Cecil J. duCille
July 4, 2007
Mahomet, Illinois
(For printable version click here.)
The Lord called me this morning from around five o’clock, and though I was late for service, I have been working all morning. Praise God. We thank God for those that are here. We thank God for hearts that are tuned to God. The oneness that we have here is a oneness that cannot be achieved by human organization, but the oneness in Spirit that we have is because we are all here wanting to hear what God says to the Church. Because you and I are the same in our desire to hear what God says to the Church, then you pray that God will speak to us, and that we will hear Him.
In the natural we think of high heights as being above our heads, going up. In the spiritual, height still means above our heads, but above humanity, going up from humanity. We are in a zone between Heaven and hell, between light and darkness. We are the only creatures who are in this realm. We have the privilege of going up into light, brighter, brighter, brighter, brighter or going down into darkness, darker, darker, darker, darker. One time God gave me a word that we are in a twilight zone. We are in a zone where humanity can become devils. You can go so low that you become a devil, and you can get so high that you become an angel of God. I don’t need to preach to you to tell you that you can see that some men have already received the “mark of the beast.” God made man spirit, soul and body. The spirit connects you with God’s Spirit, so it is pulling you up. The soul is in the middle, and the spirit is connected to the soul, but the soul lives in a body, and the body is connected to the earth. So while one is pulling down, the other is pulling up. Every human being is in a position to choose whether he wants to go down or up. The mark of the beast is when one deliberately goes down eradicating their God conscience.
So, in my understanding, when I talk about the “rapture,” I am talking about getting higher with God, and getting so high with God that you get out of the natural and into the spiritual completely, like where Jesus Christ was. He said, “…the Son of man which is in Heaven” (John 3:13b). So you can experience Heaven right here. Hallelujah! Or you can experience hell.
You come into a meeting like this and the meeting is either “low down” flat on the ground, or you see it rising, rising, rising, rising, and coming up to a level. This morning we have been rising, and I want you to keep rising so that your mind will be compassed with heavenly things, rather than with earthly things. Amen.
So God took a nation, a people, and it is not because this people were better than other people, or more numerous than others, but God chose this people, and you cannot quarrel with God. So when God chooses you, you have nothing to say about it. It is not because you are any good thing that God chooses you. “I am pretty and God chose me because of my beauty.” Nothing of the kind. God chooses you because God chooses you, and there is nobody, nothing that can give an answer or a reason why God chose the Jews EXCEPT that He chose one man, and that man was very faithful and they called him the “Father of the faithful.” He was the “Father of the faithful,” he became the father of a nation of people. That nation of people affected the whole earth, so that, whereas the earth was going down-down-down into hell, that nation begin to give principles and they began to rise up.
Now, the difference between a beast and a man is that your spirit is subject to God’s Spirit. It has a pull on you, and your soul is attached to your spirit, and there is a love and a binding, a marriage, yet to be consummated between your spirit and your soul because there is a third man coming in and this third person is the body, and the body wants to marry the soul. But God said to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life (Romans 8:6). So a tug-of-war goes on and any side that you go on, that is the side that is going to win. So, if you become carnal, you are going down. If you remain spiritual, you are going up.
This morning, we want to encourage you to be spiritual, and to actually turn your mind to the things of God. Now, God wrote things in the Bible for the Jews. He talked to them and He showed them life. He made certain promises to them, and He made everlasting promises to them. Now, can you make an everlasting promise to a person or a thing that is not everlasting? How would you like that? My mother used to say, “It is like a side pocket to a dog.” Give him two beautiful side pockets. He has no hands. Now, God would not make an everlasting promise to a people who were not everlasting, and for a long time, we could not differentiate between what the Old Testament and the New Testament were saying. But God did something. He sent a man named Paul, and that man studied. He was a doctor of Old Testament law. He knew all about the law. Then all of a sudden, God knocked him down on the road to Damascus while he was going to persecute Christians, and took him unto Himself. He went fourteen years out into the desert to understand what God was doing. He didn’t just jump up and start preaching. Fourteen years; and after the fourteen years, he came to teach the Church what God had been saying in the Old Testament as against the New.
Now, the Old Testament is what we call the “shadow.” Now, you cannot have a shadow unless you have a substance. You must have light, you must have substance and then it casts a shadow. So therefore, the shadow is there, the substance is here, and the light is here. And if you come towards the substance, when you meet the substance, then you don’t have to look at the shadow again. But if you cannot understand the substance, you will look at the shadow and you will see an arm sticking out. You will say, “He has an arm,” and you will know exactly where the arm is because that is where the shadow is.
What I am saying to you is that we are going to read the Old Testament this morning. All I am saying is that we are going to read some of the things in the Old Testament and we are going to read some of the promises that God gave to Israel, which promises Paul gave to the Church. Let’s turn around to Exodus 19. We want to talk about the “evening sacrifice.” That is the Word that we are going to bring to you: “The Evening Sacrifice.” Hallelujah! For there was a sacrifice in the morning, and there was one at noon, but we are involved in the “evening sacrifice.” So that is what we are going to talk about.
Exodus 19:3, And Moses went up unto God, and the LORD called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; Come on, now. Why would God say Jacob andIsrael? Isn’t Jacob Israel? But Israel is not Jacob. Areyou with me? All right. Let’s go on. Jacob means thecarnal Jew, and in scripture, for us, we translate it as thecarnal Christian. Israel is the whole Church. So, He wantsto speak to the carnal Jew, the carnal Christian, and to thewhole church.
4Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Therefore our destination is Christ. He is bringing usunto Himself. It sounds very selfish, but I love when Godis selfish, (amen) because He is bringing me unto Himself.That means that I am going to melt into Him and am goingto become a part of God. Can you imagine that? God ispromising a people that He will redeem them from theirnaturalness, from their carnality, and bring them unto Himself.
4Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. 5 Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure… and an holy nation. 6…These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.
Now, we love treasure. We love treasure. I think if a treasure came here now and they put it down outside and said that anybody who could get out there first would get as much as they could take, this place would be emptied in a short space of time. Everybody would run out to get some treasure. Have you ever thought about what God counts to be valuable? Now, we count money. We count gold as the epitome of money. Gold, we count gold, and God counts you as His treasure! In other words, YOU make God rich. That is the value of humanity before God. He says, “You are My treasure.” He says, “I will take you as a peculiar,” not just an ordinary little stone, but as a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:
6And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests… What is that? What is that? Do you know that when you lay hands on a person that you are actually putting your life on the line for that person? Did you know that is what it means? Did you know that God made the people of Israel lay their hands on the priest and confess their sins over him, and their sins left them and went into the priest? Amen. You know, I have seen it happen. We had situations where brothers laid their hands on people and they didn’t have the spiritual virtue or energy to counteract that thing that was in that person and it came back upon them.
One day, we were called up into a mountain top to go pray for a woman who was possessed with some devil. We all left to go and this young man took a short-cut through the bushes and got up there first. What he wanted to have was the glory of being the person who delivered the woman. If you have those kinds of things in you, keep away from demons. They will kill you because they can spot a wrong thought anywhere. The boy ran up there. He laid his hands on the woman. When we got there, his hand was crippled. His hand was withered. And we never got him better. He started having epileptic seizures and he had them until he died. We could not bring deliverance to him. You have to beware of how you lay hands. Do you remember in Hebrews 6:1, Paul speaks of the “laying on of hands” as part of our foundation doctrine? You need to have that foundation doctrine well secured in your foundation. Do you understand? Because in the laying on of hands, you are actually accepting unto yourself the problem that the person has.
When the woman had the issue of blood… You can imagine that it was some sin that gave her that issue of blood. Now-a-days we might say it was some sort of venereal disease. She grabbed the hem of Jesus’ garment and Jesus said, “I felt virtue come out of Me” (Mark 5:25- 33). Do you realize that when you lay hands on a person that you are giving out virtue? YES! He said, “I felt virtue come out of Me.” They said, “But everybody is touching You and rubbing up against You.” He said, “No, no. Something else: there was a deliberate action that pulled the virtue out of Me.” Do you know what action it was? Faith. The woman believed it! I am telling you – you do not know how strong faith is!
There was a case where a sister that I know – we used to fellowship with them – was sick and she went into the hospital. They had two people in the room. On the bed beside her was Sister Walsh. I’m saying her name, because if she hears this tape, I want her to get in touch with me. There was this woman, Sister Walsh, on the bed and she had been in a car accident. The car had turned over on her side and she had been pinned underneath the car. The hip bone was crushed and when they took her to the hospital they had to take out this bone (part of the pelvis). But they had to take it out, so the rest of the leg was just hanging by flesh. There was no bone there. She was on the bed beside this sister friend of mine. They were preparing her for amputation, but she was too weak, so they had to strengthen her up first before the amputation. So the sister said to her, “Don’t let them amputate your leg. I know a man who will pray for you and your leg.”
Come on, now – I am talking about faith! One person, a stranger, lying down on a bed, tells you that she knows a man, who if he prays for you, you will walk, although you don’t have a good leg to stand on. She believed it! My God! SHE BELIEVED IT! She believed it with all her heart that she told the doctor, “NO! I will not amputate.” The doctor said, “You are an idiot!” He said, “This is going to kill you.” He said, “You will be dead soon.” It so happened that she was a nurse, and one doctor in her hospital got so mad. “Some idiot made a fool out of you and you are going to die.” He got so mad that he said, “If you walk, I will serve God for the rest of my life.” That was all that God wanted to hear.
I was in a meeting at a school where I taught. We had one brother from America there preaching. When the meeting was over, I was walking to my classroom and suddenly a woman ran down and grabbed me and said, “HERE IS THE MAN! HERE IS THE MAN!” I thought I was being mugged. So when another lady came down, she said, “Brother duCille, this is Sister Walsh; I want you to pray for her.” And they told me the story of what had happened to her. I felt so inept. I had no power to pray for her. I felt wretched. I said, “All right, sister. You go home and my wife and I will pray, and we will see what God will say.” We were really afraid of the situation – the woman had no hip and we were to pray for her that she could walk. Well, she never stopped bothering me. I mean, I had no rest. I would be going to do something and the phone would ring – “Are you coming now?” “No! I’ll come tomorrow, another day.” She kept on and she kept on until my soul got bitter in me. I said, “My God, You will have to heal this first.” So, we were at the school and suddenly the Lord said, “GO!” I spoke to Mavis, and we closed up our classes and decided to go. We went and it began to rain behind us. We ran to the bus and the rain followed us and when we got on the bus, the rain came on the bus. The bus took us to her house, and the rain was behind us again, and we ran to get to her door, and we got into her door and the rain came down in showers.
We began to tell her about Jesus. But she was patiently waiting. She didn’t want to hear anything else but for us to pray for her. FAITH! I’m telling you, FAITH will do anything! We knelt down. Mavis knelt there, I knelt there, and this woman sat up on a high chair with her leg hanging down. I held on to the leg, Mavis held on to the leg, and do you remember what you felt in Africa, brother? An energy, an electrical charge was coming through the woman’s leg and shaking my hands. I said, “Mae, do you feel anything?” She said, “Yes.” So I said, “Take your hand off of it.” We took it off and no charge. We put it back and this electrical charge was jerking our hands. And we said, “In the name of Jesus Christ, just walk!” Remember now, she had on a brace because she had to have on the brace to be able to even use the crutches. So she took off her brace and we said, “All right!” I held her one side and Mavis held her other side and we walked around the table. Then she walked around the table. She said that she was feeling like she was falling down on her face, so we said, “Okay, you keep on.” By the time we had finished with her, she was walking on her own, walking up and down praising God!
So, she put on the braces the next morning to go to work and she said nothing to anyone. At midday, at lunchtime, she was sitting on her high chair with her legs hanging down and one of the nurses came up to her. God can use sinners, you know? The nurse said to her, “Walshy, you look to me like you could walk. I guarantee that you can’t come off of that thing and walk to me right now.” The girl came off and walked to her and she almost fainted. I didn’t go back to check up on that doctor, but brother, I don’t think God will let him off the hook.
FAITH! By FAITH then, we are going to fit the bill of God – not because we are righteous, not because we are pretty, not because we are good, not because we are better than anybody else – BUT BECAUSE WE BELIEVE WHAT GOD SAYS. He will make you a royal priesthood. Now, God created the priesthood to be a mediator between God and man. Do you know that is what a priest is? So when Jesus Christ came, Jesus became the mediator between God and us. So, the priesthood was abolished. (chuckle) But then, He said He had a new priesthood after the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:11). Who is this Melchizedek?
Abraham went to battle and he overcame the five kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, and when he was coming back, there came a man to him. Abraham said, “Who are you?”, and the man said that He was the king of Salem (Genesis 14:18-20) and Abraham recognized that it was God and he gave Him a tenth of all, his tithes. You know, I always wondered what He did with it. (laughter) Maybe He just put it up into smoke or something. But he gave to this King of Salem and Salem is Jerusalem. Yes! City of peace! So this situation brings us into something new – a new order of priesthood has been created.
I said to God, “Lord, help me! Help Jamaica!” God said, “Will you stand in the breech?” Amen. You are standing in the breech for many people. The life of the whole world is depending on a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a peculiar people at this very time. Now, it is hard to believe and many people don’t believe it. But you have a boy, and the boy will not obey you. You say, “Don’t do so and so! Don’t do so and so!” He says, “Well, I am a man. I can do what I want to and you are not responsible.” Do you know what happens? Down the road, when he gets into trouble, he comes right back to you. The whole trouble and everything is laid at your feet. You are responsible. God made me responsible for Jamaica. I asked Him, I said, “Lord?” He said, “If My people who are called by My name.” WATCH IT, NOW! Beware of what you lay hands on, because the moment you lay hands on it, you become responsible for it. “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face…” (II Chronicles 7:14). He said He would hear from Heaven and what would He do? He would forgive your sins. In other words, He would make you a priest and heal your land. Don’t you understand?
But then, turn it in the converse. If My people – that “if” there is a terrible thing – do not seek My face, do not humble themselves, do not pray, I will not heal their land. Are you there? We are talking about the evening sacrifice, and I don’t know if we will still be friends after I am through. I don’t know if we will still be friends.
I want you to turn with me to Leviticus 14. Remember, I told you I was going into the Old Testament. If we don’t go there, we won’t see certain things that we need to know. I talked to you about the boy, the child. I have had some of them to deal with. They refuse to obey rules, refuse to walk in Christ, refuse to do righteousness. “I am a man. I can do what I want,” and then the trouble comes down. To this day we are under the pressure of the trouble because there are some things that you can do in life that are everlasting. Amen. When you went to that girl and told her you loved her and wanted her to marry you, you made an everlasting covenant. Amen. There is no way – you had better not think of how to get out of it, because it is everlasting. So you can do some things, and some of the things that we have done in life, they are everlasting.
Now therefore, there are certain sins that are committed in the world that cannot be abrogated, the people cannot get deliverance unless somebody else rises up and takes responsibility for it. I am going to give you another story. I’m a story teller, right?
One day, I went up to my brother’s house. My brother went to preach in an area that was Satan’s kingdom. You remember one scripture that says “you dwell where Satan’s seat is?” (Revelation 2:13). Well, this place is one of the places in the world where Satan’s seat is, and he went up there to preach. He started preaching and got a church and people began to be delivered, so that means that God was with him. I went up to visit him, and with me was my assistant. In those days we called them “deacon.” (laughter) The deacon was a 250-pound man. He was the strongest man I had ever seen. When he stomped, the windows rattled, and when he shouted, praise God, the windows rattled. Now, I am not telling you anything that is not true. So, can you imagine what it did to your ears sometimes? This brother, I’m telling you that about him because this is one of the reasons that caused the trouble. We went up to visit my brother and the moment that I stepped into his house, I got totally crazy. I didn’t do it. I just stepped into his house and I began to shout and to rebuke the devil from out of his house. Amen. His wife took sick. They had to ask me to leave because it was so bad. We went on so bad that a crowd began to come down, and of course, he was a pastor of a church and we had to leave. But the work wasn’t done and she took sick. Her sickness was peculiar because one day she would have one disease, and the next day it would be another. So she had polio. You all know what polio is? The limbs begin to be contorted and twisted up and this polio took a hold of her. I did not know. I was 70 miles away now and my mother called me and said, “Cecil,” (she didn’t say Cecil, but let me say Cecil). She said, “Your sister-in-law is dying and they are afraid to tell you because you might come and make a ruckus and blow down the hospital or something like that.”
So, I started fasting. I called the whole church to fast. Monday morning we got into fasting and as I knelt down, an angel came before me. He said, “Hold this.” He gave me a handle to hold, and he kind of pulled it like it had some extension, and he pulled it out. He went one measure, and he went another, and I was following him. When we got to the crossroads, about two or three miles from where we started, he stopped. He looked back at me and he said, “Who is going to pay for this?” And when he did that, my heart just leapt with fright. “Who is going to pay for this?” And I said, “I will.” He said, “All right,” and he kept going. We got to the university hospital, which was seventy miles away. She was lying in the bed contorted up. This was the university hospital that had all the young doctors around observing how the polio was taking charge of the person, and this teacher was there. The angel went in and he took a shaft and he pushed it right down into her chest. And he turned to me and he said, “Okay.” I knew that I had to push it, and I said “In the name of Jesus!” and the woman jumped up into the ceiling and was totally healed.
Now, what kind of a payment? Why did I have to pay for it? In a spiritual sense, all the demons – hear me, now – all the demons that were on her CAME ON ME, and if I didn’t have the virtue of God to get rid of them, I would be like her. Glory to God! Amen.
When you are called unto the priesthood of God, you are called unto suffering. Wife, if your husband is not walking in God, you are called to suffer and to bring him to his knees by the power of Almighty God to serve God. Yes. When I saw my brother in sin, I said to God, “It is either that this man is going to be saved, or You kill me.” I said, “No more food to my mouth until Frank praises God.” I stopped eating that day. Yes. Sunday. I went to work Monday morning, and Saturday when I came back I couldn’t find him. The next Sunday he was saved and speaking in tongues.
God says that “the Kingdom of God suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force” (Matthew 11:12). If you don’t mean what you are doing, get out of the business! Amen. Too many people are content for their neighbors to go to hell. You are content for the people around to go to hell. You see them every day and within a few years, a lot of them will be in hell, and you are having your breakfast every morning. Don’t you understand? God has created a people for the saving and the deliverance of the world. Somebody said, “But Jesus Christ died to save them. We don’t have to do anything.” Well, God said that you would be like Him. The more that you get like Jesus, the more responsibility that you have for everything that happens around you, for God has created a people to CHANGE the world. Hallelujah! Amen.
So we were looking at Leviticus 14:10, And on the eighth day he shall take two he lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, and three tenth deals of fine flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, and one log of oil. What did Brother Sonmore call it? Yes, a log of oil, he measured it and it is two gallons of oil. Now, how would you like two gallons of oil to be poured over your head? Amen. What are we talking about here? You and I know that Jesus Christ is the Lamb. Amen? Have you ever thought whether Jesus Christ was a “ewe” lamb, or a “he” lamb typology in scripture? Help me, please. The type in scripture, was Jesus Christ a “ewe” lamb, or a “he” lamb? He was a “he” lamb, or a “ram.” This is telling us about three lambs. It says there is a “he” lamb, there is a “ewe” lamb, and another “he” lamb. Now, unless you can tell me what this scripture means, you know – I would really probably have to tell you what the LORD showed me. 11And the priest that maketh him clean…
We are talking about a man who has leprosy. Now, in the Old Testament, leprosy means sin. Sin, uncleanness. So, we are all lepers. We were lepers, thank God. Amen. We were all lepers and we have been made clean by the sacrifice of Calvary. But then, why were we made clean? It is that if God offered Himself – Jesus offered Himself for us, that we should not love our lives unto the death. We should also offer ourselves for the deliverance of our fellow man.
I’ll tell you something. I’m skipping ahead, and showing you something here. Jesus died. Jesus brought salvation. There are good men out there who can’t believe it. Do you know that? There are good people who can’t believe it and they have to get to a certain place in conviction before they can believe it.
Now, let me ask you something, Peter. You have some neighbors, right? And they know you, right? Suppose your neighbors saw that you were arrested and condemned as a terrorist, and they decided to execute you. They executed you and your picture was in the newspapers and on the television, and everybody saw it, and your neighbors knew that you were gone. One day, exactly three-and-a half days afterwards, you walked over to your neighbor and said, “Hello!” Let’s assume that your neighbor is an unbeliever. Come on, now! Tell me what would happen to that unbeliever? (Peter: “He would be a believer.”) You have given absolute conviction. There would be no other reason for him to be an unbeliever after that moment. Hallelujah!
Now, the scripture says that when Jesus resurrected from the grave, the first person that He talked to was Mary Magdalene. And when she ran in to tell the brothers, they said she was “gone;” she was hysterical. They couldn’t believe it. Imagine that Jesus told them time and time again, “After three days I will rise again.” They didn’t understand what it meant. They had never seen anybody rise – BUT yet they saw Lazarus! But somehow or the other, it was too good to be true. Amen.
Now, those were believers, and yet the power of unbelief was so strong on them. Now, if they would kill all of us and the next three-and-a-half days we would start walking the streets of Champaign and Bratislava and the Czech Republic, – what would happen to all the people who knew us and knew we were killed and who were unbelievers? They would be shocked into belief!
Well, let me read a scripture for you, because you believe that I am giving you a hypothetical case, and it is not. Let us turn our Bibles to the 11th chapter of Revelation.
7And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. 8And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. 9And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies… Did you notice that? He is making a spectacleof their dead bodies. …see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. 10And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, (Merry Christmas) and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. Brethren,the two prophets are nothing else but the Body ofChrist, filled with the Spirit of Jesus Christ, (Hallelujah!)and the Word of God. You know, I turned to God and I said, “But God, can the Spirit and the Word die, and theirbodies be laid in the street?” Do you know what He saidto me? “Can’t they?” (laughter) When He said that tome, I said, “Oh, yes.” Jesus did, because Jesus was theembodiment of the Spirit and the Word, and He died androse again. So, if there is not a nation, a generation ofpeople who come forth, die and rise again in the physicalflesh that men can see them… You cannot judge men withunbelief, because there is a type of man who would believeif that happened. There is another type of man thatwould believe if you would preach the Word to him. ButGod is going to wring the earth clean of every one thatcould be saved. And this is the LAST offering. Hallelujah!
You say, “But why was it necessary for the children, all the people of God to be killed?” They were eaten by lions. What an awful death that must be. They were burned with fire. Amen. They were put to the sword. Why was it necessary? Look at II Timothy 4. Here we see, 4And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 5But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. 6For I am now ready to be offered… I thought we didn’t need any more offering. 6For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. So Paul is saying that because of his ministry, because of his stewardship, because of his priesthood, he was “ready to be offered.” Do you know that the priest offered himself first? When he went to the Altar of Incense, he offered himself. The people put their hands on him and they confessed their sins before him: adultery, theft, lying, murder, and he took all of the sins and staggered in before God, and offered up for himself and for the sins of Israel. And the fire went up, the smoke went up and God accepted it. So therefore, there is an offering to take place in our time. An offering that soon will be, but let’s read a little more about it because there were some people who were too poor to give the offering. Amen? Let’s go back to Leviticus.
There were some people who were too poor; can you understand what that says? Some people were too poor to make the offering, therefore God said that they should get two doves and the doves would be the offering for that person – Holy Ghost. Yes, the Holy Ghost would come in. Leviticus 14:10, And on the eighth day he shall take two he lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb… “On the eighth day.” What is that saying? That is saying that on the new beginning – eight is the number of new beginning – that God is going to create an offering. Now, Jesus first, then the Church became the offering. But how would you like to be a Jew? How would you like to be a Jew in the time before Jesus came, and all that the Jews went through? Sometimes I wonder why God said, “Go out there and kill the Amalekites.” He said to kill them, kill their dogs, kill the cats, kill the cows and the goats, kill the children and the women. Most Christians say that shouldn’t be in the Bible. Have you ever met any Christians who say that it shouldn’t be in the Bible? Amen.
In Cuba there is very little AIDS. Castro handles AIDS like any epidemic should be handled. That is, you isolate the people who have the disease. Do you understand? If you had a communicable disease and you were sitting here with everybody, probably everybody would get outside and they would start having that disease, and it would spread. So you take the person with the disease and you put them in a special place, and you take care of them there. Amen? Some diseases, when they take hold, the disease of homosexuality, the disease of…some sinful diseases, God, in the Bible, handles it by fire. I don’t know if you noticed that? Everywhere you see that disease, God burned out that place. Hallelujah!
Now, the Bible says that when Joshua went into Canaan land, God told him to burn the cities! The scriptures deliberately say, “But this city, the Lord said don’t burn it – and that city, don’t burn it (Joshua 11).” Why? Why do you want to burn a city? Fire must burn up everything in the city and kill every living thing because of a disease that would destroy the whole human race. That’s it. And God is GOD. God is GOD. Some of us don’t approach God as GOD. We approach Him with reason. “No, that is not good. That is not right.” You approach God who creates and destroys, amen, and when He destroys, He is creating. Amen. He creates and He destroys.
I used to go, as a child, to a potter’s house. This potter would teach us children how to make different vases and so on and so on. You had to have special clay. The clay had to be clean. Sometimes you would rub the clay and you would feel a little piece of something in it and you would have to take it out and keep on molding. Sometimes the clay dies. Dead clay can’t make pottery any more. You would have to scrape it off and put on a new lump. You create, you destroy. Nobody goes around and says that I am a man that destroys beautiful vases. “It was a beautiful vase, but it wasn’t right, so I destroyed it – make another one.”
God is saying to you that if we can trust God as being GOD, He said in this Bible in certain places that He destroyed it completely. He burnt out the cities; He did not leave a root or branch. You say, “Then why isn’t He doing it now?” I’m telling you now, it is being done. It is being done, only the difference is that salvation… God says that where there is somebody who shed innocent blood, by man shall his blood be shed (Genesis 9:6). That is the law. Amen. But then, because of Jesus Christ, if you shed innocent blood and you repent, then the Blood of Jesus covers the innocent blood and the land is not marred with blood. But what we are doing is saving the murderers. We are saving the murderers and the murderers are being saved to murder more, and the spirit of murder is coming forth in them. You know, you read the Ten Commandments, and I do not understand why the translators put “thou shalt not kill (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17; Matthew 5:21).” Because when you put “thou shalt not kill,” it is saying that those people who God told to kill, something was wrong. The Bible did not say so. It said, “Thou shalt not murder”, and murder is different from killing, because the man who pulls the thing to execute or to hang someone who sinned, they are planning to hang him – someone who pulls the trigger – he would be a murder, just as the murderer that he killed. But he is not, because the Bible did not say, “Thou shalt not kill”, it said “Thou shalt not murder” and they wrote “kill.” You Bible students, please look it up when you go home. You look it up and you will find out that there is a word for “murder” and a word for “kill.”
God Almighty is saying that He is creating a people and you are going to be in the company of the Lamb. In the morning, Jesus Christ died. Thank God, He gave us His Blood and He saved us from our sins. In the middle of the day, the Church and all those who went towards bringing this Church here – starting with Abraham and going right down through the whole nation of the Jews, bringing forth Jesus Christ, bringing forth life in my soul. We become the next lamb – the last lamb to be offered is the two witness company. Amen. Now, let me go on a little here.
12And the priest shall take one he lamb, and offer him for a trespass offering, and the log of oil, and wave them for a wave offering before the LORD: 13And he shall slay the lamb in the place where he shall kill the sin offering and the burnt offering, in the holy place: There was anoffering made, and the next offering that was made wasthe ewe lamb. The ewe lamb. Now, the scripture would never refer to Jesus as a “she” lamb, so what God is doingis saying that He has a Church that is going to be walkingin His footsteps, and walking in His precepts, a Churchthat will lay down their lives to bring in the harvest ofGod. This is what the ewe lamb is. But then, He said thatthere is another lamb to be offered in the evening, and thatlamb is all the lambs put together – because another helamb… Let me take you to Revelation. Let us go to Revelation12 where the woman brings forth the manchild -Hallelujah! I jump ahead, because I want you to keep understandingwhat I am saying while we go along.
Revelation 12:1, And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: 2And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. 3And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 4And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. 5And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. We are talking about a Church – aChurch standing on a Church, pregnant with a Church,bringing forth a Church. And that is the LAST CHURCH,which is no longer a she Church. It is a He Church. Butthen, why did He change from a woman to a man? Becausethe Church is now having the power in Himself.Christ is part of that Church now, when you see the men inChrist, the men in God just like Jesus Christ Himself. SoJesus Christ is bringing forth a Church that will be filledwith CHRIST.
So the brethren said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1b). “Teach us to pray; we don’t know how to pray; teach us to pray.” He said unto them, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.’ Praise You, God! Thank You for Jesus! Hallelujah! And then you say, ‘Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, IN ME as in Heaven.’” “In earth,” He says. IN EARTH, but we don’t expect it just to be in the dirt outside there. It must be in the HIGHEST EARTH, when man is filled with the power of God, and man is filled with the fullness of God, and Christ is reigning! I hear you singing, “Thy throne, O Lord, is forever,” and I am there smiling. You don’t know what you are saying. The throne of God will be in your heart. He said, “You will be the throne of God, the temple of the living God, and I will create an everlasting temple.” If the temple is everlasting, then He can give you everlasting promises. You see? So if we understand the Word of God – it is just one Word, and right through and through we can see the Word of God bringing forth life everywhere.
Know who you are! Have a Godly ambition! Don’t let sin take you! When the man Joseph was faced with sin, he was tempted – that woman had been looking at him long ago. He knew she had a crush on him. Yes, and he was tempted. When she grabbed him, he knew that was the moment of truth. In his mind, “How can I do this great sin and sin against my God?” (Genesis 39:9). That means that he thought of it. Yes, he thought of just submitting to her. He would have a great time in the palace. Amen. But before him he was faced with death. To resist her would be death, because she was going to lie about him anyhow. And so he said, “I would rather die.”
Brethren, God is asking you now to give up your lives. Make your life an offering now to God. Make up your mind now that you would rather die than submit. And more than that, God is calling a people to be His precious treasure, and I want to be the precious treasure. There are a lot of other things that I can be. I’m saying, “Lord God, if so and so, if this action, if that action is standing on my rights over here, it is going to take away my being that precious treasure – I’d rather die. I’d rather die.” I told you the story of how I made up my mind to die. I decided to die. I stopped eating because the youthful lust that was within me would have destroyed what God was doing to me, and I was at a crossroads just like Joseph. I said, “Let me die, my God.”
I stopped eating for forty days. God sat down there and watched me. He was watching me to see if I would break down, but I was determined. Blood was coming through my mouth. I was coughing so hard I couldn’t hold myself down on the bed. I was just coughing and the blood was just spattering out. I refused to drink water. Some of the willing workers, a band of women from the church, came in. One powerful woman held me down. She took a spoon with water and put it in my mouth. And they took a cornmeal poultice and put it on my chest. I couldn’t help myself. I was weak. And when they had gone, God came to me. He had a chart and was showing me how I was going up the hill. He took up the chart and put it down and said, “Turn back.” Amen. Hallelujah! Praise God.
So we see then that scripture has us, but I want to in delibly mark you with these scriptures. There is a scripture in Numbers 19 that I want you to see. Numbers 19:2, This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring
thee a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke: 3And ye shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face: 4And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times:
All right. Praise God. We won’t read the whole thing, but let me tell you the story. They take this red heifer and they burn her to ashes, everything. Then they collect the ashes and they mix them with water and they wash out the tabernacle with it. What is the meaning of that? Remember, it is a heifer. It could not be Jesus Himself. God is talking about the Church in the last day, the final cleansing of the temple, when the Church will be burnt with fire. Yes. Going through death, and being used to finally make a final washing of the temple of God. I need to remind you that some of the people who belong to God, they are out there in the bars today drinking. They are out there carousing. They are in Las Vegas. They are working in hell right now. “And them also will I bring saith the Lord God” (John 17:20). Hallelujah. Yes. So that is one scripture that I wanted you to see.
Turn to the last scripture now in Revelation 14. You can’t have a good message unless it ends in Revelation. And you tell me what this means, for somebody doesn’t believe the Word. But God bless you. God bless us all. God help us to understand the Word of God. Revelation 14:1, And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads. Having His name AND His Father’s name written in their foreheads. The Greek says, Ôïõ ðá?ñïò áõ?ïõ (tu patros a tu). His name, His Father’s name, and His name (Strong’s Concordance #s G846, G3962, G3686). That is to say, the nature of God is now written in their minds. Amen. You receive now the mark of God. It is impossible now to get the mark of the beast; you can’t be a beast anymore. Amen. He said, “…an hundred forty and four thousand.” I want to show you what that means. “An hundred forty and four thousand.” “Having his Father’s name and His name.” When we are talking about the Father’s name, we are talking about the nature of God AND the nature of Christ written in their foreheads.
144 equals 12 x 12. 12 equals completion. 12 by 12 means the completed man in a completed body. So the completed man is 12 and the completed body is 12, and it is 12 multiplied by 12, so you get 144. The scripture says that 144 cubits is the width of the wall of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:17). So, if you understand the whole thing, you will understand how true this is. Now, the zero equals the seed, which equals Christ. In scripture, anything that is repeated three times is the fullness. So, 000 equals the fullness of Christ. So then, what are we seeing? Jesus Christ, the Lamb, was standing on Mount Zion. Now, zayin is the 7th letter of the Hebrew language. It’s value is 7 and it means perfection. So the Zion company is the “perfected man.” God uses that word Sion to show His strong ones, His completed man. David created the city of Zion, all by the revelation of God.
Now here we are then where it speaks of Jesus Christ, the Lamb. They refer to Jesus in scripture as many different things. For instance, one place He is referred to as a Lion (Revelation 5:5). But this place He is referred to as a Lamb. So what is the meaning of that? He is in His capacity as dying for our sins as an offering. Right? So Jesus Christ, the Lamb is standing on Mount Zion. He is standing upon the perfection now, and with Him – He is not alone – He has a lot more like Himself, the Zion Company, standing with Him. The completed man in the completed body, in the nature and the fullness of Christ, with the nature of God the Father in his forehead and in his mind and Christ IN him. That is the meaning of the 144,000.
So if anybody tells you that 144,000 is a natural number and it means Jews or anything like that, you will know that he is uninformed. This information came from God. God made me a student and He sat down with me for 7 months and taught me and there is no way that I could believe anything else but what He tells me. Amen. I challenge the church because there are some things which I say out of my mouth which I am saying and the church is not supposed to allow it. Do you understand why God created a Body? If I am saying something that you don’t understand, if you don’t believe, go ask God! Just ask God!
I know many men who do that and God tells them, “Yes, he is talking the truth.” So, if you can get a Word from God to say that what I am saying is not right, then I will have to go back to God and say, “My God, the brother said You told him that this isn’t right.” And then I will be corrected if I am deceived. The Church is not supposed to be deceived. The Church is supposed to hear from God. Amen.
Now, concerning this 144,000, the scripture went further to describe who they are. We go down into Revelation 14:4, These are they which were not defiled with women… Now, He is not talking about natural women. He is talking about the women that caught Samson, the false churches that catch people and destroy them. We are coming out of this system, all this falsehood that the Church has imbibed. God is bringing us out of them. This is why He says the people who handle the heifer have to wash themselves in clear water, because outside there they would be contaminated. They couldn’t come back into the tabernacle unless they were cleaned up, and they must wait until the even before they can be clean (Numbers 19:7-10). Don’t you understand? The Church will not really be perfected and be cleaned until the even – the evening in which we are. We are in the evening of time, and God Almighty is cleansing the Church. The last cleansing will be giving your life before God, and that will finish the job.
4These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. 5And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God. Now, is itpossible to make a mistake there? After God goes to suchdetail to explain to us who these people are? And whoYOU will be if you are diligent to be part ofthis company? Do you understand what Iam saying? Praise be to God!
So, the company is redeemed. I want you to understand what is meant by redemption. Jesus Christ died, and He redeemed my soul from hell. He took me out of death and He gave me LIFE. But I have a part of me that is not redeemed, did you know that? Part of you is still in death! Not redeemed! Turn to Romans 8, for I have decided to give you all of the scriptures. I am not going to assume that you know anything. You know, that is why I said that this man Paul was a marvelous, marvelous gift of God to the Church, because he went into certain things that none of the other apostles understood.
Romans 8:22, For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 23And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit… The firstfruits, don’t you understand?Remember now, we just read about the firstfruits and itwas said by an angel. It was an angel speaking to John ina vision that spoke about the firstfruits. Amen? And hereis Paul writing about the firstfruits. …the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. Thatpiece of earth that you have there unto you, you call it abody, it is a veil that is separating you from perfection!Amen. You can’t go out and kill yourself to get perfect. You are gone, because the last act that you committed wassin. If anyone destroys the body, the temple of the livingGod… He said, if any man defile (destroy) the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are (I Corinthians 3:17). So I hope youget it right. And it says here, the redemption of our body. 24For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? So when we say that we are saved, we are saved, praiseGod, by hope. We are coming to the day when we will besaved completely. But right now, you have a piece of earthunto you there that is pulling you down from what Godwants you to be. Amen.
So He said, they loved not their lives unto the death (Revelation 12:11). Amen. Praise God. …they loved not their lives unto the death. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Youmust be the offering. Hallelujah! You must be the offering.When you start putting your offering in the plate, OFFERYOUR SOULS! Don’t forget that the offering thatthe priest put down was not only the incense, but it was hissoul that he was offering, and that was what made you apriest. Hallelujah! That was what made you a king. Hallelujah!He said He shall make you priests andkings (Revelation 1:6, 5:10). Hallelujah!Praise God.
I’m sure you are tired, but I thank God for it. Praise God! Amen. We need to get the tapes and we need to go over the Word and we need to go over it until it gets into us and becomes our flesh. Hallelujah! Praise be to God! Amen
Sonlight Devotional 