell that perfume you would actually experience the person’s presence.

The sense of smell is a very powerful one.  When I used to teach, I would experiment on the classroom by having a certain smell in the classroom that was very pleasant to them.  This was so that they would like to come back to my classroom.  Anytime that they would smell that particular smell, it would remind them of their geography lesson.  Smell is a very powerful memory trigger.

Jesus must have smelled hot bread.  We have a bread machine, and if you program the machine to come on at six o’clock, at six o’clock you must wake up, because the smell of hot bread baking is so great that you just cannot sleep again after you smell it.  Let us assume then that Jesus smelled the bread.  When Satan thought he had Him properly primed, he said, “Now remember, you are the Son of God.  You can do anything You want to do.  Why not make bread?  You are hungry.  Your fast is over.  Break your fast now!  With bread!”

What was Jesus’ answer?  It was the Word of God!  Yes!  I want you to see that.  YOUR BACK DOOR CAN ONLY BE GUARDED BY THE WORD OF GOD.  IF YOU HAVE NO WORD OF GOD TO GUARD YOUR BACK DOOR, YOU ARE A GONER.  YOU ARE GOING TO BE TAKEN.

He said, “It is written….”  In other words, the Word of God says that, “…man shall not live by bread alone.”  The Bible says this both in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament.  It is in Deuteronomy 8:3, where it says,

“And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.”

It is in Matthew 4:4 and Luke 4:4 that Jesus Christ quoted these same words, and the question I want to ask you is, “What do those words mean to you?”

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.”

What does that mean to you?  It means exactly what it says.  I have been hungry.  What I mean is that I was fasting and I had a twenty-one day hunger.  That hunger put a kind of madness on me.  When I went in to pray, I was filled and satisfied, and I went back to work.  It was midday when I came out and prayed, and I was satisfied and I went back to work.

What does this mean?  It means that your body is so constructed by God that it is a dual-purpose machine.  I want you to hear me and to understand what i am saying: your body can use divine energy as well as natural food energy to supply it.

Now you look at that with me.  Is there a case in the Bible where that has been done?  Is there a case recorded where divine energy was substituted for natural food?  Daniel is what I am thinking of.  Do you remember Daniel?  Daniel said, “I will not be defiled with the king’s meat,” and they gave him only pulse and water.  He was fatter, better, and nicer looking than the people who were eating the king’s meat!

Also, Jesus said, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me…” (John 4:34). 

IN OTHER WORDS, THE DOING OF THE WILL OF GOD IS MEAT (FOOD) THAT SUPPLIES US OUR ENERGY [PHYSICAL AS WELL AS SPIRITUAL].  So, do not cut that out of your books, for god can supply your physical deficiency.  amen!  I have seen it done, and I have absolutely no doubt that it is His will that the word of god should do it.

Now we come to another point here.  Do you remember a scripture that says, “All things are possible to him that believeth….”?  Turn with me to Mark 9, and let us read the context of that scripture.  Starting at Verse 14,

“And when he came to his disciples, he saw a great multitude about them, and the scribes questioning with them.  And straightway all the people, when they beheld him, were greatly amazed, and running to him saluted him.  And he asked the scribes, What question ye with them?  And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit; And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him; and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not.  He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you?  how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me.  And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming.  And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him?  And he said, Of a child.  And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.  JESUS SAID UNTO HIM, IF THOU CANST BELIEVE, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE TO HIM THAT BELIEVETH.  And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”

Even the slightest amount of belief will trigger the Word of God.  Just a slight amount will do it.  You do not have to have a big, marvelous belief.  Anybody here can say to a spirit, “Get out of him!”  You do not need any mumbo jumbo.  You do not need any speaking in tongues, or clapping of hands, or jumping or leaping, or shouting to get the job done.  We do all these things sometimes, but all you need is that amount of faith to know that you are speaking to him, and when you say, “Go!”  he has to go.

Do you know why?  It is because God has given us a mandate.  Yes!  He has given us a mandate that goes beyond the mandate that He gave to Adam and which Adam lost.  Jesus Christ gave us a mandate.  He said,

“GO YE INTO ALL THE WORLD AND PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE…,” because “...ALL POWER IS GIVEN UNTO ME IN HEAVEN AND IN EARTH” (Mark 16:15, Matthew 28:18).

This means to say that He has given you a mandate and He has given you to have the power over everything that moves within this realm.

Let me give you an example.  One day was I was walking around in Miami with some brethren looking for a place to rent to have services.  The brother went one way and I went the other way.  I walked into an area where no black people lived.  It was an area where the neighborhood definitely did not want any black people walking through there.  Of course, being I was not black, I did not care about it.  So, as I was walking along, a man came out with a Doberman Pinscher dog on a leash.  He took the leash off the dog and told the dog to attack me.  I saw the dog leaping across the street coming toward me.  What I did was to turn my back, and I just walked on.  As the dog came at me, I turned around and rebuked him in the Name of Jesus.  The dog stopped and cowered.  He looked like he got hit.  He turned and just ran back to the man.  The man stood up with his mouth open.  He had never seen a thing like that.  I do not think that dog had any use again. The point is that, if you believe god, you do not need to fear a dog.  You do not need to fear anything!

This happened with Brother Branham and a bull.  This great big bull had just killed his master.  Brother Branham was not aware of that fact.  He needed to cross over the field that this bull was in.  He jumped over a fence and started walking across the field.  The bull came at him.  When the bull came at him, Branham spoke to the bull and said, “Well, I am sorry to trespass into your quarters, but in the Name of Jesus, turn back!”  The bull stopped and went about his business.

THE TRUTH IS THAT THE POWER OF GOD IS IN YOU AND IN YOUR MIND (IF YOU FILL THIS AREA WITH THE WORD OF GOD), AND NOTHING ON EARTH OR IN HELL CAN OVERTHROW YOU OR OVERCOME YOU.  WE HAVE NOT BEEN USING THE POWER THAT GOD HAS GIVEN TO US.  DO YOU KNOW HOW SATAN CUTS DOWN YOUR POWER?  HE WILL COME TO YOU AND SAY, “HEY LOOK AT YOU.  YOU FORGET THAT YOU WERE SO AND SO, AND YOU DID SUCH AND SUCH….”  WE DO NOT RECOGNIZE THE VOICE OF THE ACCUSER OF THE BRETHREN.  GOD DID NOT PUT PREREQUISITES ON HIS WORD.  HE DID NOT SAY IN THIS BIBLE THAT IF YOU DID NOT SIN IN THE PAST THREE DAYS, OR IF YOU DID NOT DO SOMETHING WRONG, THEN “…ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE….”  NOTHING LIKE THAT IS IN HERE.  IT SAYS, “…IF THOU CANST BELIEVE, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE TO HIM THAT BELIEVETH.”

This is one of our problems in the world.  You look around and you see the mighty miracles being done by some of these men, and they are deceived, because miracles make them feel that they are great.  They are not great!

I never forgot what happened to us down in Miami.  For years and years, it baffled me.  If I tell you now, it will baffle you if I do not also tell you the answer to it.  This man had a gift of the Spirit.  To be honest, I do not know what spirit, but he believes it is God, and he is a Christian.  He came to Miami to the little church there to show us the gift of God.  His gift was the most peculiar one you have ever seen.  If you had bad teeth you would go, because he is going to fix them.  He is a “spiritual dentist”!

He went to this church where there was a girl who told God that she wanted a new tooth in this particular spot.  She did not want just any tooth.  She wanted a gold tooth.  I mean she is praying by herself.  The guy comes and says, “Come here.”  He put his hand in her mouth, and she screams, “Ahhh!”  When everybody looked, she had a beautiful gold tooth in the spot where the space was.

So this man came down to Miami, to this particular sister.  It was her church, you know.  She was the pastor of the church.  She got up and said, “Brethren, I am sorry.  I am just going to dismiss this meeting.  We will not have any meeting tonight because this man is in adultery.  See that woman beside him?  That is not his wife.  He is in adultery.  We do not believe that he should do any miracles here tonight.”  (It takes a woman to do that, doesn’t it?)

Well, everybody was shocked.  The elders that were there got together with her and said, “Let us see what he can do now after you reveal him, as a means by which we might determine whether it is of God or not.”  The man came up, and he looked like, you know, when you whip a dog.  He was so depressed.  He said, “Brethren, I am so sorry that this was done tonight, and really I do not think I can do anything.  You just have to pray for me.”  He never denied that he was in adultery.  He just said, “You have to pray for me.  Let me try and see if I can do anything.”  That night, it seemed like there was more healing with the humiliation he suffered, than at previous times.

There was one case that really shocked me.  Doctor Q was a doctor of psychology, and he had probably many cavities in his mouth.  This man laid his hands on his mouth and spoke the word and all of Doctor Q’s teeth were filled with gold.  All of his teeth!  Dr. Q said, “I know what to do;” and the next morning he went to a dentist, and they scraped off some of the gold filling and they sent it to a lab to check it.  The lab said that it was not gold, but they did not know what it is.  They said there was no metal like that on earth.

I used to live in Doctor Q’s house.  I would love to see him now after twenty years to see if he still has all his teeth filled with gold.  But this was the story, and the man was living in adultery.  Now you figure that out.

So then, the Scriptures say that the gifts of the Spirit are given “…without repentance” (Romans 11:29).  Do not be deceived by miracles, because you can do the greatest miracles and it does not make you a better Christian.  If you believe God, you can do miracles.  It is just a matter of whether you believe God.  As a matter of fact, it could condemn you.  I have seen it condemn people.

Do you know how it condemns them?  All right, I will give you an example.  Let us say that I have so much faith that I can pray for your teeth and they all get filled; and yet I did not have faith to live righteously.  You understand?  The same faith that I use to pray for teeth should have been applied to help me to live a righteous life.

Let us look at the situation here in Mark 9, where the brethren could not cast out the demon, and Jesus said a peculiar thing to them.  They asked Him, “Why couldn’t we do this?”  Do you remember what He said?  He said, “This kind cometh not out but by prayer and fasting.”  That meant that they needed to pray and fast.  Why?  It was because there were barriers inside of their minds.  You see?  [We are talking about] barriers in your mind.  I can tell you the truth, when I fast some of the things that seem impossible all of a sudden just become possible.  Do you know it is very difficult for you to believe that “all things are possible”?  Now, I have an airplane ticket to take me from here to Chicago, and how difficult would it be for me to think of just being translated with my bag and baggage to Chicago?  Very, very difficult brother!  It is very difficult, you understand, but the fact remains that “ALL things are possible to him that believeth.”  If you can believe, then it is possible.

I believe that belief is something given to you by God.  Do you remember what the man said?  He said, “Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief.”  He knew he was not up there.  He said, “…help thou my unbelief.”  Jesus responded immediately and commanded the spirit in the boy to come out of him.  He answered the man’s prayer, helped his unbelief, and set the boy free.

This word that “All things are possible to him that believeth” could be applied to the soul.  Let’s talk about the part of our soul that is our mind.  You want the mind of Christ—can you now believe that it is possible for you to get the mind of Christ?  You see, if you are a Baptist, you do not believe that it is possible.  Baptists teach Baptists that it is not possible to be perfect.  If you are an ordinary Pentecostal, you will not believe it either.  However, if you have been listening to me for a while then you should be able to believe that it is possible for you to receive the mind of Christ.

There is one good report, and that is that sometimes you do have the mind of Christ.  Sometimes you think exactly like Jesus Christ would think.  The only problem is that you go in and out.  What we have to do to cure that problem is that we must begin to believe that “All things are possible….”

I think that this is a good place for me to touch something here that is untouchable.  There are people who study metaphysics; who study supernatural, sorcery types of things.  The first lesson as a Rosicrucianist in metaphysics, is that you get a saucer and crumble a piece of paper.  You put it on the saucer and you must take your mind and move the paper back and forth.  Anytime you can do this, you have made the first step.  You are now ready to go on to other things.  Some of these men practice, so that they can move objects such as a chair and sweep it across the room.  I understand that this is what Hitler used to do.  When he got in a rage, the furniture would fly all over the place.  THAT IS THE NATURAL MIND.  Watchman Nee called it “The latent power of the soul.”  That teaching really comes from Jesse Penn-Lewis.  It has a tremendous power, but that power is nothing compared to the power when God is doing something.

If you will allow God to come into your soul, He will come in and remove the barriers.  Do you know what you have in there?  Let me tell you some of the furnishings that you have in there that are stopping God’s light from coming in.  Ancestral traits are in there.  WHEN YOU ACCEPTED JESUS AS YOUR SAVIOR, WHEN HE CAME IN YOUR HEART, HE DID NOT REALLY GO AND TAKE CHARGE OF EVERY LITTLE CORNER.  HE LEFT IT FOR YOU TO USE THE WORD OF GOD, AND TO ALLOW HIM TO FINISH THE JOB.  ALLOW HIM!  HE IS RIGHT IN THE CENTER THERE, AND HE IS WAITING TO BE ALLOWED TO GO THROUGH THIS DOOR, THROUGH THAT DOOR, OR THROUGH THAT DOOR.  ONLY YOU CAN OPEN THE DOORS.

There are certain sections of your mind that you are afraid of.  Oh, yes!  I remember that for years I was afraid of anger.  I would run like a thief from a quarrel or a fight because I was afraid that I might get angry.  I was not sure of myself.

*****Cecil….maybe clarify below “I had to fast for about a year”

For God to deal with that spirit of anger, He had to have me fasting.  I had to fast for about a year.  I fasted and prayed for the year, begging the Lord not to allow anybody to come against me.  You know, I was like a thief running and hiding from the thing that was in my mind and in my soul.  Running, until He could deal with it.  It was only when He put the fire in there and dealt with it that I became free.  I am not afraid now of getting angry.

But you have to come to the stage where the devil cannot manipulate you.  Do you know how the devil manipulates you?  He does it by reverse psychology.  He wants you to go this way, [so] he pushes you that way.  Then you start forcing against him, and go the way he wants you to go anyhow.  Come, let’s look at it.

If you understand what I am saying, the devil wants to manipulate you.  So what does he do?  He sends somebody to hurt you.  Just imagine you sitting down there.  I want you to be honest with me now.  If a man, a stranger, walked right through the door and came in and gave you a big slap in your face, how many of you would be able to say, “Praise the Lord!  Thank you Jesus for this slap!”

POW!“…Thank you Jesus!” Tell me now, how many would just dance and praise God?

As I am telling you here, I remember a situation of a brother who was one of the most anointed men I had ever met.  He was just a country preacher.  When he preached the word of God, you could feel something move.  Amen!  But the devil wanted him.  He used to be a fighter, a man who would go into the bar and wreck the whole bar.  He was as strong as a lion, and he could beat ten men; and they could not match him or hold him.  However, Jesus got him saved.

One day he was going in his truck along the road and this man turned his vehicle cross way in the road to stop him.  When he came out, he saw a man that he had beaten up some time ago.  The man heard that he was a Christian, and he had come to take advantage of him.  The man came down and boxed him, and the preacher turned the other cheek.  The man boxed him again.  He turned the other cheek.  He boxed him again, and the brother just stood up and smiled at him.

The man seeing the success that he was having went a little bit too far.  He grabbed him, turned him around, and kicked him.  Something snapped, and this brother turned on the man and started to kick him.  He was kicking the man so much that if the people didn’t come and take the man away, he would have killed him.

They took him before the council of the church to try him.  He said, “Yes!  Yes!  I did kick this man.”  But, he said, “The Bible says that if a man boxes you on the left cheek, you must give him the right.  If he boxes you on the right, you must give him the left.  Didn’t I do that brethren?”  They said, “Yes.”  Then he said, “But the bible did not tell me what to do when the man kicked me.”  So, he kicked him back.  He kicked him to pieces!  It is just that the anger reached to a point that he could not control it.  He was not prepared or ready.

In Hitler’s camps and in the Russian thing, when they caught Christians, what they used to do was to take a Christian man and expose him to a naked woman.  They would lock him up in a cell with her for a while, and leave him in that condition long enough until he would fall.  Until he would give up and capitulate.  Amen.

GOD IS CALLING US TO BE ABOVE THAT.  DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?  IF YOU DO NOT SETTLE THAT BEFORE THE TESTS COME, YOU WILL BE A GONER.  YOU HAVE TO OVERCOME TO THE POINT WHERE THE DEVIL WILL NOT HAVE THAT KIND OF POWER OVER YOUR SOUL, AND THAT THIS KIND OF THING WOULD NOT BE A TEMPTATION TO YOU.  WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE MIND.  THIS IS WHERE THE FORTITUDE OF GOD IS GOING TO BE.  YOU MUST INCULCATE THE MIND OF CHRIST THROUGH THE WORD OF GOD.

IF YOU CONTINUE TO THINK ABOUT YOUR NATURAL BUSINESS, AND DO EVERYTHING NATURAL, YOU WILL FIND THAT IT WILL PREVENT YOUR RECEIVING THE FULNESS OF CHRIST.  CHRIST IS PREPARING US NOW FOR HIS COMING.  JESUS CHRIST IS COMING INTO THE SOUL FIRST BEFORE HE COMES IN THE WORLD.  HOW CAN WE BE PREPARED?  WE HAVE TO GET GUARDS BY THE DOORS, PREVENTING THE OLD TIME THINGS FROM COMING IN, BUT ALLOWING THE LIGHT OF GOD TO BE COMING IN, AND PUSHING OUT THE DARKNESS THAT WAS IN THERE.

DO NOT CONDONE DARKNESS!  If you know that you are a thief, then when you go down to pray, say, “God, I am a thief, and I hate being a thief!  I do not want to be a thief, Lord God.  Deliver me from stealing.”  Do you know what might happen to you the next day?  The police come for you.  You ask God to deliver you and He is going to deal with you exactly as you need to be dealt with.  The police might not come for you, but then He is going to deal exactly with you with the fire that is going to burn the thing out of you.  God is going to deal with you with that fire.  Do you understand me, brethren?

SO, THE MIND IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR SOUL.  WHAT YOU THINK IS WHAT YOU ARE.  OH, YES!  WHATEVER YOU THINK, THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE.  WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND THAT GOD WANTS THIS PART TO BE CLEANSED BEFORE HE CAN COME IN.

Watch your thinking.  Have you ever done it?  Take a note of the things that you think from morning to night, and check up on what causes you to think that way.  Now, if the devil can cause you to think certain contrary things to God, then the devil controls you in that area.  Do you follow me?

THE THING I AM SAYING TO YOU HERE, IS THAT THE MIND IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR SOUL.  THE WAY YOU THINK, THE THINGS YOU THINK ABOUT, THE THINGS YOU ALLOW TO BE BOMBARDING YOUR THOUGHTS—THOSE ARE THE THINGS THAT ARE CONTROLLING YOUR WHOLE LIFE, AND YOU HAVE TO BEGIN TO THINK THE WORD OF GOD.

I said to the young people and to the people this morning, “Get yourself a Walkman tape player and put on the Word of God.”  Put it around your ears while you are working in the house.  Let the Word of God be in your ears.  You might miss the telephone, but let the Word of God be in your ears.  It will keep you from missing God.