Omega Message – December 2002
Cecil duCille
(Four Messages, transcribed & edited, given by Cecil duCille in the July 2001 Living Word Omega Message Illinois Convention, given on July 5, 2001 Thursday AM Meeting.)
PART I:
Removing The Blockages So That The Living Waters Might Flow
There are a lot of things that God wants to say to us… but before we go into the word, there are certain thoughts, foundation thoughts that the Lord has been pouring in to me. In John, Chapter 6, Jesus Christ made a revelation to us, and this revelation is far reaching because we do not seem to understand what we are doing when we are doing certain things. In Verse 63, Jesus said,
“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”
Jesus said “The words that I speak unto you are spirit, but not just spirit, but they are life.” In other words, there are words that are “spirit” but are not “life.” Take your Bible, turn it in the converse and you will see a lot of things that you did not understand before. I notice that the teachers in the schools minister to the children, and the children become like the teachers. I have seen homosexual teachers minister homosexuality to children without saying a word about it to them; and the homosexuality manifests in the children and the poor children do not know where they got it from. Then they minister to the children that they were born that way. You understand what I am saying—they were not born that way, but it was ministered to them. Therefore, we see that in everything you do, you are issuing spirits out; and spirits are coming from you to another person.
I remember in my young days, I was addicted to violence and I would get mad so easily; and I would, you know, just want to do destruction. When I came to Jesus and He delivered me, I was so glad, because I thought that now all that madness was gone out of my soul. Little did I know that there were certain compartments in my soul that still retained some of the old man.
I was working on the farm at that time, and one day two men started to fight; and one thing that I could not stand was to see one person beating up on another one that was helpless. (When, you know, there is that that “bully” spirit.) Well, this man knocked the other man down. He picked him up and knocked him down again.
Then he picked him up and knocked him down again. So, I rushed in and I said, “Hey, you are going to kill him! Stop this!” Now, instead of the man obeying me, he came against me and he began to shove against me; and a spirit from the man came into me. In other words, I had a door open. I had a vacancy, and this man ministered the spirit of violence to me, which I had no desire or reason for. I was not vexed with anybody. I was not mad with anybody, but I began to manifest the same madness, the same shortness of breath. I began to manifest vexation without being vexed. Furthermore, what I did was worse, because I acted just like I would if I were out in the street again fighting. (Remember now, that I am a Christian now. I am preaching a word of God now.) But all of a sudden this thing comes upon me, and I used a tactic that came down from my street fighting days and that was from the other life. I got the man over my shoulder and ran with him and slammed him down on the wall. I said, “Why am I doing this? I am not mad. I am not vexed with anybody.” I realized that this spirit was ministered to me. I tell you all this because this is what God is doing for us. He is closing up these vacancies.
I said to God, “God, I see Your people. I see the “holy of holies” there, the spirit realm where God and man walk as one; and I see the other “outer court” realm there. How are You going to get us from the “outer court” into the “holy of holies”? How are You going to get me from being natural, carnal—from planning my own business, from planning the meetings, and You know what I mean. From doing my thing, from pastoring the church? How are You going to get me from there to there; and not me alone, but the church? For the whole church must be one with Christ before the end comes, and I see the end coming down on us like a fast moving train! Oh God, how are You going to get us out?”
I asked Him this and God spoke back to me. Of course, you know, when I say that God spoke back to me, I am talking about after many years. I have fifty years behind me. So do not go and believe that I said this and then God just answered me.
No, no! However, this thing did happen, and God did say to me eventually, “I am going to do it by tribulation.”
I said, “Oh God! What kind of a tribulation would there need to be, to bring that pastor from his ‘pastoring.’ To bring that pastor from his situation of loving God, but he is taking the place of Jesus Christ in the congregation? How are You going to bring him from there to here? How are You going to bring me from there to there? It must be terrible tribulation!”
Then also, I did not understand tribulation. If God tribulated all of us here at one time, none of us would be able to help the other. Can you understand that? We who are sitting here this morning, we need a certain amount of tribulation to bring us into perfection. If God tribulated all of us at one time, what would our condition be?
We would be in a terrible condition. So He is very nice to us, and He is tribulating us piece by piece, part by part.
Here is a hand that isn’t working right, and God starts beating on the hand; and the other hand comes and holds it up until that hand is made to learn to obey Christ. Then He takes the other hand—and Brethren, I see us going into tribulation one by one, little by little. Some of us think we are going to have a picnic. We decide to have a picnic and we pack our lunch, but God has another plan for you. Amen! He started to bring tribulation down upon us one by one, two by two, four by four…. So then, it is increasing, and I thank God for tribulation! Now, that is a terrible thing to say, but I thank God for tribulation.
We have a brother who has been taking dialysis treatments three times a week for the past ten years. Three times a week! He finally received a kidney, but the kidney turned around on him, and finally they had to take it out to save his life. He went another three years on dialysis three times a week, and then he gets another kidney and he is in the hospital. He lives in the hospital, going back and forth daily.
He is in the hospital now again. Brethren, I say, “Oh, my God! I do not know if I could take it if that were my situation.” Then also, his wife and his children, and even us (the body of Christ; the church), we are tribulating with him too. It is terrible!
Then we have little Anna, who for no fault of her own is hit with leukemia. The Scriptures say (in John 9:2) that the disciples asked Jesus whose fault was it that the man there was born blind; and now, through no fault of her own, this poor little child is now going through tribulation. Don’t you think that all this is doing something to us? God is tribulating the whole body, and He is using the little parts that can take it. Now, how she can take it, I do not know. You and I probably would never be able to survive. But, God is doing a work in our midst. Hallelujah!
The Lord has been speaking to me about the preparation of this temple. I want you to look back at this temple. First, the tabernacle of Moses, and how Moses prepared the tabernacle and he made everything; and then he came to the point where God called the ministry and began to appoint a ministry for the tabernacle. God said that if one of the ministers had a death in his family, he could not minister in the congregation until he was cleansed. I want you to hear me, Brethren, because I believe that God is speaking something definitely to us. If you had a death in the family, where if your wife died or if your child died, and you had to handle the dead, according to the Law that God gave Moses you could not just put down your dead and get up and go minister again in the congregation. This had a spiritual meaning—that if you have had a divorce or if you are going through a divorce—if you are going through warfare with your wife, or if your house has been out of order—do not minister! Do not minister. Put it aside. Amen! That does not mean that you cannot praise God. That does not mean that you cannot sing; but just do not minister. Do you know why? You will minister death to the congregation. God said that if you are unclean, you must go through a certain process until you are cleansed.
Miriam played the timbrel. When Egypt was destroyed (when the power of Egypt was drowned in the Red Sea), God anointed Miriam; and she and the women began to dance and to sing, “Praise God for the victory!” (Ref. Exodus 15:20). So then, Miriam was a mother in the church before God. However, Moses had married an Ethiopian woman. She was not an Israelite and (in Numbers 12) it says that Miriam began to talk against her brother, Moses. She began to talk against him and it says that God smote her with leprosy.
Now leprosy is a sickness. Somebody said that God could not put a sickness on you. All right, well this is a case where God smote Miriam with leprosy. Moses went to God and said, “Oh God, save her.” God answered Moses and said, “If it were someone else, at the least she would have to spend some time out of the camp before she is cleansed. So, put her out of the camp for seven days until she be cleansed.”
I want you to look at God and to see how He works and how He deals with things. He is not dealing with things from our viewpoint, our angle. He is dealing with things according to how God deals with things.
Now, I am saying then, that this tabernacle had a ministry and this tabernacle was made exactly as God would have it be made—stitch by stitch. The women had to do a certain amount of stitches to make that cloth because it is “holy.” Now, Brethren, do you understand what we mean by “holy”? “Holy” means “of God.” That is all it means. Just make it an easy description, “holy” is “GOD.” If God says so, then it is holy. If God did not say so, then it is not holy. So everything must either be holy or unholy! Right?
Now then, the tabernacle of Moses was the first temple that God created, and everything in it was set in order (Refs. Exodus 25:40, Hebrews 8:5). If you want to see what God wants you to be, look in the tabernacle of Moses. You will see that every spoon, and even the stoker that stoked the fire—everything—it had to be done of God. It had to be done exactly as God wanted it done. Then also, He placed a man to watch it. When Moses dedicated the tabernacle before God, God sent down fire from heaven and the fire of God lighted the tabernacle (Ref. Leviticus 9:23-24). You must not have any other fire in the church but God’s fire.
Do you understand that now? God’s fire was lighted, and it burned for 490 years. Then, here comes Solomon, and when Solomon built the temple and called upon God, God sent the fire again. Amen? Then something else happened. When Jesus came, He said to the brethren (in Acts 1:4-5), “Tarry in Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high,” because this (the church) is the third temple and the last temple that is being built, and for the third time the fire came down again:
“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost…” (Acts 2:1-3)
So then, the fire that we have had now for 2,000 years, it must be the fire of the Holy Ghost or nothing. It must be God’s fire. (Refs. Leviticus 6:13, 10:1-2). So then, in God’s house, anyone who gets up and talks without having that fire from God, is making a breach upon God and upon His business. It must be God!
Now, to my great distress, I know that there are other spirits ministering to us, and that many of us go and say that God is saying this and God is saying that. But it is a fearful thing to say that God says this and God says that, when God did not say it. It depends then, upon your sanctification and your dedication before God. Amen?
Now, I am speaking to you, not from study, not from plan and not from a script. I am speaking rather from the ministration of God to my soul, that has come to me over the years and over the months, and over the impression that God has upon me at this time that, “This is what I want you to talk about.” So I do not know what I am going to say, but I know that I am an instrument of God and I know that God flows through me. I know that God will give me what to say, so I come up like a person offering himself as a sacrifice, and I allow God to move in me.
Now, if I have a block in me that is blocking God, then this system fails, and when it fails, either man or the devil comes in and feeds something else in and ministers it to you—and the church goes off line. I do not know if you hear me? The church will go off line if the ministry is not spiritual.
Now, we have a lot of examples of this. There was the time when the Roman Catholic Church captured the whole church, and they became the church. There was nothing else there. There was no church. Therefore God was going to work now through the Roman Catholic Church to bring forth His glory, because they had taken over everything, and the pope had taken the place of Jesus Christ. Do you think I am speaking anything here that is bad? I am just speaking history here. For the pope began to call himself “Vicarius Fili Dei,” which means, “The Vicar of the Son of God” or “The Vicar of Christ” (Vice Christ)”; and more and more they added on things to themselves, and they captured the church completely.
So God looked around, and He saw a little boy (Martin Luther) and He began to put him through certain paces, bringing him up through the church, letting him learn Latin and their languages and all the ways of the church. It was then that God touched him, and when God touched him he was like a lion. They could not chain him! The fire touched him, and he came out blazing; and when he came out God used him to break this power of the Catholic Church and to bring forth the Scriptures (the Word of God), which were hidden in the Vatican. Martin Luther went down into the vault and he found the Bible, and he read it, and he took it out and gave it to us. He brought to us the truth of “justification by faith.”
God, however, only used him for this one thing, you see. God used him for one thing, and Martin Luther said, “I will never have another church.” Amen. He said, “It is only one church that God has, and I will never have another church,” and he felt he could stay in that church and change it. But they wanted to kill him, and the next thing that happened, Martin Luther’s church became a “Lutheran” church; and Luther began to fight them now. It came to where He was fighting the Lutherans, his own people. He, however, gave the people the Bible and that is what God wanted; and from the Bible, others (the Anabaptists) began to find out the truth concerning “baptism in water.” So there was somebody then who was really listening to God.
But can you imagine what Martin Luther did? He killed them! He drowned them in the river in Switzerland! Amen! You see, his work was finished. What God called him for was finished, but he did not know, and so he tried to do other things; and He killed Anabaptists. But that did not stop them. “Justification by faith” brought them to “baptism in water,” and they had to go on.
Then, here comes the reformers, and the Bible is let loose now. The Catholic Church started to kill everybody who had a Bible, but they could not stop them; and so it went on until it came to John Wesley. He said, “Oh, we should serve God with a method.” They called them the “Methodists.” They said that we should always start with a song, a hymn, and so on. I thank God that we got rid of that this morning, where you have just so many songs, until you start leaping and jumping, and then you get to the message. That is what you call “Methodism” (“Wesleyanism”).
Then, in Scotland, there rose up this man Irving, and he got an idea in his mind. “We should have the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers. We need to have all this.”
He went and created a church, and the joke about this church is that they had them sit on different levels. The teachers were to sit down here at the lowest level. Then up higher you had the pastor, and then on another level up you had the evangelist, and then you had the prophets; and the prophets would tell them what to do. Then the apostles would sit way up there on top. Oh my God! The very thing that God was trying to get them out of, that is what they created!
But the fire was not there! Amen. The fire that came at Pentecost and stood upon the heads of the people—it was not there. That fire was gone, and so they created a human fire. They made their own fire. But, in the Bible (Ref. Leviticus 10), what happened to the two men (Nadab and Abihu) who made their own fire and carried it into the temple? They did not just die. The fire killed them.
They put their fire on God’s altar. Actually, they went into the outer court, and they put the fire there. They mixed it up with God’s fire.
Nothing happened. Then they took the fire into the holy place and they lighted the lamp. Nothing happened, and they looked at each other, “Ha, Ha, Ha! I told you that nothing would happen.” So then, they took the fire to the golden altar. Now the “golden altar” is the place where men offer up their souls. You offer your body at the altar outside, but at the golden altar in the holy place you offer your soul to God. Incidentally, this is where the church is now. God is not asking us anymore just to offer your body, where you use your body, to go out there and visit the sick, to do good works, and so and so. Where you are running up and down, preaching to many people, getting many saved. No! He is now asking you, “Give Me that soul of yours. Give Me that mind. Give Me those ways of your father. Give Me those good things that you think you are, and let Me burn them up.” Amen!
So they took the fire, and as they went to the golden altar, and as they put it in the incense—“POOF!” It was just like lightning had struck them! They were dead! Amen. They were dead, and the Lord said that he who makes a fire in God’s church, he will be destroyed by the sparks (Refs. Isaiah 50:11, Leviticus 10:1-2, 8-10). Amen!
We need to come to the place where we can truly worship God “in spirit and in truth,” and stop all the human behavior in the presence of the Living God. Amen! We need to stop all the human behavior!
Oh yes! Where, “Everybody else spoke, but I didn’t get a chance to speak. I didn’t have my time.” (You know—that sort of way.) For God’s sake, can we be less carnal? Can we just remember that when you come into the presence of God that you are in the presence of “GOD”? Amen! Your soul should just want to praise Him; to just want to cry out to Him; to just want to love Him! Hallelujah! Just that one exercise in the few moments you are here would so enlighten your being; and it blesses the other people. Amen!
I met Jesus Christ the first day that He came in through the door. He came to the door and I was excited as He opened the door; and He came right behind me and He was standing right behind my left side here. He was standing behind me, and everything just drained out of me. All the questions that I had to ask Him went out of me. Everything went out of me, and the only thing I could ask Him was about the mistakes in the Bible. He said, “There are no mistakes in the Bible.” Then He began to show me the meaning of John 7, and Verse 38, where it says,
“He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”
I had asked Him about this, because I had read this and it baffled me that He was saying here that waters are going to flow out of our bellies. But notice what He said in the previous verse, Verse 37, “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.”
Come on now, look at it. When did Jesus do this, and why did He do this at that time? Let me tell you the time it was. It says, “In the last day, that great day of the feast (the ‘Feast of tabernacles’)…”
It was in the time of the “feast of tabernacles,” the last feast for the year (Ref. Deuteronomy 16:16), which is a symbol of our times, the “seventh millennium.” Are you there? The “seventh millennium.”
Jesus cried, “…If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink .” It means to say that once you drink Jesus, you do not want any more drink. So then, some of us who say we drink of Jesus, and yet we want other drinks—it means that we have not yet had Jesus. For this drink, when you take Him in and you absorb Him into your being—you become a fountain of living water! Amen!
Remember now, we read it already, that Jesus said,
“…the words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life.”
That means, that a spirit is coming from God to you, changing you, creating in you a new being. However, something is wrong. Something is wrong! How is it that we remain the same? How is it that we remain the same after we receive the Word of God? For the Spirit of God is flowing out from Christ into the church, and it is bringing LIFE? My God! Amen. Jesus went on and (in Verse 38) He cried,
“He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, OUT OF HIS BELLY SHALL FLOW RIVERS OF LIVING WATER.”
I said, “Yes, but Jesus, I do not see that in the Scriptures.” I said this because by this time I had read the whole Bible through, and I have a photographic memory; and I felt that if it was there I would have remembered. I said, “There is no place in the Bible that says that waters are going to flow forth out of your belly.” He said, “Turn to Ezekiel 47.” So I turned to Ezekiel 47, and there it was right before me. He said in Verse 1,
“Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house (the temple); AND, BEHOLD, WATERS ISSUED OUT FROM UNDER THE THRESHOLD OF THE HOUSE EASTWARD.”
The water is going “eastward.” It is going towards the sunrise. It is going towards the people who are to be made alive. Remember now, when the “ark of the covenant” came into Israel it brought life, it quickened the people. If they had it on the battlefield, it would quicken the men so that they became giants in the fight. Did you realize that? Why it is, when the ark came into the battlefield, that Israel would overcome the enemy? It was because there was an energy, a life, coming forth from the ark, and it was bringing forth life to the men to fight. The ark of God is the seventh church. It is you!
God is talking about His Spirit coming out through a people, breaking down all the opposition and the barriers—setting men at liberty, delivering this creation! Oh yes! This is what He is talking about; and Ezekiel said he saw the “waters,” and the waters were flowing out from under the threshold of the temple.
Remember that I preach a three-dimensional gospel. If you want to know what the third dimension means, you look at the first. If you want to know what the church, God’s perfect church, is like, then look at the tabernacle . Am I right? If you want to know what the final church is, then look at your body. Look at your own physical body.
I said to God, “Tell me about the ‘trinity.’ I cannot understand the trinity, that ‘God is one, yet God is three.’ ”
He said, “It is simple. Look at yourself. You are (1) spirit, you are (2) soul, and you are (3) body; and yet you are one person.”
It shut me up. That shut me up completely. I understood it right away.
You see, I do not come up to someone and say, “I do not want to talk to you, I just want to talk to your spirit,” or, “I am not talking to you, I just want to talk to your soul.”
Yet, isn’t that the way that we treat God sometimes? It is as if we think it is three Gods that we are dealing with.
So then, God taught me the trinity just like that, and so now I understood that it is in looking at the work of the heart within the natural human body that we can get the spiritual picture of what we are looking at here in Ezekiel. We are standing here, and every little heart is pumping, pumping, pumping. What is it doing? It is pumping purified blood through all the veins, down to the toes, and at the same time pushing out the impure blood. It is then coming back up to where the lungs are purifying it, and then it is going back down again, and so on. What are we looking at? We are looking at the “living waters” in the temple, flowing out. Let us read it here in Ezekiel 47. Verse 2,
“Then brought he me out of the way of the gate northward, and led me about the way without unto the utter gate by the way that looketh eastward; and, behold, there ran out waters on the right side.”
So then, this is a picture of the temple, and waters are running out on the right side. If we apply it to my body, then the flow is going down here on this side to my fingers, and it is going down to my toes. Right? Let us read on in Verse 3,
“And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he measured a thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters; the waters were to the ankles.”
Here comes an angel man, and he “measured a thousand.” This is a spiritual man, and that means then that he must be using a “spiritual” measure. Do not try to carnalize it. Amen. A spiritual man is using a spiritual measure. The measure here being “a thousand” means “the fulness of God” (Ref. Ephesians 3:19). He brings me to God’s perfect fulness, and waters flow out, and they flow “to the ankles.”
When Martin Luther came out, they did not have any more revelation than an “ankle -deep” revelation. Man could still do his walk and do his thing in that “ankle -deep” revelation. The water did not prevent them from doing their own thing. Some of the churches and some of the people now who remain at that stage, they are “ankle-deep” Christians.
Now, to be “ankle -deep,” it is not that they are not saved. I had to laugh when I heard Sharon speaking about some that they are saved, but they are not “born again.” In other words, I understood her. They are saved, but they are not walking like saved people at all. They are saved only through the promise of God and the mercy of the Living God (which all of us are saved by), but as far as concerns them, they are not doing anything right.
So then, they are ankle-deep Christians. They have the privilege. This means that they are not forced by the Holy Spirit to go deeper. They are free to continue in shallow water if they so desire. You look at the men on the Christian television. Look at what these men do, and how they collect as much money as they can. They do everything in the carnal and the physical. Their organization is just like a business that runs perfectly. Amen! It runs perfectly, and God does not trouble them. They are ankle-deep! Amen!
Moreover, I tell you what—they will resist you if you try to get them deeper; because if they get deeper, they will lose revenue. You know how long it is that we have tried to build this place, and we cannot build it. If we really went out there to preach an “ankle -deep” Christianity, by this time we would have to be adding on to this building just to put all the people. Amen! We, however, do not want that. We want to follow the vision of God. Hallelujah! So then, we will continue to go on just according to how God helps us. Amen!
Verse 4,
“Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through the
Now it is water to my “knees,” and I can still walk in the water. Amen? I do have a little more restriction, but I can still walk and I can still do my thing. God brings me to “baptism” and I can still do a lot. Let us continue reading from the rest of Verse 4,
“…Again he measured a thousand, and brought me through; the waters were to the loins.”
Now the water comes to the “loins.” That means, you know, that He has covered me to a point just where a man would put his belt or a woman would wear her skirt. He “covered” me. He covered my loins. Amen! So, I am now somewhat covered. However, in Verse 5 it goes on, and it says,
“Afterward he measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a river that could not be passed over.”
He took me off my feet! That is what it means. I was walking at first; and up to my knees I could walk. Up to my loins, I could shuffle along in the water, and I am still on the firm ground. But, “Whoooo!” and now it goes over my head, and now I had better swim or I will drown! You would not have drowned down there in that ankle-deep water. You would not have drowned in your knee-deep water. You would not have drowned in your thigh-deep water. But, Brethren, there is a place where if you do not swim you will drown; and I believe that some of us are drowning. We have come to a point, where if you do not swim you have no place there. God is covering us with water that is bringing us to a point of drowning, where we must know that living and walking “in the Spirit” is no longer an option. It is a must!
You know, there are four dimensions given in the Word of God. Paul (in Ephesians 3:17-18) said,
“…that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the (1) breadth, and (2) length, and (3) depth, and (4) height.”
Now, “height” and “depth” are supposed to be the same. If I am on top here looking down there, there is “depth”; but if I am lying on the floor and looking up, it is “height.” So the same “depth” would be “height.” That is how it is in the natural, but it is not so in the spiritual. In the spiritual, the deeper I go into Christ, the higher I rise into God. For Jesus said, “The Father is in Me.” So, I get deep down into Him, and Oh! I get into a NEW dimension, where I have gone out, and I am lost in Him. Do you understand what I am saying? I lose that dimension, and I get into another dimension where I start rising by going down. Amen! So, as I start rising in God, the deeper I get into Christ—and as I go down, God begins to be revealed, not only to me but also in me. We have the song, “Emanuel” where we sing the words, “God in us, revealed in us.” The “revelation of God” in you brings you to a point that if you come into the congregation, the Spirit of God begins to take hold of the congregation. Yes, and that is to show you that we, just by ourselves, are not anywhere with God; because the moment that we get together, the Spirit of God comes in a way that He never would come unless we had come together. Do you understand? Each of you is just a little limb, a little part of God. But anytime those little parts come together, immediately there is a glory revealed. Remember what Jesus Himself said? He said,
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there AM I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).
He is not just talking about He being here in you—He is already in you! He is talking about a new present dimension, wherein He (the person of Jesus) will come in like a brother or a sister among us (in our midst), and He is going to do something in you that could not be done unless we gathered together with Him. Amen?
Now let us get back to it. He said,
“Wherever two… are gathered in my name….”
You know, back when we were doing all these marriages, one thing that happened is that I kept the marriage vows of all of you who married, and sometimes I will look at them, or sometimes you can listen to the tape, and you hear the one say to the other one, “I will love you forever.” Then the other one says, “I will love and honor and obey you,” and so and so. Well, as to all of those statements, God calls upon you now to with reality manifest the things that you spoke; and there is a lot of failure in our midst. Amen.
Now, as to marriage, God said, “Wherever two… are gathered…” and that means that God has a divine plan to join a man and a woman together, and to break the power of Satan once they are together. Amen! Now, when you come in, and your wife did something that did not please you, so that now you are upset—get rid of it! For Christ’s sake, get rid of it! In order not to upset her and disturb the unity between you both, you bear the cross and suffer! Amen!
Some of us, however, do not understand God at all. She prepared a dinner that you did not like, and you come in and you start to huff. You do not know God! Believe me, you do not like it, but you should swallow it, and say, “It’s nice, thank you very much.” You do not like it, but you swallow it and tell her thanks, and make her feel good.
For we read in Ephesians, the fourth chapter,
“I…beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.”
The “unity of the spirit” is more important than anything else, and much more important than enjoying your dinner. Amen! I tell you, I think we should talk to some of you married people in private, because there are a lot of things that I would like to tell you, and some of us are destroying God’s business by our carnal desires.
God’s divine plan is to bring two together. He said, “Where two are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst.” That means to say that in your home, once the both of you retain the balance in Christ, He is going to be doing things for you both. Where two of you are gathered together in His name, He is going to be doing things to you both. Amen.
Now then, He also said, “…three.” He said,
“Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.”
It is no longer man and wife He is talking about now. He is talking about “three,” and so He is bringing you into a congregation now; and God is saying to us that we have been wasting and destroying the power of God and the power of the body of Christ by our carnality. Amen! This one wants to rule over that one, and, “I do not like it done that way, and if it is done that way, I am upset. I want it done this way.” Then you say, “Oh, why should you have your way? I don’t like it that way.” Amen! Simple things! These are just simple things! Demons are working in our midst! We must come to the point where we abolish the demons! For the major thing in life is to come into “oneness” in God and to serve God “IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH.” That is the major thing in life. If you miss that, you miss life. Amen, Jesus! Amen!
For Christ’s sake, let the children also be coming into obedience.
Not this intense feeling of, “I am a big person now. I do not have to be treated like a child.” You should thank God that you have somebody to treat you like a child! Amen! For by this means, we will gain. I cannot impress it hard enough, that we should be “ONE.” This is what God wants and nothing else is going to suit Him.
Do you know something? He will reject you! If you cannot find “oneness” with your brethren, God will reject you and find those who can find oneness. Amen! Don’t you understand, Brethren?
I pray to God that we understand these little points. You know, I was going on with the message, but it stops me right here, because we have been allowing the devil to come in, and this is one major problem that we have had. I have seen that the devil has come into a congregation and has wrecked that beautiful thing that God was doing there. Oh, it is so painful to see them.
You talk to the brother, and you say, “Brother, for Christ’s sake, go get with the other brother and forgive him.”
He says, “Yes, I forgive him, but I cannot sit down in the same congregation with him because he is a hypocrite.”
Who is talking? The devil! The devil is talking! Amen! “He is a hypocrite! I cannot sit in the same congregation with him”; and in spite of all the begging and all the pleading, you see their lives going down the hill. Down the hill! I mean, I am speaking out plain.
Those who know what I am talking about, know it. I am not hiding what I am saying. They are saying that they are okay, “Oh, we are doing fine! We are doing all right. We do not have to come to service.” LIE! The devil has lied to them! They have taken poison! Amen! Amen!
I remember the situation that I had. Jesus Christ died for the brother, but I could never forget it that this man cheated me. He robbed me. He was a bishop of a church, and He rented me a place that was not his. He took me and showed me the place and how beautiful it was. I paid him first, last, and security. Then I refurbished the whole place to have meetings and to do my business. But God called me early one morning and showed me a man putting up his sign on the building.
I said, “Oh God, what is this?”
I could hardly wait to daylight, and I rushed down there just before the day dawned; and there was this man putting up his sign on the building.
I said to him, “What are you doing?”
He said, “I rented this place and I am putting up this sign.”
I said, “But I rented this place! I fixed it up! I am about ready to move in!”
“How could you have rented it? From who?”
He said, “Here is my contract,” and on it there was a different name entirely. A different name! The brother was a crook!
He crooked me! The place did not belong to him. He was renting the place in the back, and he showed me through the whole place and rented it to me.
Immediately, I was so upset. I was so upset that I called the police; and when the police got to him, he took sick and he went off to the hospital. Then God began to minister to me, “The man is a crook, but Jesus died for him.” (I am thinking back to what our sister said about, “He is saved…but not born again.”) Well, there was nothing that I could do but to just ask God’s forgiveness and to forget it. Amen! Hallelujah! We have to realize that we as brethren are not yet perfected, and you might have one type of imperfection in you, and God is looking down on your imperfection. Yet the other brother has another type of imperfection, that to you is really outstanding and upsetting to you, but before God the both of you are seen as imperfect. Hallelujah! Praise God! Amen!
I am going to come back to the message. It is saying here (in John 7:38) that you will have living water flowing out of your “innermost being” (that is what “belly” means). It is speaking of living water flowing out of the temple. I said it in the beginning, that in this time God is fixing the temple so that the living waters might flow. God is now taking care of all the barriers, and all the muck and everything that is blocking the flow of this water out of the individual people. So then, Brethren, all your problems—it is because God is now dealing with His body, so that the waters might flow out. So then, we are encouraging you to go to God and say, “God, do it! Do it to me! Show me what my problem is. Why is it that the waters are not flowing as they should?”
I remember that we were in a place in Florence, Alabama, and we were having some meetings in an Assembly of God church. Now, they have a young man there who is a pianist; and boy, he plays the piano so marvelously. I preached to them about God anointing a person to do His will, and this young man came up to me then and said that he wanted God to anoint him so that he could play the piano. I said, “All right. Let us go into fasting and praying for that anointing upon you tomorrow night.” So, he stopped eating, and I fasted with him and prayed over him.
Now, he was so anxious for the anointing of God that when we arrived at the meeting he got there about a half an hour before everybody else, and he just started to play. He just started to play and the whole building began to vibrate with the energy of God. We did not have the regular song service. People walked from the door straight down to the altar, and they would weep—and that young man said not a word. All his talking was with the piano, and the people were on their knees weeping for their sins! Hallelujah! (You speak about the anointing of God!)
So, then, what is wrong with us? We are not walking in the truth in the way that God would have us do. We are not taking the Word of God as He said to. He said, “My words are spirit and they are life, given to you.” We are not doing it, for if we did we would be doing mighty works for God—without saying a word! Somebody believes you have to be preaching. No, Sir! You do not have to say a word.
God is going to speak through you. God is going to tell you when to speak, but you will be radiating the glory of Almighty God!
Hallelujah! Amen. Thank you, Jesus.
Sonlight Devotional 