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Archive for the ‘The Firstfruits Company’ Category

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Scripture reading: Revelation 4:10-11

The soul of man is the prize of God. This is the one earthly item which we definitely know that God desires more than all others. Gold, silver, lands, cattle, angels? No! The soul of man is the great prize. When this is won, then all creation is won. God DESIRES SONS, not robots, not beings compelled to worship Him, but sons who willingly lay at His feet all the goodness He gave to them.

“Not my will, but thine, be done.” Luke 22:42.

Gifts from the Spirit of God are to be given back to God. God is not making man independent of Himself, but by His goodness being poured out upon us, He is drawing us to Himself. There is nowhere else where the goodness of God can be MAXIMUM EFFECTIVE, but in the hand of God. Do you use God or does God use you? God is His own administrator, and when man acquires the attributes of God and uses them for self, he is usurping authority.

There is another classic example in the Bible in Revelation 4:10 and 11.

“The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

Here the beasts represent the souls of men, changed from the beast nature to the nature of the Christ. They took off their crowns, came off their thrones, fell down before Jesus Christ, and worshiped Him.

“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power.”

This is what they say, surrendering to Him all the power and glory He gave them by His blood and sacrifice. This loudly suggests that they will not be their own, but forever be His and part of Him who redeemed them.

According to the promises of the Lord, we are to be made priests and kings. Revelation 4 shows this situation, when man is at last made priest and the soul is inhabited by the King, Jesus Christ, thus, we also become kings. Even as Jesus surrendered all power and authority to the Father, and submitted Himself to the ignominy of the cross, so also the sons of God, true to pattern, surrender their crowns and their priesthood to Him who redeemed them. A very beautiful picture indeed.

(Excerpt from The Pattern, 2nd edition, 1995, pg. 140-141)

Thought for today: The soul of man is the great prize. When this is won, then all creation is won.

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Scripture reading: Ephesians 5:26-27

There are three steps which the soul man takes from death to complete life in God.

1) The blood step
2) The Holy Ghost
3) The Christ or the manchild

1) The blood step is taken when the believer accepts Jesus as his Saviour, and submits himself to the spirit of the death of the cross, thus giving up his carnal life and submitting to a spiritual life. He then is passed from death to life; from a dead soul to a living soul. The blood, therefore, being the life of God, quickens us to life. We died being children of the dead Adam. In Jesus Christ, we come alive through submitting to a spiritual blood transfusion given by Dr. Holy Ghost. All living things feed. Therefore, the soul, being alive, cries for food and is fed by receiving the Holy Ghost to dwell within his spirit and energize his soul.

2) The Holy Ghost is God within. His duty is to form the nature of the Father within us, so that we will no longer be under tutors and governors, but by nature, we will do the will of the Father, and our natures will give us much joy when we do His will.

3) The Holy Ghost will form the nature of God within us by planting the seed of the Christ child within us, and when the fullness of time is come, we shall bring forth Christ.

Ephesians 5:26-27, “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

Such terms in the word of God as “present it to himself” are not meaningless. In this instance, what God is saying is that the Spirit of God in the ministry is preparing the church to present it to Jesus as a bride without spot or blemish. Christ presents the church to Christ. There is no basis for the ministry or anyone else to call himself or themselves Christ. This simply means that the preparation of the church cannot be done by man, but by the Christ in man. The manchild ministry is not the ministry of Christ, because the manchild must necessarily grow up to the stature of a man before he can take a bride. When he does in the millennium, it will be the world at large which he, a many membered company, will take, to form Christ in them even as Christ had been formed in him. At this time, this company will include the man Christ Jesus who is the head of the body.

(Excerpt from The Pattern, 2nd Edition, 1995, pg. 125-126)

Thought for today: The preparation of the church cannot be done by man, but by the Christ in man.

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Scripture reading: Romans 8:29

The human being at the very height of his development, as shown in the lesson from the Tabernacle of Moses, will give up his life in order to be absorbed into a higher life form, the MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST. Instead of being a whole, he becomes a part. Even at the height of his wholeness or perfection, he pours out all his goodness which he received of God for one great ACHIEVEMENT, “the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” Philippians 3:14.

We need to note at this point that the Church as a division of the Tabernacle is represented by the outer court which compasses and envelops the other two divisions. The second division, THE BODY OF CHRIST, is represented by the holy place, which is also a part of the church. The third and final representation of the HUMAN DWELLING PLACE AND MEETING PLACE OF GOD AND MAN, the human body, is represented by the holy of holies. This is the reason why a human life is such a precious thing to God, and should be to us.

The seven divisions are distributed under the three headings as follows:

1. The Church (The Outer Court):

a. The Brazen Altar (brass altar)
b. The Brazen Laver (brass basin)

2. The Body of Christ (The Holy Place):

a. The Candlestick (lampstand)
b. The Table of Shewbread (the dining table for the priests)
c. The Golden Altar of Incense

3. The Human Body (The Holy of Holies):

a. The Mercy Seat (the cover of the ark, made of pure beaten gold)
b. The Ark of the Covenant

From this chart, one can readily draw the inference that the duty of the church is to lead the man to the fiery Altar of sacrifice and to the watery grave, the Laver, for washing and cleansing. Beyond this, the work is on the inside of the believer’s own heart, where the work of the Candlestick or Lampstand (Holy Ghost), the Table of Shewbread (Christ-life), and the Golden Altar of Incense (total separation unto God of one’s whole human and spiritual life) takes place.

The third stage of development in the human soul, as depicted by the Mercy Seat and the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle, brings man out of himself and into the nature of the Father. It is the third experience and the end of all flesh (carnality).

From this third experience, man comes to be like Jesus in His natural body. He walks and lives in flesh and blood, yet without sin. Then afterwards in a resurrected body – human, eating if he wants to, but Godlike enough to come through the wall or disappear at will. This is the experience Paul describes in 1st Corinthians 15:51-53.

Romans 8:29 bears that fact out that we shall be like Jesus, not only spiritually, but physically also. It must be, that one day soon, the Lord will truly answer our prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth (our being), as it is in heaven.”

“For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren,” Romans 8:29.

(Excerpt from The Pattern, pg. 27-28)

Thought for today: Let us press forward to the third stage of development which brings man out of himself and into the nature of the Father.

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Scripture reading: Revelation 20:4

In the millennium the gospel will be preached to the people, and with the LACK of a tempter and an accuser and a coercer and one that plays tricks upon humanity to get him to sin. That is, in the absence of this thing, man will have a much better chance to know God and to see heaven and to live in Christ. This will happen for “a thousand years.” This thousand-year period is THE SABBATH.

God took six days in which He did His work, and on the seventh day He rested. Everything that God made and began to make in each of those six days was completed (came to fruition) in the same day, in the thousand-year day. Remember, “one day is with the LORD as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). When the six thousand years are over, the completed man will come forth in God. This means in our time. THIS MEANS NOW! We are way up there at the end of the sixth day, and we are about to come to the dawn of the seventh day. Remember, the day begins in the evening. “And the evening and the morning were the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31b). The evening of the sixth day is actually the beginning of the seventh day. As the seventh day begins, it goes into darkness, and then it comes with light blazing forth. This darkness that we are about to go into, this final phase of darkness (for we are now in the darkness) is going to bring us to the brink where midnight passes over and the day begins to dawn.

The last phrase of Revelation 20:3 says that after this millennium, in the eighth day, the devil “must be loosed a little season.” We do not know how much time that “little season” will be. Really at this point of time, it does not really concern us; it is not really a part of our gospel to even understand what is going to happen on the eighth day, although it might well be here in Scripture.

Revelation 20:4, “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.”

The Word is talking about a group of people who will live and reign “with Christ (for) a thousand years.” This group is the Firstfruits company or the Man child company.

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 3, pages 98-99)

Thought for today: Strive to be part of the Firstfruits company that will reign and rule with Christ for a thousand years.

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Scripture reading: John 9:4

We as a people of God are called to allow the Holy Spirit work in the midst of our soul. He is making us conscious of sin; He is making us to walk right and holy. You must allow the Spirit of God move in your mind, emotions, will, and desires. Oh, yes! In your desires. Do you know what that means? Do you love chocolate? Let’s say you have a desire, a yearning for chocolate, but when you go to buy the chocolate, you remember that there was a little hungry person in India that needed that money. You know that you are only wasting it to eat more chocolate, and you say, “I had better give to that person.” Now this would mean that your desires are under the control of the Spirit. You must have God in your desires. When you go to the market place to buy, you must have God in your desires. There is a pair of shoes for so much money. You put on those shoes and walk around and you want to buy them, but there is another pair for half the price, it just does not have the brand name on it. So you decide to buy the other pair and send the rest of the money to somebody in Russia, or some other mission field.

There are places where brethren are moving on and taking up the gospel. Brethren, I am saying that we should be a part of it! This is what God is anointing a people for—to break the yokes, to help people! The field is wide open and it will not be for long. I am saying that when you think of these things, you see there are things that you do not really need, but that you buy just because you are part of the American or any other culture: You have to look like them; you have to behave like them; you have to spend like them. You spend money and you do not consider that God gave you that money for a reason! 

I have been preaching for many years that God has called His people to save the world. But I know that many times I have been talking to a lot of “unconscious” people. A lot of the brethren are not conscious of what we are! God has called us to save the world! I do not know if you know that.

You are there considering, “Oh, Brother duCille says that we are the greatest. We are the top! We are Number One!” If you are Number One, then act like Number One! Number One will lay down their lives for the brethren! If you want to be Number One, then God said, “Be the slave” (Matthew 20:27). Lay down your lives for the brethren! Then you will be the “Firstfruits Company,” quality goods.

There is something I have recently found out. I always thought, and probably some of you think the same thing, that the Firstfruits Company were those that were gathered first in the harvest. But God reminded me that the firstfruits are gathered right from the beginning to the end of the harvest. Firstfruits mean the “best” fruits. When the Jew was going through his harvest and gathering his firstfruits, he would see the lovely, luscious ones, and he would put them aside. All that went to God. The best ones went to the temple.

We were dealing with grapefruits and oranges in our lives. And we found out that some of the best grapefruits came at the end of the crop! They were the best part of the crop, but came at the end of the crop! Therefore, God is saying to you that if you want to be “firstfruits” with God, you need to be the diligent ones, the ones that will lay down their lives for God’s people!

What am I saying, brethren? I am saying that midnight is here, and Jesus said, “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: THE NIGHT COMETH WHEN NO MAN CAN WORK” (John 9:4).

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, December 1997, pg. 25-26)

Thought for today: Work the works of God. The time is coming when you are going to lose the privilege of doing for God what God wants you to do for Him now.

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