Brother Cecil duCille
September 6, 2003
(Published in Keeping in Touch February 29, 2004)
(For printable version click here.)
Let us pray: Father God, we just thank You for Your presence with us and for Your desire to hide us, to hide us from the storms, to hide us from ourselves, to hide us from our errors, and still to come to be with us. We feel unworthy tonight to be in Your presence, but we ask You, my God, to break the bread of life for us, that we might live and that others might live who You have appointed us to share life with. Many are not receiving the life that You have appointed us to share with them because we are not sharing it with them, and we ask You, Lord God, to look upon our weaknesses, forgive us all our trespasses, deliver us, Lord God, from evil, Lord God, the evil that lurks within, the evil that is without, and the evil that exists in other men, deliver us, oh God. Deliver us from evil, oh God, in the mighty name of Jesus Christ our Savior and our Lord. Praise God.
Please be seated, brethren. Praise God, brethren. We thank God for being here. When I start to preach late, I don’t have the freedom to go to midnight, so I am asking you to bear with me until I unburden this word that the Lord has put on my heart. If you will turn with me to the book of Joshua, I want to bring two points to your mind and to your hearts.
If you look in Joshua chapter seven, But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the Lord was kindled against the children of Israel (Joshua 7:1).
That one man took of the accursed thing and the anger of God was kindled against everybody. There must have been some innocent ones there, but the anger of God was kindled against all of Israel. The question is, why? Why would God punish all Israel because one man sinned?
Verse two: And Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is beside Beth-aven, on the east side of Beth-el, and spake unto them, saying, Go up and view the country. And the men went up and viewed Ai. 3 And they returned to Joshua, and said unto him, Let not all the people go up; but let about two or three thousand men go up and smite Ai; and make not all the people to labour thither; for they are but few. 4 So there went up thither of the people about three thousand men; and they fled before the men of Ai. 5 And the men of Ai smote of them about thirty and six men: for they chased them from before the gate even unto Shebarim, and smote them in the going down: wherefore the hearts of the people melted, and became as water. 6 And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord until the eventide, he and the elders of Israel, and put dust upon their heads. 16 So Joshua rose up early in the morning, and brought Israel by their tribes; and the tribe of Judah was taken: 17 And he brought the family of Judah; and he took the family of the Zarhites: and he brought the family of the Zarhites man by man; and Zabdi was taken: 18 And he brought his household man by man; and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.
Now, God said, “If My people which are called by My name will humble themselves and pray, I’ll heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14). You know, I see the brethren using that word that America must repent. They are saying, “America, repent. If America doesn’t repent, what is God going to do?” God did not say America must repent. God said the people of God must repent. He said, “My people, which are called by My name!” God is asking you to repent because the point is that, if WE don’t repent, everything is lost. We are the people that God has put to stand between the destruction of the devil and the world, so that Satan cannot do certain things while we are here, while we are watching. While we are praying, while we are preaching, while we are obeying God, Satan cannot do certain things.
Let’s turn to Joshua chapter one. Go back to the foundation. God cannot renege on His promises. God said, in verse three, chapter one, Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses. 4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast. 5 There shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
But Israel turned back before Ai. They were so few people that they didn’t think they should send more than three thousand men to conquer the city of Ai, and the three thousand men fled before the men of Ai. What about God’s promise? He said,”No man would be able to stand before you all the days of your life,” and then they went fleeing down the road. Something was wrong. Something was wrong.
What really happened? We are looking at what happened in the natural, and we are going to look at what really happened in the spiritual. In the natural, God said, “Take no spoil from that city. You must not take anything. No silver, no gold, no garment, no nothing. Take nothing from that place” (Joshua 6:18-19). Now, when one man went there, he had the opportunity of capturing some jewelry, and a garment, and he took it secretly and hid it beneath his tent.
What happened in the spiritual? Why did Israel turn back before the enemy? Okay, God has given us angels to be with us, to guard us, to guide us. I do not believe in accidents. I don’t believe in accidents. I know incidences, but not accidents. Things will happen, but these things happen because of a certain reason, not on accident. My guardian angel is with me. Thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me(Psalm 23:4). Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday(Psalm 91:5-6). You shall not be afraid! Why? God has given you dominion over all things on the earth. Now, when you do certain things, your guardian angel, who God has set with you to guide you, to guard you, to guard your children, to be with you, these angels cannot stand sin. You do certain things and they can’t stand it. They have to stand back. Then what happens? Of course, the devil comes in and he does his job on you.
Now, some people say, “God did me this. God did me that.” I was praying a couple weeks ago and I began to talk to God about the things that are happening in the Body. “How are so many suffering? How are things happening to us? What is the problem? God, is it that You are against us? Are we doing something wrong? Why is it You are allowing these things to happen?” God said to me, “Come, let me show you something.” I went into a vision and He showed me a number of Christians. God gave a clear command to them to go, like we would say, “Go that way.” But there was some roughness in the way and some people considered, “Well, if I went that way I could come around here, and I would do what God wants me to do eventually. But I need to go…” And in their own minds they began to go their own ways. So God made me to follow them in the ways that they were going. Down the street of one place that someone was going there was a pit. Now, God didn’t throw him into the pit. God didn’t push him into the pit. God didn’t lure him into the pit. He went on the way that the pit was! Now, God kept following him, whispering to him, “Turn back. Turn back. Repent!” “Oh, I’ll make it. I’ll make it. I just need to get around that curve, and I’ll make it right back.” He was going further and further in the way, and all these people, many of them, everybody was going down into the pit! They cried to God, and so they struggled and came out of the pit, and still kept going! They went through all kinds of torment, problems, sufferings, and yet their little minds couldn’t tell them, “I am suffering because I am going my own way!” Every time they got into a problem, the Lord would whisper, “Repent. Repent. You can get out of this. God will deliver you of it if you just repent.” But they were still going on with the hope that they would make it. One particular place I saw, there were needles, or little knives, sharp little things, coming down from the sky like rain. At first I thought it was snow, but when I looked, it was sharp needles coming down from the sky in that area. The people were going to that area, going to pass through it and when it hit them and they began to suffer, they started screaming. They ran into darkness, some dark place and eventually they got through there, but they were all beaten and bruised. God said to me, “Now, you see that man. It’s time. Tell him now. Tell him now to turn back. Tell him now to repent.” The guy was so bruised, so weak, so beaten, he just fell on his knees when I whispered to him to repent. He called out to God for mercy and God just showed him a way right out where he could escape. Then I looked around and there were some people who were just resting up to keep going. They didn’t get the message. I wonder sometimes how dumb we are, and I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about me, too. How dumb we can be, that God will be trying everything to show us, and sometimes we are even saying, “God did this to me, and God did that to me.” No. God is begging you to just turn back. Turn around. Repent. He will take you out.
This man, he took the garments. I don’t need to get into the details of how demon spirits function. But demon spirits are like dogs that are trained in certain ways and they will follow that garment. Whoever takes that garment, they become a part of them. So, the devils came in, and when the devils came in, the spirits of God that were leading Israel pulled back and they were beaten. You know, in that vision, the Lord spoke a word. It shocked me a little, the word He said. He said, “Some of them will go through hell.” Some of the things that are happening to us in life are like going through hell. The spirits, therefore, that would have protected Israel, that caused Israel to fight and to win and to overthrow everybody else were the spirits of God who God sent to lead Israel. These spirits of God had to pull back because somebody in Israel opened the back door. Sombody opened the back door and let the devils in!
I do not know if we are fully conscious of how important it is to obey God. God said obedience is better than all the gifts that we would give God (1 Samuel 15:22). Amen? “Oh, God. I’ll work and I’ll pay tithes.” You know, “I’ll support the church, Lord. Only let me do my thing, Lord.” Obedience is better than sacrifice! Of course, He was hearkening on the fat of the rams. He saw the fat cows. Can you imagine the feast that they would have had in eating those good steaks? Strange enough, things like that lead people! Natural things lead people and they go after it. The result is death and destruction. I don’t care what it is.
There are two types of suffering. You might not even notice them. There is a type of suffering where somebody has to suffer because somebody else is sinning and it’s the lamb type of suffering. God says, “I need a man to suffer as an example to this man. And He chooses you, or you volunteer. So you become a lamb for your household, or you become a lamb for somebody who is there dying. Have you ever volunteered for suffering? You do it all the while. I’ve heard you do it. “Oh, God. I want to do Your perfect will. Oh, God, I want to be just like Jesus.” You are volunteering to be like Jesus, the Lamb, to suffer. Now, I’m not saying you must not pray and surrender yourself to God, but this is what you’re doing. This is what God wants because there is a certain amount of suffering that the people of God must suffer in order to do the things that we have to do in this dark hour. In other words, God is saying He wants people to stand in the breach. He wants people to stand in the breach. Watch your Bible. When you read your Bible, you will notice that every time Israel was in trouble, God would get a man to stand in the breach, amen! God said to Moses, “Get aside Moses. Let Me kill all these people” (Exodus 32: 9-10). Why did God say that if He didn’t mean to kill them? God looked into them and saw that they were not going to do His will. He said, “I sware in My wrath that they should not enter into My rest” (Psalm 95: 11). How could God do such a thing? To sware in His wrath that you will not enter into His rest means that you have grieved Him. You have done over and over and over again and you get to a point where God knows that you won’t make it. He said to Moses, “Move from before Me. Let Me kill them all and I will raise up a people from you to do My will.” Moses said, “Oh, God, no. Please don’t. Lord God, have mercy upon them.” Moses was actually saying, “Kill me. It’s better to kill me instead, but save them, Lord God” (Exodus 32: 11-13). But God knows best. God said, “All right. Because you plead with Me like that, I will take forty years and kill them all.” Yes. Instead of you having children and they grow up and I take forty years to grow them up, I will kill them all in forty years. He didn’t tell them that. Moses was quite satisfied that God heard his prayer. But when God says He is going to destroy them, He knew that they were not going to make it. There are certain scriptures… God said in one Word, He said, “Ephraim is a cake unturned” (Hosea 7:8). It means burned on one side and raw on the other side. One side burned and the other side raw. No good! You can’t eat the burned part. You can’t eat the raw part. You see? And God spoke again through the prophet Jeremiah. He said to Israel, When thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? (Jeremiah 4:30). There is no science on earth, or ever shall be, where man will be able to turn back a rotten apple. You can stop it from rotting more by freezing it, but you will not get that rotten part to be un-rotted and back to a fresh, new apple. When thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? You go on and on and on.
Do you know that in the human dimension there is a point of spoiling? You can psychologically, physically, and spiritually, come to a place where you will never go further, because you have marred your own progress! Hallelujah. Sin, sin, sin. Do you know what the unpardonable sin is? Did anybody ever tell you what the unpardonable sin is? The unpardonable sin is any sin! It is any sin that you continue to do. God tries to stop you, you jump over it, you continue. You continue, you continue, you continue. There is only one hope for you, one blessing that God could give you. Just kill you. Oh, yes! Many of us are weak and sickly and many die because we fail to discern the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:30). You go, you kick, you take the Body of Christ and you make a football out of it! You curse the people whom God has anointed! You think it’s an easy thing? You curse the anointed of God! The person that God anoints to bring YOU into perfection, to help you to come out! You go and you dig out all his faults, or her faults. You dig out all their faults, and you have the faults before you. YOU FAIL TO SEE GOD. You fail to see what God has done! God anoints a Body to save the earth! God did not say we were perfect! No! God did not say we were perfect! God put someone in your place with you, in your way, in your life. Thank God for that one that God has put in your life regardless of the person’s weaknesses! Don’t keep beating on the person’s weaknesses! YOU WILL KILL YOURSELF! Did you know that? You beat on the person’s weaknesses and that person repents and lives and YOU DIE! Glory to God! There are things inside of you that can die one by one! The power of vision. The power to see. Do you know what can kill a prophet? If a prophet goes and takes a word from over here, and this one says that, and that one says that, and the other one says that, and the prophet has them all together before him or her. You lose out with God! Lose out with God! Hallelujah. God did not create you a judge! Amen! God created you as a part of a Body! Oh, I wish I could tell you! I wish I could tell you the pain, the suffering that I see! Amen! God created my thumb for a purpose. If I cut the thing off, and have no fellowship with the thumb, I am inhibited in all my works! Not just in one work! I’m inhibited in everything I do, because I refuse to have the thumb to work.
We were in Jamaica and we invited a certain minister from the United States to come to preach. There were at least ten thousand people out in the race course and he set up his platform and he preached. This man had one of the most powerful ministries that I had ever seen. This man would pray for people and all kinds of miracles would happen right before your eyes. Amen! But the man had a certain weakness. There are some weaknesses that disqualify you from using your gift. Do you understand? And there are some weaknesses that don’t disqualify you. They hurt you and hurt you and hurt you and you might come to the point where God has to take you out to save your life. This man was in that position. I mean, I am telling you history now. The man drank. He would preach and the power of God would come down and all manner of wonderful things would happen. And when he went home at night, he would hit the bottle and he would just pass out in a drunken stupor until next day, he was sobered up and by night he was ready to preach again. All we did to stop him, he wouldn’t stop because he destroyed every barrier that was put up. Every barrier! The brethren put up every barrier. He went from one church to another until he formed his own organization and he was the head of his organization. Nobody could stop him now, and he did his thing, amen? We invited him down to preach and he was doing a wonderful job, you know? Hundreds, thousands of people were being slain in the Spirit and delivered. I don’t want to say too much, I am trying to figure out how I might tell you without telling you. These tapes go far, you know? The Bishop of the church I was in, his son got leukemia. The doctors gave up. In those days, they didn’t have even half of the science that they have now to help. The doctors gave up and the boy was in bad shape, actually dying. There was only one hope we had, for the church to get down and to pray for this boy. But the church went to him, we went to him and said, “Let us take this child to see Brother So-and-So tonight in his prayer line. Maybe God will hear our prayers. He has the gift of healing.” The brother said, “I’d rather my child die than to let that brother pray for him.” Well, the child died. Then the man died afterwards, too, you know. Yes, he got to a point where God had to take him out. He would do too much damage, he would probably lose his own soul. You can get to a point where God blesses you with death and takes you out. See? We always look at death as such a cruel or awful thing, but I’m telling you, we thank God that there is death for those who would lose their souls if God didn’t intervene and take them out. Amen.
Now, I said there are two types of suffering. You can suffer because of the road that you took. Come on with me now. You suffer because of the road you took. The Bible speaks of it, when he said that your peace would be as a river if you had just obeyed God (Isaiah 48:18). God has a road for you, and along that road there was peace, there was joy, there was deliverance, there was help, there was happiness, but because you had your own way, you took another road and you ran into tribulation. You know, I said to God one time, “Lord, how is this church going to get from here where we are, you know, backbiting, lack of love, everything. How are we going to get from this point where we are to that point where You want us to be in such a short time?” And God said, “Tribulation.” Have you ever seen people in trouble? Have you ever seen people frightened?
I remember we were in a troop ship and the men were just wild, you know. Men were doing all kinds of things. They would steal your money, they would fight, they would do all kinds of things. Some of the ring leaders of this type of a gang thing were on the ship. There were five thousand men on the ship, and we came into a storm. Brethren, if you have ever been in a storm at sea, you will have an idea what I am talking about. This great big ship, the George Washington, carrying five thousand men plus crew, it was just sliding down off this mighty mountain, a wave, you know, sliding down the side. Sometimes the waves crashed right over the ship. They had to batten down everybody, all the men had to tie themselves down. Everybody began to vomit and I saw those men get down on their knees and pray. In the midst of it all, there was an alarm, a German submarine was sighted. The men ran onto the guns and began to man the guns. Whether they had seen something or not didn’t matter but some of the men who were so powerful, you wanted to see them on their knees begging God for mercy. After that storm and that occasion, we had no more trouble until we came into New York Harbor.
Brethren, I’m trying to say something. I’m saying that God can bring repentance to people overnight! Yes! The earthquake out in San Francisco. Man, the churches were full the next day! Everybody was going to church, amen! A storm comes and people fill up the churches, praying, amen. You know, the storm is a really different thing from any other catastrophe. A storm would come towards you in Jamaica and the radio would tell you that the storm was coming. It would tell you how many miles it was away. Everything looked dark and somber. Then the general in Jamaica, now the governor general, would get on the radio and pray a prayer and say, “God bless you.” Like it’s going to strike in ten minute’s time. When he prayed that prayer, everybody, knew this thing was going to happen and it was so wild that sometimes coconut trees would go flying in the air like missiles. Trees going around in circles and it was awful! Man had no more power there and you could see people pray as they never prayed before. Amen. So when it comes to tribulation, God is capable of helping you with tribulation. Yes. God is capable, and this is what He said to me. He said, “Tribulation.”
Now, we are opening back doors. We are opening back doors. We come to sing and we don’t seem to be hitting right. The beat of the song is jerky. Somebody is going this way, and the other one is singing that, we are not one in our singing. Don’t you think God knows? What is happening is that some of us have opened doors to devils and then we come to sing. After you are finished opening a door to a devil, amen, you come, as if you are so innocent now, and you’re going to sing, “I worship You, Lord.” You’re not deceiving anybody. You should have come to the altar and repented, amen. Amen. “Hide me, Lord, in Your Holiness.” How is God going to hide an unholy person into His Holiness? How can unholiness get into holiness? I’m not saying that we are bad and wicked and rude. I’m only saying that we have left undone the things which we ought to have done, like repentance, and we are trying to do something else. You cannot sing for repentance.
God is speaking to His people. I do not know when we’re going to hear, but I figure we’re going to hear soon. Believe you me. God is not saying He’s going to destroy the world because the world is bad… no, no, no, no. It is because YOU are not preventing the destruction. It is because WE are not standing in the breach. We have been ordained to stand in the breach. We have been created, don’t you understand? God created the church to present Christ to the world! And the church becomes worldly, so then, the church can’t present Christ to the world anymore. Amen.
Look at the picture again. One Babylonish garment buried in the midst of the camp of Israel gave the evil spirits the right to destroy Israel. Amen. And then Joshua fell on his face and said, “Oh, God, have mercy! What’s happening here?” God said, “Get up. Get up from off your knees. Go and find the man who has the Babylonish garment buried in the middle of his tent” (Joshua 7: 7- 15). And then, guess what? The man put God to the test. All right. If you knew that you had that garment buried there, what would have been the right thing to do? It would be to say, “God, It’s my fault.” Take responsibility. Take responsibility! You ask the brother about what’s happening in his household and he says, his wife is this, and his wife does that, and his wife is so-and-so and his wife is so-and-so. He refuses to take responsibility! Amen! The man, Achan waited and Joshua said they had to cast lots, and they took the tribe of Judah. Now if you’re a believer, and you see them take Judah and you know that you are in Judah, wouldn’t it be time to repent? But Achan waited. So they had to throw another lot, and they took Zabdi and his household. Then they had to throw another lot to take his direct father’s house. So it’s been narrowed down now, from the whole of Judah, to one tribe, to one household, one family and then to his direct family now. And still the man did not repent! Then, it fell on him. “Oh, so God, You really know. You found me out.” Don’t you understand what I’m saying? He put God to the test instead of getting up and saying, “It is I. Let me find mercy, my God.” Amen! When the lot fell on him, Joshua said to him,”Repent.” Amen. Joshua said to him, “Repent.” Then he said, “Yes, I am sorry, I have sinned.” Kind of late isn’t it? The next thing that happened, Joshua said, “Take him out and execute him.” Why? Why? The only way they were going to wipe out that innocent blood that was shed, the thirty-six men that died at Ai, was by Achan giving his own life. He would never be healed anymore. His time was UP! Time of transgression was over, hallelujah. I just fear that thought. Oh, yes. I’ve been in the Gospel long enough. I’ve seen it over, and over and over again! Amen. Don’t you understand?
We are one whether you want it or not! Yes. We are one. We are bound together by spiritual circumstances, whether you want to admit it or not. Amen. I said to one sister, “God has sent me from Jamaica to you.” She said, “No. You weren’t sent to me at all.” She rejected the thought that I was sent to her, but afterwards, God is so good, she came back and said, “I am so sorry.” You know, she said she was sorry and God has helped her. Brethren, the words that I speak to you, they are Spirit and they are Life. I know they are Spirit, I know they are Life, because they are not premeditated, pre-set, or self-determined.
God Almighty is doing something. He is giving a people an opportunity of standing in the breach. The time will come when the opportunity will be lifted. He will pull the opportunity away, and He will get other people! I’ve seen it done several times! Amen! He said, “Repent. Lest I come upon you quickly and remove your candlestick out of the way” (Revelation 2:5). And somebody said that it means He will kill you. Not necessarily. The worst thing to see is a church without light. Man lights a lantern and God’s light is out, gone. Candlestick moved out of the way. The candlestick is the symbol of your working with God, your working with God. Somebody believes that if I’m working with God, then I have to preach! The only preaching God requires absolutely is from your life, so you might be cleaning the yard. You are working with God and God says, “Clean the yard.” You clean the yard. Amen. It doesn’t matter what you do! When you are working with God, you are part of the God function in the earth and this function is going to stop the devil from taking this world. Believe you me!
Satan believes that he is going to take the world. Oh, yes! He is going around claiming people. “These people are my people.” “Those people are my people.” Satan is a liar! He is a thief. He is a murderer. Amen. And he cannot claim that which God has sanctified. Amen. I don’t care what condition you are in, you belong to God. You have nowhere else to go! Amen. You have nowhere else to go. I don’t know if you understand it. God said, “All right, you are a free will agent. You can do what you want. You are a free will agent, you can do what you want but there are consequences.” That simply means, you are not free to do what you want unless you are just a fool. Just fooling yourself. You’re not really free. We’re not free. We are free in Christ, but not free in man, in self, or in sin. We have nowhere else to go. Jesus looked at the twelve and said, “Won’t you go also?” Peter said, “Where would we go? We have nowhere else to go. You have the word of eternal life. We have nowhere else to go” (John 6:67-68). Amen.
You know, we do not recognize the eternal Word in our midst! You know? One brother said to me, “But Brother Cec, so you are perfect then? Because if what you say that we have to do…” I said, “No, no, not what I say. What God tells me to say!” If you catch me saying something that God didn’t tell me to say, it is your duty to say, “Hey, you are off line!” Definitely! That is no affront. That’s a blessing. That’s a blessing when somebody says, “Oh, you are off line.” But to say that we do not have the perfect Word in our midst is talking the talk of the devil. For as sure as God lives, He would not have left His world to be destroyed by evil preachers and evil doctrines. He must have the truth somewhere! And you are the ones who will discover the truth. Do you know where you will discover it? Inside of your own self. Yes. Thy Word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee (Psalm 119:11). The truth of God is hidden in the hearts of men. It’s in your heart. Face yourself sometime and you will realize that you knew the truth. You know why? When you do something wrong, you know you’re wrong. If you didn’t have the truth in you, how would you know you’re wrong? Amen?
And so, we look at the situation of Achan and we see the situation in our midst. Why can’t we go forward? Why is this floor bare? Why is the carpet lying against the wall? Simple thought. You ever asked yourself why? “Oh, because Brother So-and-So didn’t do such-and-such. And because this one…” It’s because there is a Babylonish garment buried in the midst that has stopped us from going forward. When we started off, we were going forward, but all of a sudden, a Babylonish garment is there. Something repulsive to God. Something that means God can’t work because of it. The same it is here, the same it is in your lives. “Oh,” said God, “I would have made your peace like a river!” Do you know how God laments over us? “Oh, if you had only obeyed Me. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” Jesus cried. This is the first place in the Bible that tells us that Jesus wept. He looked at Jerusalem. He saw all the destruction. He saw what’s going on there now. He saw the bombs blowing up buses and killing people, and whatever is to happen to Jerusalem, and He said, “Oh, Jerusalem! Oh, if you would have only obeyed me! I would gather you together under my wings as a hen gathereth her brood. But you would not” (Luke 13: 34). What a lament! Oh, God, help us! God, help us to see in the Spirit! My God, my God, hallelujah.
Sister Mavis duCille:
I want to share something, I don’t remember exactly when, but I was awakened one night last week with a poem that I learned in school. You know, that’s a long time ago. But it said:
The loss of gold is much,
The loss of time is more,
But the loss of honor is such a loss
That no man can restore.
Right away the Lord led me into the story of the prodigal son. When he came to himself, he said, “I will arise and go.” He said, “My father’s house hath large supplies and I am here perishing and fighting the hogs for food. I will arise” (Luke 15:18). It was honor. It was something in him that his riotous living and his making merry with his friends had not destroyed. He was still able to say, “I will arise and go.” And then the Lord brought other stories in the Bible where many were not able to arise and go. Many were not able and so they perished. That is the case of Achan. He was not able, he lost the honor. So, the prodigal son lost the gold, lost a lot of all that wealth that he took from his father’s house, but he had not lost the honor. “The loss of honor is such a loss that no man can restore.” So, if there are things in our lives that have caused us to depart from the steadfastness and the glory of God with which He has blessed us, then it is time that we stir up that honor and go to the Lord and repent before it is too late. Amen.
God bless you, brethren.
Sonlight Devotional 