EXPERIENCES IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD http://eaglevision.com.my 1. LIVING IN AN OPEN VISION We will cover a series on the experiences in the spirit realm. What we will be doing is to dwell more on the deep things in the spirit but on the experiential side. It is something that you find it hard to define but we will attempt to do so. The majority of the people do not know what it is like to really be in the depths of the spirit. If we have an idea of what the spirit realm is like it is possible to get motivated by it. So our purpose is to share some experiences from the spirit realm that could make you desire to spend more time with God in order to want to move into that realm. II Cor. 12:1-4 I must boast; there is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven - whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise - whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows - and he heard things that that cannot be told, which man may not utter. Now Paul was educated and he would not be short of words as far as the average man is concerned. So you could imagine the impact of what he is saying. This is not an ordinary man who lacks the vocabulary. Paul was brought up at Gamaliel's feet. He is one of the most highly educated people in his days. And for him to make a statement that he has been in the spirit realm, and that when he came back he could not describe what it was like, imagine the impact of that. It was just like a Noble prize scientist who is on the top echelon of intellectual ability coming back from the spirit realm and say I could describe atoms, molecules but I can't describe what is there. It would have the same impact. Paul was above the ordinary in every thing that he pursued in God. So there is a spirit realm, which is quite hard to comprehend, and we want to talk about something in that area that could motivate us deeper into that realm. Gal. 5:16-19 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of he Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. Verse 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. There are different levels of being in the Spirit. A person can call him or herself Spirit filled but yet lives in the flesh. There are different levels of being in the Spirit and there are also things to do in order to keep being in the Spirit. The vast majority of the church of Jesus Christ is not in the Spirit. If the whole church of Jesus Christ is moving in the Spirit today, the whole world today will be shaken by what God is doing. I would rather say it this way. Most of the churches are in the Spirit some of the time. But only some in the church are in the Spirit all the time. And there is a certain realm in the Spirit that, that is there. We got to learn to flow with the Spirit. We got to maintain in order to qualify in a way God will look down and say that’s being in the Spirit. Jesus Christ as He moved on this earth was always in the Spirit. Let me just give you a few tips here. If you ever worry about anything on this earth, you have just moved out of the Spirit. Do you know that Jesus never worries? He himself said in Matt. 6 look at the birds of the air and the grass in the field. They put their trust entirely in the hands of the heavenly Father. Jesus rebuked, exhorted and told the disciples they must not worry. Most of us know Matt. 6:33 which says, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, And all these things shall be added onto you." The condition to receive all the blessings of God is to seek first the kingdom of God. But that is only one of the conditions. The other conditions are mentioned prior to verse 33. You have to read first from verse 25 - 33. And those are the other conditions. If for a moment you worry about your needs you have just stepped out from the realm of the Spirit to the realm of the flesh. This is Jesus himself speaking in Matt. 6. So that’s just one of the small points I am talking about. It looks like major point but that’s only a small point. Being in the Spirit, living in the Spirit and maintaining in the realm of the Spirit is not as easy as people make it. A lot of people go in and out of the kingdom all the time. They say I am abiding in the vine. But most of the time they are pulling away from the vine and then coming on again. Then they ask Jesus, Jesus why do I not have fruit. You say that if I abide in the vine I will bear much fruit. Jesus says you are abiding some of the time. Most of the time you are running around. Those little time that you have with Jesus, He would quickly channel all the nutrition to you so that you could bear fruit. And just as you got a few droplets you pulled off and you went aside again. No wonder it takes a long time to bear fruit. Now some of those things that we are going to talk about are from the experience. Sometime back in the prayer series we mentioned that there was a time I prayed 48 hours in tongues just to see what it was like. And I just briefly mentioned that after that it was like living in an open vision, where it looks like if you were looking out at people and if a demon came across the room you also see the demon there. Usually some people would see it through the discerning of spirit. And they see it in the flash or for a while and then the vision disappeared and they are back to their natural sight. But living in an open vision is to see all the time. I am not talking about a short vision that lasts for about 5 minutes. I am talking about living in an open vision; living in all 4 dimensions all the time. Most of the time we live in this 3 dimension. This was what it was like. It was very strange to live in that realm. And it didn’t just suddenly go off. See we have barely touched the fringe of what God wants. When I saw the benefits of praying in tongues for 8 hours, it stirred my desire to see what happens if you go further. That was when I went for 2 days without sleep and for 48 hours I just went on in tongues. And you would have to have a big jar of water. You will get pretty thirsty in the natural. But at the end of those 48 hours something snapped. It was like a veil was opened. It was like moving back into the Garden of Eden where if God comes you see God. You look out into the sky you could actually see where the thrones of the demons are. And you could actually see angels flying up and down. It was like living in an open vision. But it slowly began to fade and I realized it has to be maintained. There is a certain realm that is there. Words Are Pictures In The Spirit World One characteristic of the spirit realm is that every word is a picture. Part of the observations is that while in that realm whatever words that is spoken form an object. And after that the Lord began to show me what heaven is like. See what I was experiencing is what heaven was like. Like when I said the word chair, a chair would appear. Literally in the spirit you see a chair being formed in front of you. It is like in heaven you ask God, "I would like extra rooms to my mansion." In an instant it is there. I back this up with scripture. When in Gen. 1 God said let there be light. Instantly it came. Some theologians and scientists tried to say that in the 6 days Creation account, each day was 1 million years long. They are trying to take the bible and fit it into 20th century theory of the evolution of the earth. In the Hebrew the word day in Genesis 1 is the same Hebrew word as the word day mentioned in Exodus, mentioned Leviticus, mentioned in Numbers, mentioned in Deuteronomy, mentioned in Joshua, mentioned in Samuel. So it is the same word day. If God had wanted the 6 days to be 6 million years, He would have used some different Hebrew words. He wouldn’t use the same word day as belonging to the 24 hours day to mean 6 million years. Why do we find it hard to understand is people ask, "How can God build the whole world in 24 hours human day." They don’t believe in God's power. They don’t realize the size of God. Think about it. Men have not seen the limits of the universe. Up to today the bigger the telescope is, the bigger they find the universe is. They have not even seen the borderline of the universe. Now in the spirit realm it was a small measure of it. What you say becomes. I was astounded at that. And what you think becomes. When you are thinking of something there is a creative force that is released. And when you began to move and experience the spirit realm you realize that the thoughts and the words that flow forth from our life have tremendous creative force. And while I fellowship with people, every time they say a word I saw a picture. It is just like when people talk to us, we grasp their words and understanding the meaning of the words. And with an effort we visualize what they say. But most of the times we are more or less just get the feeling of the word. But in the spirit realm the picture is the word and the word is the picture. It is just like a person sharing with me about something in their past. While he is sharing I begin to see the picture of what he is sharing. I begin to see some of those things actually occurring. It is just like if I were having a conversation with our brother, "How are you? You had a good day." "Busy day but meaningful." The moment he said, "Busy day and meaningful." I begin to see a road. If he keeps talking then the scene starts coming up. I am just giving you an example of what that spirit realm is like. That's why it is dangerous. If you move more into that sooner or later you can start picking up the person's name. When the Lord appeared to me He told me about 3 signs. Only one is operating. The first sign is just calling people wherever they are seated. The second sign is when the anointing comes I will be able to pick up everything from that person's life. God will not do it to everybody. Let me tell you what the spirit realm is like: its impossible to lie in the spirit realm. You could just see right into a person. That is a glimpse of what Jesus is like. You could never lie to Jesus. He could see you right through in your heart. Now these are things of the Spirit that Jesus was moving in all the time. But I am illustrating what that realm is like. And there is a timing to move into that. I don’t move into that much. Once in a while I move into that but most of the time it is on a personal level. But there is a timing for every anointing and every gift before you move into that. Sometimes when people are on the telephone line with me and I happen more on a one to one basis, I need to hear like what William Branham said, "You need to get that person's spirit." Once you get that person's spirit the whole thing comes out. One sister was sharing with me in Singapore. She was saying, "I have got this tremendous headache." The moment she said, "headache" suddenly the picture of a car accident came. And I said it had something to do with an accident. She did not have an accident. Then I began to tap further. The moment she say she did not have the accident immediately the Lord said it was a close person of yours who had that accident. From that day that accident occurred you lost this good friend or yours. And that person died and under that depression this headache came. She said, "Exactly right." That's what I am talking about in the spirit realm every word you say comes out in a picture. The spirit realm is 100% picture and vision. Then we understand in Acts 2 what the bible is talking about when it says that young man shall see visions and old man shall dream dreams and they shall prophesy. All these are ways of God working through pictures. I find it strange because in the natural world we work with words, we work with logic. But in the spirit world it is like every thought is real, every word is real. And you cannot differentiate words and reality. Word is reality. In the natural world sometimes you tell the mountain to move. Then only slowly the mountain moves; sometimes it may take a few months, sometimes a few years. It seems like a delayed process in this natural world. But in the spirit world what is said comes to pass instantly. What is conceived in the mind immediately it comes to pass. I don’t fully understand why the spirit realm is so different form the natural. What causes the delay? Why when you reach to the natural realm there is a delay even though what you say comes to pass instantly in the spirit world. We know that what we say in the end does come to pass, but the process of it coming to pass can be quite long. But yet in the spirit world it was tremendous. And every time somebody said a word when I was in that realm I saw a picture. Why doesn’t God let you live in that realm? It can drive you crazy. Let me explain what its like. It's not easy to live in that realm all the time because everywhere you keep seeing pictures. It's very hard to differentiate between what is real and what is spirit. No wonder God doesn’t let it happen al the time otherwise you cannot live a natural life. If a person starts talking to me and I began to see a picture, that picture is as real as that person. Then as the person is talking I see a dog coming and I think it’s a real dog. But its not; it’s a visualized dog. It's impossible to live a natural life in that realm. Which is why God doesn’t permit it all the time. Otherwise we cannot be human any more. When you are in an open vision all the time you look out of the window you are not sure which is of the physical world and which is not of the physical world. When you are driving a car then suddenly you see the highway disappears in front of you and you see something else and you can't drive. You can't even walk normally. As you walk suddenly there could be this vision of a valley as you turn to the next road. As you turn you fall into the drain in the natural. In that realm it is literally impossible to separate the natural from spiritual. In other words the spiritual becomes as real as the natural. Slowly as I faded off in that condition I was a bit dazed. All you want to do is to just sit down on a chair like a prophet and just prophesy. And it's very difficult to pay attention to logical conversation. For example you know what its like when you talk to people and they are not listening to you. When you are in the spirit realm you will be giving that same impression. While someone is talking about his house, or where they are from, you are not paying attention to what they are saying. You are paying attention to the pictures that keep coming out. That’s the spirit realm; that is one of the first observation I have noticed in the spirit realm. And I know that is what heaven is like. In heaven what you need the moment you say it, the moment you believe it, the moment you ask from God, instantly it is there. Lets say in your heavenly mansion that you are staying and you have a nice landscape garden. And you say, "How nice if I could have just that river of water here flowing." Instantly it comes. We will be very careful with our words in that realm. That’s what that realm is like regarding words. What about thoughts? It makes you uncomfortable in the natural when you move into that realm. What people think you can sort of see the picture coming out of them. And if a person is demon possessed you could straightaway tell it. There is no way the demon can hide. In fact the demon looks at you eyeball to eyeball. In regard to thought life when I experience that I understood what Jesus experienced when He knows the thoughts of the people around him. They couldn't hide. Let me give some examples here in the gospel of Lk. 6:6 On another Sabbath, when He entered the synagogue and taught, a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched Him, to see whether he would heal on a Sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against him. But He knew their thoughts. Now in the spirit world when you become very strong in that you cannot avoid the pictures. Like if I read chapter 6:6 as I read it when the anointing or that realm is there I would began to see Jesus walking into the synagogue. The words produce the pictures and the words are the pictures. It's almost like in Kenneth Hagin's book I Believe In Visions. In his first vision he said that he was given a scroll. He read the prophecy from the scroll. Every time he read one line he would see the action come. When he prophesies famine he sees the famine. When he prophesied war he saw the war. That’s what the spirit realm is like. How did Jesus know their thoughts? Hatred, jealousy or anything negative produce darkness in the spirit world. There was in John Osteen's book when he spoke about the authority of a believer. And he spoke about how this witch doctor among the Eskimos had the ability to travel out of his body and sort of have astral traveling. And this witch doctor wanted to do a curse against the preacher who came to the Eskimo community. As he came out of his body trying to do harm, he went near the believers meeting and saw a bright light. As he came near he saw that the light came from the people themselves. When that witch doctor went back into his body he wanted to be a believer. And the Christians didn’t know that there was a light on their life. When Jesus said that you are the light of this earth He meant it literally in the spirit world. You could recognize a believer just by looking at them. That is how the angels know us. That’s how demons know whether you are of God or not of God. There is a light that flows from our life. When someone has a wrong thought there is darkness in them. In the spirit realm when I look at people's faces or minds, sometimes some of them have little black dots in their heart. Some of them have little black dots in their mind. Some of them have a cloud. I say God is this all the time there. And those represent thoughts, motives and intentions. The more evil a person is the darker their inner parts are. I am not talking about the natural body. I am talking about the soul. You could look into a person's soul. And what Jesus experienced here was quite easy to see in the spirit realm. For these kind of people when they were looking at Jesus with hate, there would have been a darkness and a cloud about them. It would be very observable from the spirit realm. We don’t exactly read a person's thought but the moment that person open their mouth and say any word that would become like a channel that you could see into that person's mind. As I said its very easy to express the spirit realm. It would be just like a person is talking about anything all you see is not that person. You cannot read that person's mind. But one clue from that person is enough to tell you all that is on his mind. It is just like a forensic expert or a criminologist. They could go to a place where a crime has been committed. The average human being would say we couldn't tell what the crime is since every thing is burned. We can't tell how the crime was committed. But the forensic experts take a few samples here and a few samples there and examine them under a microscope. They come back and say this person died at about midnight. This person died in this manner. They are able to draw some conclusions just from those small samples. In the same way you know a person within 5 minutes under normal conversation. Sometimes it takes us quite a while to know a person. In the spirit world you cannot actually read a person's thought. But if that person were to open his mouth and say just one word, that one word becomes a revelation of the entire person's life. That’s how powerful the spirit realm is like. The moment a person open the mouth and say anything you see the mind. In the spiritual realm, you are observing a person's soul. The moment their soul open for an utterance their mind is revealed. So in a sense it is not reading the mind. But it is reading the words that comes out from the soul. That’s what the spirit realm is like in terms of the thoughts and in terms of the words. Logic Breaks Down In the Spirit World The other aspect of the spirit world is that it is very illogical. Logic breaks down in the spirit world. We all like to be logical. We all like to think line upon line. And we are all comfortable with that. In the spirit realm even logic cannot reach. Understand what Paul said in II Cor. 12 he says inexpressible word which he cannot utter. Paul was a very logical man. We are not doing away with logic. We just need to understand the different realms of the body, the mind, and the spirit so that we don’t confuse those realms. The spirit realm is not a realm of logic; it’s a realm of reception. Logic is perception. The spirit realm is a reception. It is like a channel of wisdom from God flowing into you all the time. Every thing you know in the spirit realm has to come from God and not from yourself. But in our natural realm we know the effort that we make in trying to understand a revelation from God. Yet when you enter into the spiritual realm it feels like you are plucked into God's wisdom and every thing you know is God's knowledge imparted to you. You are just a receiver of the flow of God's wisdom and knowledge. In the book of I Cor. 2:12-14 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, hat we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit. The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. Now understand the value of what I am talking about here. It is not that we are against intellectualism. We have always encouraged people to pursue study and the depths of knowledge as much as they can. A lot of people study and gain knowledge because they want a better career. Let me tell you I studied and tried to get knowledge because it’s a hobby. Incidentally if you get knowledge and everything in the process of time you get a better career you treat that as a bonus. We all must have a childlike inquisitiveness that must not be murdered. From a child we are all hungry to know the world around us. But somewhere along the line as we grow into teenage life and adult life we treat study just for career. We must get back our childlike inquisitiveness, the hunger and the thirst to know and to understand. I found in my experience of the spirit realm that the moment I switch to logic the visions become less. The moment I switch off logic the visions become more. That’s the reason I am giving you this point. If you understand both sides like right now as I move strongly into the logical area, the visualizing part diminishes. And if I want to minister in the spirit I must let go the logical part of my being. If I don’t let go I cannot minister in the spirit. Which is why now you can understand for a minister to minister both in the spirit and in the teaching side is very difficult to mix both. Because to go into one is to diametrically oppose the other. And it takes quite a balance to get into both. I have chosen to try to get into both realms so that when it comes to teaching we are logical and perceptive. Right now if I am talking about the logical realm the vision just disappeared. But if the anointing is there and I want to move into that spirit realm I have to voluntarily choose to give up that logical part of myself and just open to the spirit of receiving. It is not really a passive state. Passiveness of mind is not what God wants. It is what the devil wants. It is still active but it is active in worship and in tuning to God. It’s a totally different realm. If you observe how people minister one to one, you could observe whether they are using the logical part or the spiritual part. I could minister in the logical part and say you must get this verse into you. Once you move in the spirit realm you know that there is another realm. And the other realm is different. And if I want to see something in that person's life I must voluntarily give up the logic part and move into that spirit realm. Then only I will be able to get into that. There has to be an internal letting go. You see I am an experimenter in the spirit realm. Once I experience it I want to know what makes it come and what makes it go off. How do I maintain it? How do I flow into it? Most of the time in our overnight prayer meeting I wouldn't lead that long in worship. But because this subject we are talking about require a certain amount of prayer, a certain amount of worship, we will need a longer time of worship to help us enter into this spiritual realm. There is a certain level of anointing that is required before we can move into different things. It is very difficult to move in the spirit to move into healing if we don’t have enough depth of worship. Some people may just take it in a natural way. Some train people by saying, "When you look at someone try to get a picture." Sometimes they try and end up getting something from their own soul and it is not of the spirit. It is their own soul trying to conceive something. That's not moving in the spirit at all. I know what it is like when you try to see something with your own soul. In the end there is no anointing and there is sort of a pressure that is there. But the realm of the spirit is a rest. As you move into it you just rest. Like right now if I want to move in the spirit, I don’t force God and say God I must get something. When you do that you cannot get it. The realm of the spirit is such that when you choose to move into that you rest in God and you seek after God and try to tune yourself to God. If God doesn't show anything you cannot get anything. As you surrender more and more into that realm it can be quite frequent. That is the second thing I found that the realm is. After that 48 hours of prayer in the Spirit I found myself in the spirit realm. But while I was still strong in the spirit realm there were times when I suddenly got weak even before the spirit realm faded off. That happens when my mind begins to switch gear into the logical side trying to get back into my intellectual ability, but over at the spirit realm the visions slowly faded off. Then I understood what Jesus says that the moment you doubt the spirit realm is paralyzed. Remember Jesus say in Mk. 11 If you say it to the mountain and if you do not doubt in your heart. I began to understand that doubt is the intellectual mind trying in its natural state to understand the spirit realm. Trying to explain it without waiting for God to explain it. It is not just the devil putting doubt in our mind; doubt is also actually a working of the mind. Which is why the more educated a person the greater ability they have to be skeptical and doubtful. But you go to a village of simple hearted villagers and you tell something about God they believe it, they received it and they get a miracle. But the more educated we are the greater our ability to be skeptical. Why is it so? It is because we are much more able to explain things away. We got more information and more arguments that a person in the village who doesn't have much schooling cannot explain away. They will straight away say this is God. But the intellectual man will say this phenomenon can naturally occur through unseen radiation. They have more logic, more arguments, are more skeptical, and have more doubts. And I began to understand what doubt does. How it works. And it turns you away from the spirit realm. Which is exactly what Paul say in I Cor. You look at the spirit realm and say this is foolishness. But one day when we all get into heaven you don’t try to use logic. The bible says the gate into heaven is a huge pearly gate. Your logic says pearls come from oysters. The size of the oyster must be big to get such a huge pearl. You can't because anything can happen in the spirit realm. Notice in the book of Exodus when God spoke to Moses and said, "What is that you have in your hand?" Moses threw that stick down and it turned into a snake. How do we naturally explain a stick turning into a live snake? If Charles Darwin saw that he would have fainted. He would say, "How can a piece of stick evolve into a snake within seconds?" That itself defies logic. Any hunter will tell you to catch the snake by the neck. God said, "Catch the snake by the tail." Moses is quite an experienced shepherd and he may have encountered real snakes before. That would be the first time in his life to catch the snake by the tail. If he ever talks to God he would have said, "God I am going to do it just because you said it." It is the most unreasonable command. Think about the scientists that say they have found an explanation of how the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. They say a strong wind was blowing. And it just blows a path aside. They didn’t read that part of the scripture that says the waters stood up like a wall on either side. If the wind blows a path the water would not stand up on either side. Perhaps in the crowd of the Israelites was a very scientific person and said to Moses this cannot be where in the world got water stand up like this. And every one of them would say, "What kind of trick is this? Do you expect us to cross through?" Maybe God just lifted the clouds that were blocking their view of the Egyptians coming after them. Then they had to say to Moses, "Like it or not, logical or not, we are crossing now." Sometimes the body of Christ needs some encouragement. Maybe as Moses was parting the Red Sea a poor fish got stuck halfway in the wall of the water. And as they were crossing a little child saw that fish and say, "Father can I pull this fish out for dinner? The father said, "Don’t touch, don’t unpluck it." If you read carefully that story in the bible and check all the details and descriptions, you will find that the waters were like wall besides them. The most illogical was happening. There are a lot of things that you cannot explain with logic. Jesus multiplies the 5 loaves and 2 fish. You cannot explain this event because there is that spirit realm that we are dealing with. And here is the blessings if we are willing to move into that realm voluntarily and seek to yield you will be able to see greater miracles. Jesus didn’t have to think logically when we talk about 5 loaves and 2 fish. When you start learning how to yield that logical realm to God and just go in that spirit realm, you will tap into the realm of blessings and miracles. The logical mind cannot tap into the power of God. It is only the spiritual mind that can tap into the power of God. That was the second major difference I found. Yet what is the use of the logical mind? Our mind can be renewed so that the logical mind can be trained after we accept the things of God. Paul says in I Cor. 2:7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. Who is it that teaches to argue? When people say, "Where is God. Prove to me there is God." Then you say, "Prove to me where there is no God." Who teaches all these the Holy Spirit who trains us that any argument can also be pulled apart through logic. In the end you come right down that you must believe God by faith. Whenever we want to go higher realm we don’t talk logic with God. You only talk worship with God. And may God give each one of us a hunger as we pray tonight. See there is value in praying. Just one experimentation of those 48 hours of prayer was enough to change my understanding of the spirit world. Just one spiritual experience in your life brought into the natural realm to be understood with the scriptures could change your entire life in God. Which is why I mentioned that I understood that worry was also a part of the logical mind thinking. If you don’t have the logical mind you cannot worry. Worry depends on logic. All worries are based on arguments. May God help us to move into that great realm of the spirit which is available for all of us. 2. TRANSPORTATION IN THE SPIRIT As we pray we enter into the spirit world. And it's important for us to understand what the spirit world is like. The bible has some principles and guidelines as to what the spirit world is like. However many times we are just left with our experiences with the spirit world. Which is why I dare not being a theologian call something as laws of the spirit world unless I can really know that they are laws and that they are revealed in the Word. If it’s a subjective area that the Word is silent upon we can only call it as common experiences. First of all the spirit world has no distance. That we know in principle. But the experience of it can be astounding. And as we began to explore this realm, we understand that the spirit world needs a lot of interpretation. But the realm of the spirit has no distance. That means that as you pray as you enter into the depths of the spirit some of the things you see and experience could be from another place or another land. Or it could be nearby. So geographical distance is never there in the spirit world. When we talk about geographical distance we also want to include the distance between the heavenly realm and the natural realm here. Lets look at the book of II Kings. And we see some statements made by Elisha that give us a clue of the spirit realm. And we not only share those experiences, we also want to share about the how and the what in the spirit world. In the book of II Kgs. 5 the background is how Naaman has been healed. And Naaman offered some gifts to Elisha who refused the gifts but Gehazi, Elisha's servant was covetous and went after those gifts. 2 Kgs. 5:20-27 Gehazi the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, "See, my master has spared this Naaman the Syrian, in not accepting from his hand what he brought. As the Lord lives, I will run after him, and get something from him." So Gehazi followed Naaman. And when Naaman saw someone running after him, he alighted from the chariot to meet him, and said, "Is all well?" And he said, "All is well. My master has sent me to say, "There has just now come to me from the hill country of Ephraim two young men of the sons of the prophets; pray, give them a talent of silver and two festal garments." And Naaman said, "Be pleased to accept two talents." And he urged him, and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, with two festal garments, and laid them upon two of his servants; and they carried them before Gehazi. And when he came to the hill, he took hem from their hand, and put them in the house, and he sent the men away, and they departed. He went in, and stood before his master, and Elisha said to him, "Where have you been Gehazi?" And he said, "Your servant went nowhere." But he said to him, "Did I not go with you in spirit when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Was it a time to accept money and garments, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, menservants and maidservants? Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cleave to you, and to your descendants for ever." So he went out from is presence a leper, as white as snow. Elisha was taken up right at the moment as Gehazi was turning back not as he was going. The moment the man was turning back Elisha was there in the spirit. And he saw the whole thing and heard the whole thing except they cannot see him for he was in the spirit world. In the occult realm, which is a non-Christian realm, they have what you call astral traveling. Those who yield themselves to the occult state of spirit realm seem to be able to travel into that realm. They thought that everything in that realm is good not realizing there are also evil spirits out there. But there is a realm that even the unbelievers who yield themselves utterly to the realm of the spirit seem to be able to move into. They even might have what you would call a word of knowledge. I read some accounts by Christians who researched into both Christians and non-Christians astral traveling. They call it astral from secular definition. And some of these non-Christians who move into that realm talk about areas of walls that they come to meet or demon spirits (they don’t call them demons but they call them creatures) that they saw outside. And for the unbelievers and the occult people to do that, they need a certain level of freedom from their body. There are different levels in which our body is related to our soul and our spirit. Lets say this bible is the body and your human spirit is the hand. Your body can be under the dominion of your mind and your spirit. Or your body can be dominating your soul and your spirit. The spirit, soul and body are in different types of relationship. It's just like a husband and wife relationship. There are some wives who are dominates their husbands. And there are some husbands that dominate over their wives. There are some who have a perfect relationship of equality and consultation. And you could see many couples have different types and degrees of relationship. In a similar comparison there is a relation between our spirit, soul and body. And some people have their body control them so much and their soul control them so much that they are never able to move into the spirit realm whether they are unbelievers or whether they are Christians. Even the unbeliever who wants to move into the realm of the spirit and experience astral traveling has a price to pay. They either go on a vegetarian fast or they try to seclude themselves from worldly activities. They give themselves to concentration of what they call meditation in order to enter that realm. The principle behind it is the isolation of the body from the soul. So that the soul is free. In the same way if you try to concentrate after a heavy meal, your body seems to be enlarged and your soul reduced and your spirit absent. If you have been on a long fast, you will notice you feel very light. It is just not physical lightness although you will loose a few pounds. But there is another realm of lightness like your spirit and your soul are related to the body but not so firmly gripped by the body. Like your spirit and soul are floating above your body. That kind of lightness is necessary in order for a person to move into the spirit world. Which is why a Christian needs to have a fasted life. Now verse 26 a sentence that has been used by Elisha is did not my heart go out with you. In some of the older translation the translators put did not my spirit go out with you? Elisha's spirit went and saw all the things that took place. In the book of II Cor. 12:3-4 And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise - whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows - and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. Now here Paul says he reached a point, we know he is talking about himself because later on he says because of the abundance of these revelations a thorn in the flesh came into his life. So we know it was him in the end. But here is an experience in the spirit world where Paul was not sure whether he was just there in the spirit or whether his body was also there. That qualifies our statement that transportation in the realm of the spirit has no distance. There is a degree where we move into God where only our spirit is able to transcend geographical distance. I would classify such transportation in the spirit realm into 3 categories. The first is where those geographical places you see in your visions come to you, like over a phone line or satellite transmission in the natural. When you look into a television and see a satellite transmission let say of a live Olympic games, you are not there but yet you know what is happening there. All those things that are happening there are transmitted through electro magnetic waves and they bounced off the satellite. They come right down to where you are even though you could be on the opposite side of the earth. It could be the picture or the places coming into your living room. The second degree is where like Elisha where his spirit actually goes to the place itself. Does it come slowly or does it come instantly? Usually such traveling could be quite fast. But there are times where some people have experienced it as a slow motion. If you are new in the spirit world, when you are praying you may have a very interesting sensation of rising up. But when you check your body you find that it is still down there. This is the second realm. And as they are rising up they may get very frightened. The first time where I experienced it was in a Baptist seminary. We did our students' devotion after we come back from our fieldwork and each one of us took turns to lead. It was my turn that night. That night I closed my eyes, which I usually do to lead in prayer before the devotion. As I was praying I felt a floating sensation. Although my voice was still speaking I felt as if my spirit was on the ceiling. It was a very odd and queer sensation. The reason we share this thing is that in case some of you experience the same things you won't think that is queer, peculiar or strange. Sometimes it helps to hear another person's experience. It encourages you not to be frightened. Then there were a few times when in deep prayer I had a sensation of being lifted into the heavenly. I know it was the second realm where my body didn’t go up. That was when we were sharing in a church about the second coming of Jesus. When in prayer it was like I was taken out and I reached a certain distance where I saw the curvature of the earth. Suddenly I was being moved into an area where I could see Europe, India and Asia. That was quite high up. In the spirit realm that was when I saw demon forces that looked like warriors. They look like intelligent looking human beings. A group of them were coming in a South Easterly direction down towards India and South East Asia. This happened before the walls of communism came down. And I saw these warriors coming downwards and the Lord told me that these are warring demons and that they have come to create war. Subsequently after that you read in the papers about things that happened in India. The Lord was speaking about praying against them coming to this direction. It seems that they were being moved out of Eastern Europe to create trouble in India and South East Asia. When demons are cast out from a place they do not become unemployed. They look for work somewhere else. They look for things to do. So they just shift their place of work or create new trouble. Then there are times I experienced things like what Paul mentioned in Col. 2:5 For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. So there are times in the spirit that you are transported like Elisha where you are watching in the human level not so high up. Paul was saying here that he could behold the order of the Colossians. There are times when God gave him to know what is happening in the church of Colossae by a supernatural visitation. So there were times when in prayer the Lord has taken me into the homes of people, usually for certain purposes and reasons in order to show something. I have not had the kind that Kenneth Hagin had where one day in the spirit he got into the car with a young girl (whom he was interested in) and a young boy. And he was seated in the car behind them. And he was with them all the way as they drove into the park committed sin and drove back. All the time Kenneth Hagin was sitting there. When you have the first type you are physically aware of your physical body. Just like you are watching the Olympic games on T.V. You could be conscious of what you are doing physically. Conscious of what is happening in front of you. But when you are having the second category you completely loose consciousness of your physical body. All your consciousness gets into your spirit. And sometimes when you get back into your body you suddenly feel cold. Because your body was cold all the time but you never felt it. Or you feel your knees having those familiar needles sensations for kneeling too long. But you only feel it