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"Every time the children of Israel disobeyed the Lord, God lifted His blessing off of them and allowed vanity to take them over. The church has become a wimp. We’re not overcomers as the church and we don’t rule and reign. We are not conquerors. He wants to raise up those who will be conquerors, and more than conquerors; and that is to rule and reign in Christ Jesus, that His will would come on the earth. We have to get that in our spirits and not quit and not allow ourselves to go backwards but to keep going forward until the end." Jesus came to save our soul. The soul is the recorder of who you are building yourself to be. You are either allowing satan to build your soul or you’re allowing God to build your soul. God didn’t make a kingdom for you. He only made two kingdoms; the kingdom of satan and the kingdom of God. You have no choice as to running off and building your own kingdom because it’s not possible. The problem we have is that our flesh in its fallen state loves vanity. Our fleshly body is either serving vanity or being the temple of God. Our soul is made up of our flesh body and the breath of God. He breathed into man but man fell. When man fell, the breath of God in him was polluted. The Trinity takes the breath of God and reunites us with God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We are either driven by the thoughts and works of man or we are counseled and taught by the Trinity and the ways of truth and life that were originally intended. So this is our battle. To overcome the world is to have the temple in us and to have the Trinity in us. If that doesn’t take place then we have vanity and we’re in the fallen state. God doesn’t accept us if we choose to stay in the fallen state. The soul records everything and all God has to do is look at you and in one second he can play what’s in your soul to you and you will know it. The Trinity can’t function in the midst of vanity. You yourself on your own merits cannot break the vanity that is in your flesh. People try to and that’s called religion. But you yourself cannot break the vanity of the fallen state that is in you, no matter how hard you try. A bad apple is a bad apple, and a good apple is a good apple. A bad tree is a bad tree, a good tree is a good tree, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. That’s what Jesus was trying to teach when He taught about a good tree and a bad tree. A bad tree cannot produce the temple. It has to come from the Trinity to build the temple within you for them to live in your body. When this fleshly body dies, the breath of God goes back to the one that gave it; and your soul, which is spirit, is the only thing that is left of you. For the Lord to raise you up after you die is no hard thing because all he has to do is call your soul up and it manifests itself before the Lord. You can burn your body, and scatter it to the wind. The flesh goes back to the earth, so you’re not doing anything to get away from God because you can’t destroy the soul. You can’t destroy it, I can’t destroy your soul, no one can destroy it except Jesus. Jesus said, fear not those that can destroy the body, but fear Him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. When your soul is destroyed, you are no more and no one will ever even remember that you existed. You’ll be wiped out so clean that nobody will ever remember you again. That’s what the Bible says. Your responsibility is to work out your salvation; that you are laboring in the Trinity and not in the fallen state of man and that you are the temple of God and not the temple of vanity. That’s your personal responsibility and determines where you will go. Yet we see such a callous and half-hearted labor to put the temple in so God rules and lives in us through the Trinity. With that in mind let’s go to 2 Corinthians 1:2, Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort. One of God’s purposes is because of the fallen state of man, He’s come to comfort you. Verse 4, Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ aboud in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. Consolation is the same thing as the counsel of God. The counsel of God comforts us because it shows us what we need to do. It is sometimes hard to know what we are supposed to do but if we knew it we would do it. We aren’t comforted until we know what it is God wants us to be doing. It brings comfort to us when we know what He wants us to do. I could comfort you with some scripture, or in saying you’re on the right trail, you’re on the road, or if you’re not I can comfort you by saying, that’s not right, you have to get back on the road. And after a little bit you realize that was it. You weren’t on the right road and you were comforted when you got back on to be pleasing unto the Lord. So in verse 4 again, Who comforteth us in all our tribulation... I was never taught that. I was taught that when you give your heart to Jesus everything is peaches and cream. And I used to wonder, if what I was taught was that when you have Jesus in your heart everything is just wonderful, why is it that I’m not having wonderful stuff? But now I know my tribulation does something to me. What does it do? If you are in the place of seeking to be the temple, vanity will bring vexations and torment to you. Lot was tormented all his days when he was in Sodom and Gomorrah. But his wife wasn’t. She turned and longed to be back there and she didn’t make it out. If the flesh is not being tormented you will never go towards being the temple and having the Trinity live in you. You will always go towards vanity and pleasing man. Because satan’s kingdom is polluted it brings vexation. If you begin to seek God you will be tormented with the areas of vanity that are still in you, because your eyes are opened and you have become alive to the Spirit of God. Before that you are dead. Dead people can’t feel what is really going on. Only those that are alive can feel the torment. I can take a syringe and I can give a cow a shot. As long as they are alive they’re going to react to it. But if they are dead I could easily, by myself, give them a shot, and they wouldn’t even know I was doing it. Spiritually it’s the same way. If you are dead to God then you don’t know the torment that’s there because you’re living in it. That is your world of torment. There is nothing to gauge your torment. But if you begin to come out of the vanity and come up towards the temple of God then you have a gauge of what brings life and freedom and liberty. Vanity brings pain and torment, because what you want is the life that is pure and holy and beautiful in God. Only as you come alive in God will you know the difference. As long as we are on the earth the vanity is going to torment us. It tormented Jesus. Jesus kept pure because the vanity kept vexing Him and He learned obedience because of the vanity on the earth. We are fighting the vanity of the world and we will continue to fight it until it’s over. And the way we get out of the torment as much as we can is to remove the vanity in our own lives, but we still will be tormented from the outside by the vanity that is in the world. It encourages us to stay in a place of purity because we don’t like torment. But the vexations will continue and the greater that you have Christ in you, the greater the torment will be because the more you have God in you the more alive and aware you become. At each level there are more vexations. But God left that there because He has to know He can trust you with the power at the higher level. So when you come to a higher level and He gives you more power He has to trust you. And the way He trusts you is that you know if you try to go backwards you will be vexed all the more, because now you know. When God advances you from one level to another level, don’t go back, because you will be vexed more than you ever were before. Hang on to that which you have until you go to the next level and do the same thing. Never go back! If you go back you will really be vexed because now you know. When you get off the trail, you are vexed with a great vexation. Verse 5, For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ. The same thing that Christ was tormented with is in us if we begin to come up with the light to see what the devil is doing and the vanity of this world. The sufferings of Christ abound in us. It’s real. But the seven eyes of God that are in us also abound to teach us and encourage us because we don’t want the vexation. If you can’t get to the next level, He will bring a vexation on you. Paul said he was vexed to the point that he could feel himself physically dying. So Christ and His power bring us into a place that we are comforted in that we know we are in Christ Jesus but that doesn’t mean the vexations are gone. It means that we overcome them and stay out of it so that it doesn’t happen. The consolation, the counsel of God, comes and tells you what you need to do, and if you do that it will bring you comfort. We are more than conquerors. We rule and reign with Christ. Verse 6, And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation. If you’re afflicted, then you can come to the Spirit of counsel and be counseled and you’ll be saved from that thing that’s in you that you didn’t know was there and you wouldn’t know it if you weren’t vexed. That’s your salvation. But you’re trying to get rid of it. …Which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation. And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation. You are set free from the thing that is tormenting you. The church is weak because they say that Jesus died for us and we don’t have to suffer any more. They stay in their vanities and don’t even know it. Verse 8, For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead. They got to the place that they were so suppressed by vanity and the world and all that the devil was trying to do that they felt like they were going to die from it. So they had to abolish their own ideas and ways of doing it and trust God. Their strength was gone and they had despair of life. When you are in that place you begin to seek God and let go of man’s ways and begin to go into the place of the supernatural. So if you can’t make it and you keep saying you want to, God will help you. He will encourage you to get there. But that encouraging may come through pain and vexation. Verse 10, Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us; Now let’s skip over to verse 20, For all of the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. God says that if you want Me, if you really want Me, everything is yes and Amen. Now if you’re in vanity and don’t want to leave it your yes and Amen aren’t worth anything. What He’s saying is I will help you out of that. I don’t care what it is, I will help you out of it if you want to. Yes. Amen. So be it. 2 Corinthians 2:14, Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savor of death unto death; and to the other the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? He’s saying, a part of us goes from death unto death and the other part of us goes from life unto life. The vanity and the fall of man we are dying, but we are becoming alive in the temple and Spirit of God. Verse 17, For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ. Those that preach in the vanity are bad trees. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit no matter what you do. Vanity leads you into poverty. 2 Corinthians 3:12, Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: and not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. Every time the children of Israel disobeyed the Lord, God lifted His blessing off of them and allowed vanity to take them over. The church has become a wimp. We’re not overcomers as the church and we don’t rule and reign. We are not conquerors. He wants to raise up those who will be conquerors, and more than conquerors; and that is to rule and reign in Christ Jesus, that His will would come on the earth. We have to get that in our spirits and not quit and not allow ourselves to go backwards but to keep going forward until the end. He said you will fight until the very end, because until vanity is destroyed you will fight. You have to get out of your head that you will somehow slip around vanity. You can’t because it’s everywhere. Until God comes and vanity is totally destroyed it’s not going to happen. So He has placed within us something that encourages us to get rid of our vanity and to begin to become overcomers and then not only overcomers of the world in ourselves but then to help others overcome the world. Verse 15, But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. People walking in vanity do not see what you see. You have to go easy and know how to speak, let the Holy Spirit give you the words for them because they don’t see anything you’re saying. When you begin to seek God, He slowly begins to remove the vail so that you can see the vanity and the vexations and then the life that comes in Christ Jesus. Verse 17, Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. When God is done with you they don’t see you, they see the Living God. Vanity brings self in it and the life of the Spirit brings Christ in it. 2 Corinthians 4:4, In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. In other words, there has to come in this world such a vexation in the wicked that seek vanity that they become sick of vanity. If you have had vanity removed, this vexation won’t affect you. It affects those that have vanity in them. Paul says you go through the fire and if there is anything that is not of God it will burn up. But anything that is of God is eternal and will not burn. But it says that in that burning process, when all things are burned up that you liked, then salvation comes to you, because you have no place to go but to the Lord. There were times when I was going through vexations that I just wanted to run. But I would say, where am I going to run to? Back to vanity? No. So I would come to the point that I would say, ok Lord, I’m ready to die. I’m miserable without You. Now do with me what you want. I’m ready now to get rid of that vanity, so that life can come that You want to give me. Verse 6, For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. It’s interesting that they found the right kind of clay to make insulators for electricity that would withstand even lightning that would come down and hit the lines and wouldn’t bust. So you don’t need to worry that God is going to give you so much power that you’re going to explode. You’re made out of clay. You can handle it. You can handle the vexations as well. Because you are comforted in knowing that you’re in the right place. In fact, I would be shook up if I wasn’t vexed. Verse 8, We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you. When a person comes to the Lord and you are interceding for them, the death that is in them comes on you. We are called to stand in the gap for those that don’t have what we have. Verse 17, For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; Our light affliction, which is just for a little time, works for us. The affliction is working for you a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. So why do you want to get rid of it? As you get rid of vanity the vexations will disappear. Verse 18, While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. Hebrews 6:18, That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us; The consolation, or the counsel of God, is in the middle of your hope to get you there. If you don’t have the consolation to get you there your hope is in vain. Verse 19, Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul. Do you realize that your affliction that causes you to grow up in God and away from vanity is an anchor to your soul? And your soul is what gets comforted. It becomes an anchor that you stay there and don’t go backwards. If your cry is real and not lying to the Lord, then you will have your soul being anchored down with the hope of that which is to come and it’s advanced by the vexations of the world which is vanity. The greater God gives you power the more vanity you see. Verse 19, Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; That is, into the very presence of the Father. That’s how you get there. Through the vexations that encourage you to move on and to leave man’s ways behind, which Paul had to do, to save his life. He said, I no longer could depend upon myself. I had to depend upon God and I got out of it. And that was the purpose of the vexations; to advance him because he couldn’t get there. Romans 8:37, Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. That’s how much Paul’s soul was anchored because of his vexations. Nothing is going to move me because I don’t want to go back. And if you will notice, people that leave God and say I’m done, the vexations that come on them are ten times worse than if they would have just kept going. Where can I go but to the Lord? John 17:2, As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. If you come to Jesus in the Trinity, He has been given power over all vanity of the flesh. You can overcome it all. When you overcome the vanity of your flesh, the vexation is no longer in you, it’s just around you. Never give up. John 16:33, These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. He doesn’t say some of you, He says, you will have tribulation. So get it out of your head that you’re not going to have tribulation. When we are weak we depend upon the Lord and we become strong. He gives eternal life to as many as want it. You have to want it to the point that your faith is laboring to receive it. Once you receive it there is no labor any more. But we have to labor to enter into that place behind the veil. 
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AuthorLarry Troyer |
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