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Posts Tagged ‘Ezekiel 8’

Give Yourself to the Things of God

Posted in Overcoming, tagged , , , on December 18, 2017| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Ezekiel 8:13

Let us read in Ezekiel 8:13 and while reading it, let us remember that it is in the “chambers of our imagery,” it is in our mind that our problem lies.

“He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.”

Women weeping for Aphrodite; women weeping for Tammuz.

You know, Tammuz, this god of sex, is the god that they weep for at Easter. I do not know if you understand all these things, but at Easter they would fast for forty days—we call it Lent now. The heathen would spend forty days fasting and afflicting their souls because of the death of Nimrod, who they called Tammuz. They would weep for forty days, and on what we would call Easter (resurrection) morning they would come out with dances and flowers and give their bodies unto fornication as a tribute to Tammuz.

You say, “Oh, we in this modern time do not do those kinds of things!” But how many young girls are weeping in their secret places over this Tammuz? They want to be married, they want to have their own husbands; and when they say they want to, they are not thinking of serving God, they are not thinking of having someone to serve God with, but they are thinking of having pleasures. How many married people live for nothing but having this pleasure? Men and women, going to excess—morning, noon, and night! Living upon nothing but this sexual urge that is driving them.

Some people think of sex more than they actually do it. It is almost a twenty-four hour operation! Your minds are being blocked by a spirit!

I am not just talking about sex, you know. I am talking about a spirit that works many different things. ANGER! I have known a Christian brother that threatened his wife with divorce, because the poor woman was worn out. He threatened her with divorce because she was worn out and could not go with him. Do you understand me? Eventually, they had to be divorced.

Do you not understand what the Bible shows? That God gave Eve to Adam; that they should live in unity; that they should become one. That, if my hand is paining, I do not demand that hand lift a hundred pounds! I sympathize with my hand, and although I want to lift the weight, I say, “No, let me suffer! Let ME suffer!” The Bible says in Ephesians that the marriage between man and woman is as Christ and the Church, Who gave Himself for the Church! Isn’t that what the Word of God says? You must give yourselves! Men, you must give yourselves for your wives. Wives, you must give yourselves for your husbands; and when the husbands are busy with the things of the Lord, encourage them!

You must have principle in your lives. (Now, I am talking here to both the men and the women.) You cannot go on a mission with the gospel and be involved in marital relationships at the same time. I am saying this because God shows that the way He made man is that man can only concentrate fully upon one thing at a time! The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 7:5 that you must fast and give yourselves to the things of the Lord, and then come back together, by agreement, so that the devil does not tempt you!

Brethren, let us give ourselves to the things of the Lord so that He would give us strength to overcome.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, July 2000, pg. 37-38)

Thought for today: Establish righteous principles in your life that you would rather suffer than bring pollution to your soul and to your home.

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People Who Mean Business with God

Posted in Overcoming, tagged , , on December 14, 2017| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Ezekiel 8:11-12

Let us look a little closer at the problem that we, the people of God, are faced with at this time:

Ezekiel 8:11-12 shows that because your mind is your own, because I do not see what you are thinking, because I do not see what you are feeling, you feel that you are safe. We feel that we are safe because nobody else knows that we lusted over here, or we desired over there. It is all in your mind!

I remember one of the great testings I received as a young man. I had told God to take my life unless I was going to live holy. If He saw that I was not going to live holy, He must “Kill me now!” I said, “God, I am going to give you a chance to kill me! I will neither eat nor drink water for forty days. Kill me!” I am talking about people who mean business with God, whose life does not mean anything to them compared to gaining that thing which God has ordained for them.

Well, God did not kill me, as you might notice. He brought me alive again after this terrible ordeal, but it gave a deathblow. Shortly after this happened, I went to bed one night and got up struggling in my sleep because something was choking me. When I woke up, I was still being choked and I was still struggling. I found out that there was a girl on top of me. She had crept into the room naked, got on top of me, and held me. She felt that she could overcome me in that way.

The first thing that happened, as I came to consciousness, was anger. Why should she believe that I would cast away God for her! She did not respect the power of my salvation! I overcame that night, but I still lost the church and my name. Do you know why? Because a woman refused is a savage creature. She went out and told everybody how she slept with me; and my dignity would not allow me to defend myself against the tongues of my accusers.

I want you to understand that if you are in a condition where a naked woman can come in and take you, you are in a bad shape. And I know many of us are in that shape. You have to get to the point where it would not faze you, it would not affect you. You have to get to that point!

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, July 2000, pg. 35-36)

Thought for today: You can only get to the point where sensuality does not faze you if you allow Christ Jesus to come into your mind and to control your body, so that your body will not obey any other master but your mind; and your mind, your spirit; and your spirit, the Holy Spirit!

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“But I Have No Idols!”

Posted in Overcoming, tagged , , on December 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Ezekiel 8:7-10

You may ask: What is it that he is talking about in Ezekiel 8:7-10? He is talking about your idols! You say, “But, I have no idols!” May God Almighty help us! May God Almighty help us! What is it that is keeping you away from absolute surrender to Christ Jesus in all things? What is it? Where is your idol?

I can see idols all around. Just lift up your eyes in the Spirit and you will see the idols. Oh, praise be to God! I go out on the street and it is very simple to see the idols out there. The people put on clothes and dress like their idols. You can easily pick them out. But the church people have a time to cover up, especially when they come into service, and you do not see their idols very easily. However, if you look in the Spirit, you can see the idols. What is it that is keeping you from walking perfectly in the Spirit of God so that you have a satisfaction in your spirit that, “I have done the will of my Father!” What is it? That is your idol! Do you hear me?

He is telling you here to dig in the hole in “your” wall (because you are the “son of man” here; this passage of Scripture is speaking of you and so it is YOUR wall). Dig a little deeper and you will see your idols; you will know that some of these idols are so secretly placed that we never know them. Sometimes it takes somebody to come and smite you before you will find out the terrible thoughts that can come in your mind. Yes! Suicide! Murder! You would not believe that you have those in you, would you? But let somebody kill your child, let somebody do something to your child, let somebody walk over you in the way that destroys your life, and you will find all these wicked demons coming up in your soul. Yet, you did not know that they were there before.

God is speaking to these idols. The prophet said he saw, but he had to dig in the wall and find a secret door. Amen! God will always open a hole for you to start your digging. He is opening it even now.

“We cannot go where we must go if we do not take care of this thing, saith the Lord!”

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, July 2000, pg. 34-35)

Thought for today: Dig in the hole in your wall so that you can find the idols of your life and overcome them by the power of God.

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Image of Jealousy

Posted in Overcoming, tagged , , on December 12, 2017| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Ezekiel 8:2-6

Ezekiel 8:2 says, “Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber.”

Ezekiel 8:2 tells us something very specific: the appearance from the “loins” down – “fire;” and the appearance from the “loins” up – “brightness.” That means that God is showing you a picture of the problems that beset humanity from the very beginning until now. Believe me, sexuality is a human problem; it is one of the chief areas in which God is bringing a people to overcome! If this people do not overcome it, we are not going to make it! There is no way that the image of jealousy can stand in the temple of God at the north gate, saith the Lord, and provoke God to jealousy, and then Jesus Christ descend in the same temple! No, Sir! The “image of jealousy” is standing in the exact spot where Jesus Christ should be!

Let us read about it in Ezekiel 8:3, “And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.” There is a provocation in us that is provoking God to jealousy.

Verses 4-5, “And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain. Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the north. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.”

Ezekiel saw this image of jealousy sitting in the entry gate of the temple so that God couldn’t get in. Our bodies are the temple of God. Do we understand that? I am saying, brethren, that there is a block in us as a people. Those who are not married want to be married, because they want to have a good time and they think of it in this way. Those who are married, are married and have this as number-one in their minds. Very few of us have Jesus Christ as number-one. Believe you me, most of us have this number-one thing that would crop upon us night and day! Night and day! It is like worship! We worship “Tammuz!” But, wait, I am running ahead.

Verse 6, “He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.”

You see, this image that stands in the doorway is preventing the Christ from coming into His temple. When we were young, we married young, God began to deal with us when we were young, and we got rid of that devil when we were young. Somebody says, “Oh, that is an old man talking to us!” You have never been an old man and you do not know how old men feel, but let me tell you how old men feel. Old men are worse than young men are, because they cannot control it! What you do not overcome in your youth, you will not overcome in your old age. If you never learned how to let the Spirit of God stand over your spirit, your spirit over your soul, and your soul over your body—you are a loser! Because man was made to control himself!

I used to do animal husbandry. One thing you notice about animals is that they have a “time.” They have a time when they come on heat; that is the time in the cycle that God has provided for them for the procreation of their species. Man has no time. His time comes in his mind. He controls his body, his life, and his movement by his mind. If you let your mind loose and do not control it, you will be a person out of control! You will be taken by every wind of doctrine! Every devil that comes along will blow you his way!

You ask me, “But, how do I control?” You control by suffering. Did you know that? You control by suffering. You see the food, and you say, “I am not going to eat! I am dying of hunger, but I will not eat because my mind says, ‘I must not eat.’” When I was a young man, this is the way I was trained by God—to not eat sometimes. Any young man that does not fast and train his body to obey his spirit and his mind, is a person who is heading for trouble! You must be trained! There is no way around it! You must have food and refuse to eat.

It is not every time that you feel for something that you must have it. You must tell this body, “You must obey me!” For God has put you in a position to control your body. If you are a glutton, the Bible says in Proverbs 23:1-2 that when you get to the king’s table, you should take the knife and put it to your throat.” Let us have a funeral. Oh, yes! Do not eat when you get to the king’s table! Behave yourself! Let that mind control that body, for this body is a servant and this servant must obey its master.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, July 2000, pg. 32-34)

Thought for today: See to it that you train your body to fully submit to your mind as your mind submits to the Spirit of God that rules in your spirit.

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What Is in the Forefront of Your Mind?

Posted in Overcoming, tagged , , , on December 11, 2017| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Ezekiel 8:1

Let us look at the following issue: Satan discovered the function of the human body and the human being, and he decided he was going to get us to think a certain way. For if he could get you to think a certain way, then he would get you to do what he wants you to do. So, in the world we began to think a certain way. The thinking of the man of sin is that he becomes a sexual creature and his wife becomes a thing to be used. I am not saying that some women are not like that also, but I am saying that if the men take the lead in anything, they are going to make a difference, for the women cannot overcome this situation alone.

People who get married have certain ideas planted in their minds. “I am marrying so that I can have a picnic; so that I can have a ball; so that I can live morning, noon, and night to satisfy my carnal desires.” Do you know what happens? You find that sometimes you are talking to a person, but something is in his mind apart from what you are saying. He wants to get home. Why does he want to get home quickly? Because he has something in his mind – he wants to have a good time with his wife.

I am talking about Christians! You see, I was very shocked when God revealed to me that Christians are involved in sexual promiscuity just as the world is and that they are committing sin in their lives, as Christians, believing that they have a license to do that which should have been the world’s business! Do you understand me?

I have discovered a certain condition among the brethren – the men are “dull.” They are not leaders in the things of God. They are not coming forth as God leads men into righteousness and into glory and into power. They are not marching upon the hilltop. It is because there is an image in their mind. Let us read about it. Turn with me to Ezekiel 8:1.

“And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me.”

What is he saying in this verse? You read this chapter and how it says that this happened in the sixth month of the sixth year, and on the fifth day of the month—you must know that it has a meaning. God is not going to waste words. He is talking about man (six), man (six), and ministry (five)! Yes! He is saying it is the sixth month of the sixth year and the fifth day of the month. Now, six speaks of “man,” and five of “ministry,” so Ahh!—the ministry! He is going to deal in this chapter with the ministry. He said, “…the elders of Judah sat before me,” and “the hand of the Lord fell there upon me.” It is like Jesus talking to His disciples and seeing house business rising up in their minds while he is talking. What a terrible thing it is! What a terrible thing it is to have the flesh in the forefront of one’s mind. The Lord told the Jews to bind the “Word” upon their foreheads. They did it literally; we should do it spiritually.

This is why God has not given us that “clear” vision that we could see through one another. Some of us would not have the strength. We would despise one another for what we are. You see, some of us only love one another because we do not know one another. Some of us are only buddy-buddy, nicey-nicey, because we do not know the thoughts that go through one another’s mind. Thank God, that we do not know it, but one day we will know as we are known. When things are purer, we will be able to take it more.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, July 2000, pg. 31-32)

Thought for today: We are commanded to bind the Word of God upon our foreheads. Therefore, let us fill our mind with His Word so that we would not be found straying from righteousness.

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