Omega Message – December 2011
Cecil duCille
(Message given May 22, 1983, on the Foundational Teachings CD # 002 – message # 015.)
Praise God for this privilege of coming into the house of God again. You know when you think about people in like Russia who have to hide to worship, you realize how fortunate we are to have this privilege. Up to this moment we are free to worship God in the way that we would like to. Of course we understand that somebody is trying to do something about it, but they will never be able to take away this freedom from us ever again because we are now worshipping God in Spirit and in Truth. Once you start worshipping God in your heart then there is no one that can stop you from worshipping God in your heart, you see. This is a privilege that we need to hold on to.
Let’s turn our Bibles to John Chapter 21. This Chapter is written after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We see Jesus appearing unto the brethren. Let’s read from verse 15:
Jn 21:15 “So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.”
16 “He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord: thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.”
17 “He saith the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved (If I came and did that to you, you would want to know what is going on.) because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.
This morning we want to talk about the feeding of the sheep and the lambs. But to get into the background of what was said, the English here does not carry out what Jesus really said and what Peter really said. There are two words here that are used for love: the word <phileo> and the word <agapao>.
Jesus Christ asked Peter, “Do you <agape> me?” and Peter said, “Yes Lord, I <phileo> You.”
In other words He was asking, “Do you love me with the love of God?” and Peter was saying, “I love you just as much as I can love You, as much as I love my own brother. I love you like my own mother or like my own family.”
Peter was going to his limit and Jesus was trying to force him beyond the man’s limit and said, “Do you <agape> me?” Finally the third time Jesus said, “All right, you <phileo> me.” and Peter said, “You know that I <phileo> You.” and Jesus said, “All right, you feed my sheep.” You cannot feed God’s people without God’s love.
You cannot feed God’s people without God’s love.
Love for your family is not enough to give you the incentive to feed God’s people, because feeding God’s people takes suffering. Every mother knows what it takes to bring up a child and when the child rebels against you, you don’t throw him out because he is rebellious. Instead you do everything to throw the rebellion out of him. But then in the process of trying to get the rebellion out of him, you have to get the rebellion out of you, because generally the rebellion that is in the child came from the parents. So the child becomes the teacher of the adult, because you are here trying to get rebellion out of a child when you have rebellion in you. You will find that unless you can put down your own rebellion and begin to deal with the situation in the child, that you will be feeding the child with more rebellion rather than deliverance from rebellion, you see, because rebellion is a spirit. It is a spirit. So we have hindering spirits that hinder our feeding one another.
Now the peculiar part about this whole chapter is that God told Peter to feed the flock of God and God tells the ministry to feed the flock of God. But today God is calling to the flock of God to feed the flock of God. It has come to the place where the body is the feeder. Amen.
But today God is calling to the flock of God to feed the flock of God. It has come to the place where the body is the feeder.
Do you see what I am saying? You take the hand and you take up the food and you put it to the mouth, but the moment that the food gets to the mouth and it begins to go down into the elementary canal and the body begins to work on it, it begins to send out food to the different parts of the body. So it is the body that feeds the body, although the food originally went to the mouth from the hand. But if the body doesn’t strengthen the hand the hand will never be able to lift the food to the mouth. There are people who somebody has to feed them, because their hands can’t put the food to their own mouths.
God has a special message this morning for our souls, that there is a responsibility. It is not the situation that you may do it if you want to, or you may not do it if you don’t want to. But this is a command of God that He said, “If you love Me, if you have that <agape> love for God, if you even have that <phileo> love that you love your own family, then you are going to be diligent about feeding the flock of God.
That is, you know many of us live beside a neighbor and we don’t even know the neighbor. I am guilty of that a lot of times. You pass and you say, “Howdy do” and nothing else. That neighbor could die and go to hell and you never stretched a finger, because you were minding your own business. We are going to have to get out of that and begin to suffer. You knock at the neighbor’s door and he slams the door in your face, you begin to suffer to get to him. Do you back off? No, you find another way of getting to him, because this is your job, this is your duty. This is the command of God. It is no longer you may do it or you may not do it.
He said:
Jn 21:17 “…Simon (Peter), son of Jonas, lovest thou me?…”
Ask your own heart, “Do I <agape> my brother, my sister? Do I <agape> the world? That is a rough situation, to <agape> the world, because they don’t want it. They are kicking it back to you. But I remember in the days when we were out there in sin. If you found a young lady that you wanted to talk to, you found a way to talk to her. Amen. Hallelujah. You found some way to talk to her. I know one man was working for the Devil and he wanted to get to a certain girl and he pitched off a step right before her and dropped down the bottom row and tore his jacket – to get the attention. He got it. Oh yes. I smile when I think of some of the tricks that you played in the past. You play all kinds of tricks and you got there. You did what you wanted to do.
Now God is saying, “Now in Christ Jesus are you less diligent about doing the things that God wants you to do?”
When I got saved first, being kind of crazy, I rushed down the street and this time it was no playing, no going around. I would just go right up there and say, “You are going to hell.” Hallelujah. You know what I mean. Before the person could catch their composure you talk, you begin to talk fast because you want that soul. Oh yes. I would look at a soul out there and see them going on and say, “Jesus Christ I want that one for you.” I would go inside and pray to God and God would bring the person flying. Oh yes.
I was standing at my window one day just looking out at the rain, you know. Just meditating and praising God, looking out at the rain. I saw a girl coming down the street in the rain with rain gutting through her head and she was just carrying on. I knew her, she was the crazy of the town. She was you know, gone metric upstairs. She just came down the street.
I said, “Oh my God, deliver her Lord Jesus.” I said, “Please deliver her now.” I said, “If You will deliver her, let her come through my door, let her just come.”
She had gone down the street. She went beyond my vision and I’m standing there waiting, saying, “God if you want her delivered You are going to bring her in here.”
Now she must have jumped the fence, because she didn’t come back up the street and my fence went that way. The next thing that happened, she just burst right through the door and dripping stood right up staring at me, mad you know. I was glad because I knew God had sent her, you see. But you have to have a care. Do you see what I mean? You have to have a care for those people.
You have to have something in here saying, “Lord Jesus, if You can just use me to save that one, let me have him.”
You go in the shopping center and you see the crazies all around. Because when a woman wears a bikini out in the shopping center she is someway whacky. I mean that is the way that I look at it. She might think she is sexy, but I think she is whacky, you see.
The moment I see one like that I say, “Oh God can You help that poor woman?”
You know, you have a care for them. This is your department, this is your world. Amen. But we do not have that care one for another. If God give you a revelation brother, you can’t keep it to yourself, you are going to have to tell the brethren and if you are wrong, they are going to correct you. That is what God is doing amongst us.
So He said, “Peter, You love me, so you are going to lay down your life to get the sheep and the lambs fed.”
Because there is feeding in three dimensions. Christ Jesus is operating in the church in three dimensions. I am saying brethren that we no longer passively operate, we must actively operate. You have got the three dimensions of operations, one box, one Christ, but three different dimensions. In the natural you have Christ within and Christ within you tells you that Christ is in the other brother. So if the Christ within me is moving a certain way, the Christ in the other brother is moving a certain way too. So I am not going to have any problem in convincing the other brother that it is Christ, for he is getting the same thing.
Sometimes something comes to you and you have a little doubt, “I wonder if this is God?”
But low and behold another brother comes up and says the same thing.
So, “Ahh, that thing came to me.”
Do you see what I mean? So it is Christ within. Always recognize that Christ is within us. Now there is Christ without. We must always recognize the presence of Christ everywhere. Christ Jesus is everywhere, operating everywhere, all the time, where ever we are, whatever we are doing, whatever we are saying. Therefore when we become Christ conscious we will continuously feed, even when the thing is negative you will feed in the positive sense.
I don’t know if you understand what I am saying? You go in the street and you deal with people and you deal with negative forces. These things come against you and yet every time they jab at you it brings a positive response, Christ Jesus is with you continuously. He said:
Mt 28:20 “…Lo, I am with you always, even unto the (time of the end of the age) end of the world. Amen.”
Then you have Christ in the body. (It is for want of a better phrase.) But when we come together there is a quickening which is there which was not there before. Hallelujah. It says:
Mt 18:20 “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
He says, “Where two or three are gathered together…” I am there in the midst to bless. He was there to bless you before. Come on, help me.
Christ was with you when you were at home alone. Christ was with you alone because that was the promise. He was there for the reason to bless you and to do you good. But then He says, “Where two or three are gathered together…” I am there in the midst to bless and to do them good. Doesn’t that mean that there is a different and separate blessing and doing good? Isn’t He saying brother that He is going to move in you in an operation that is going to bless the rest? That is He is going to bring a message that He didn’t bring when you were alone. Now what good would a message do for you to get up and to preach a message to yourself? The function of the gifts of the Spirit is to function when you get together. Did you know that?
The function of the gifts of the Spirit is to function when you get together.
But you didn’t recognize it, because when you got together and something came to your mind you said, “It was my mind.”
So you didn’t get up and you didn’t give it and the work that should be done is undone and you leave unfruitful. You went home unfruitful and those who you should have blessed went home unfruitful.
In other words, God is saying, “It is a command of God.”
It is “Peter, you have no right to keep back the food from the brethren, from the lambs. They needed that food.”
Three dimensions of Christ operating
- Christ within
- Christ without
- Christ in the body
Some of you sisters and this is a direct Word from the Lord that God spoke to me this morning, that some of you have the gift of teaching and there are some things that the little kids should be getting that you are not giving them because you are tight, you are not giving it out. But God said that the people who have the gift of teaching should give to the kids the things. You know I saw some of you preparing, drawing some of the things like a lion and things like that to teach lessons to the children Sunday morning. That is what I saw this morning in my vision and God said:
“Feed the lambs.”
It is not just the lamb lambs, the little ones, but there are some lamb adults. In other words they need the milk before they will get strong enough teeth and bones to take the meat. We have been casting meat at them and it has been turning them off, because they needed the milk first before we get them the meat. This is the care that you are supposed to take care one of another.
If you know you are going to tell somebody something that is going to turn them off, don’t tell them. Don’t tell him, tell him something that is going to bless him, because you care for him. Do you see what we are saying?
This is what Jesus was saying. He made a differentiation between Peter, the great apostle.
He could preach all meat, God said, “Feed the lambs.”
So though you are a meat eater yourself and you are getting all these great revelations to preach meat, consider the lambs.
When I got all excited with Jesus Christ about all this great revelation and end-time revelation I just went out and blasted the thing out and blew most people off their seats and you know, just killed them. I just killed them. But God is saying that the local congregation must take the meat, must break it down. You know you have the little babies, you can give them meat from when they are born now because they have it in little jars. They break it down. They break down the meat into a paste and you use it to feed the kids and the kids need mother’s milk.
So God is speaking to Peter, the great apostle and He is saying, “Feed My sheep. Feed My lambs.” Amen.
Don’t forget that because of the love of God in you that you are going to look after the lambs as well as the big sheep, you see. Praise be to God.
Now I want you to turn to another scripture here where God speaks to the church itself. Acts Chapter 20. Somebody read that for me please, Acts Chapter 20, beginning with verse 28:
Act 20:28 “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.”
29 “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.”
Yes. Praise God. Can you imagine Paul about to leave, about to depart and he said that, grievous wolves would come into the flock, tearing the flock. But somehow a flock that is well fed will not be caught by a wolf.
A flock that is well fed will not be caught by a wolf.
If you notice the balance of nature is so ordained that when a lion comes to a flock to catch the flock, he generally will go after the weakest ones. He will catch a weak one or he will catch an older one that is staggering at the back of the flock. So the prime of the flock is always saved because they have the strength to run and to get away. This same principle works in the spiritual realm. That anybody comes in here with a false teaching, he tries to get onto the women. I’m not saying that the women are weaker, but sometimes the women get excited over things like that and spirits catch them.
I saw a man come into a congregation of ours. He preached from Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Then Friday he dropped out a little bit of his reconciliation doctrine. But all the while, during the daytime he was visiting with the women. He was visiting and getting them to believe in the love of God and the goodness of God.
“God is so good that He wouldn’t be able to put you into hell.”
Things like that. He poisoned them. He poisoned them to such a degree that eventually he broke the congregation right in two. But if those people were founded and well-grounded and founded, they could not be taken. Do you understand? They could not be taken, because first of all you are going to have to know God. When you get to know God you get to know what God would do from what God wouldn’t do. Do you see what I mean? It is the same God of love that poured fire down on Sodom and Gomorrah you see, and God is not slack concerning His promises, or slack concerning order, or slack to allow sin to destroy a congregation – when He could cut it short and deliver.
So praise be to God. He said, “Feed the flock of God” “…which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers…” (Act 20:28) So there are some in our midst who have the oversight of the flock. Where are they? Where are they? They are right in our midst sitting down right before me, but they are afraid to come forward to do what God has put in their hearts to do. You see, because of Babylon, because out there:
“I am the Pastor”;
“I am the Bishop”;
“I am the Elder”;
“I am the This”
and “I am the That”.
Because of that we are afraid to do what God has put in our hearts to do. But God is going to make you guilty. He is going to hold you responsible for what you didn’t do. For what God is doing, He is not putting you into an office to exalt you, but He (GOD) is putting something in your heart for you to do and whether you do it or do it not you are responsible for it.
He (GOD) is putting something in your heart for you to do and whether you do it or do it not you are responsible for it.
It is a command, “FEED THE FLOCK OF GOD!”
You say, “I don’t know my calling?”
“I don’t know what God has called me for?”
Do you think God is going to come and tell you, “Oh boy, you are the king around here”?
“You are so and so”?
“You are so and so”?
“I am a Teacher” and “I am this”.
NO SIR. What God is doing, He is putting teaching into your heart. What God is doing, He is putting the desire to weep over the flock into your heart. When some people are distressed at what is going on here, it is God that put it into your heart. If you go to God with your distress, God will use you to help the situation. When you start obeying God and start helping the situation, you know for sure that God is establishing you in that ministry of helping that situation, until one day you find out who you are. God isn’t going to tell you unless you have already discovered who you are.
With some people God tells them and I don’t know why? You know, when God told me I didn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe it. I am so wretched, I just couldn’t believe it.
I didn’t believe it, but I just said, “All right God.”
I just kind of felt like God was just trying to butter me up to get me going.
So I said, “Okay God, I’ll move, I’ll do what You want me to do.”
But I wouldn’t believe it. In other words, it wasn’t going to puff me up, for I don’t think much of me and I can tell you that point blank. I just don’t think much of me, I just don’t. I could never believe that I am special like that, or anything like that about me, because I know me. I know that it is just the mercy of God why I survive, because of the situation of my own humanness. I hate being human. Do you know that? Have you ever hated being human? Oh you better believe it. I mean you are human and some human thoughts come through you and so and so and you are ashamed of them. Amen. You are still human.
You want to be like Jesus Christ and you wonder, “Why can’t I be like Jesus Christ tomorrow morning? Or even this evening for sure?”
But you know, you are still human. So therefore you don’t like being human and because you don’t like being human you kind of understand other human beings. Oh yes.
Whenever a man comes against you and hits you and hurts you and tries to hurt you and so on, you need to understand him, that he is only being human and that he is only submitting to the same devil that you could have submitted to had God not had the mercy on you. So that if there is a man that is against you, you can understand him.
1Co 9:22 “…I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some.”
Now God said, “FEED THE FLOCK.”
To feed the flock brother you are going to have to lose a lot of you. Because let me tell you, the flock is not just going to sit down and open their mouth for you to feed them. They will resist you. Oh yes. They will resist you. They will fight you. They will bite you. Yes. You are going to have to learn how to forget you because you have an ax to grind and that ax is to do the will of God, to feed the flock.
He said, the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers. Did you hear that? The Holy Ghost hath made you overseers.
I am going to ask you the question, “Who are the overseers of this congregation?”
Then I am going to leave it with you to see, “My God, is it that God has been making me one of the people with eyes to see over the flock – and I have been fooling around?”
Amen. You know as I was saying to Brother Jack yesterday, “It is not the apostle, or the great prophet that comes in here and lay hands on you and says, ‘You are an elder;’ ‘You are a so and so;’ ‘You are so and so;’ ‘Thus saith the Lord God.’”
The only thing that this prophet could do, if Brother Campbell should come here tomorrow morning and come and lay hands on one of you and say, “You are an elder”, or whatever it is. He would only be confirming that which God had already told you, not only you but the congregation. Because if a man is an elder in this congregation, the congregation well knows that there is a quality in that man that is coming to take care of God’s business in their midst. We don’t have dead parts, because everybody has a job to do in the congregation. If somebody feeds you, you had better believe it, that you have to feed somebody. Don’t let anyone deceive you, once you are fed you are responsible to feed someone else. Amen.
So God has an eldership here of those He has ordained to oversight the flock. I will ask you to pray to God and to see from God what you are to do – and to do it. Oh yes, do it and when you are wrong – the congregation is going to tell you that you are wrong. They are going to feel it that you are wrong. When you are wrong you must quickly correct.
You see, when Mavis sits in the congregation and I give a Word, every time that I make a slip, (because sometimes you slip in your human thinking, you slip and you say the wrong thing), she feels it, because once you are in the Spirit following the spiritual flow and somebody makes a break, you feel it right here. When you are matured these things do happen, you know exactly what the minister is saying.
This is why I couldn’t go to the churches on Sunday morning. I made that mistake so often. It is so painful to go into a church and to see them playing around, because it is all psychology, it is all humanness. A message comes forth and it is properly homiletically psychological message put together on Saturday night. Do you see what I mean? It blessed those who, you know, don’t have the discernment of the Spirit. The person with the discernment of the Spirit is turned off and hurt because it was human you were listening to and not God. They were talking the words of God of course, but let me tell you something, that is not feeding the flock. Do you know why?
The person with the discernment of the Spirit is turned off and hurt because it was human you were listening to and not God…. That is not feeding the flock.
You can take the word of God and you say you are going to feed the flock with the word of God. You put the word of God in such a way that it is saying something else than what Jesus Christ wanted to say to that congregation at that specific time. Maybe that word could have been preached at another time when God wanted to say something else to that same congregation. So therefore it is only the mind of Christ that we can feed from. Do you understand me? The right food can only come from the mind of Christ.
So therefore it is only the mind of Christ that we can feed from.
The right food can only come from the mind of Christ.
It is like you have a taste for a certain food, you feel like you could eat fish today and you get fish and you feel satisfied. But tomorrow you didn’t want fish, you want some steak or something like that. The next day you feel for chicken. It is so that God ordained your body that your body calls for the thing that it needs. When you feel thirsty, what do you think is happening? Your body is crying out, your blood wants some liquids, some water. Do you see what I am saying? This sort of thing functions in the body of Christ. So it is only the Holy Ghost that can really tell the body what message it needs right now, or tomorrow, or so and so. This is why I do not believe in fixing that message from last night.
One brother said to me, “Well if God can tell you when you come into the congregation what message to preach, can’t He tell you from last night?”
Sure He can and some people do get it that way. But I tell you what happens to me, He gives me the message last night and I add on so much to it, you see. I add on so much to it that the specific bent that the Spirit wants – I miss it because I have too many scriptures in my mind pertaining to that message. In other words, you study your Bible for thirty years and you know every scripture in your Bible and God says one word to you and twenty scriptures flash right away to you. You might attempt to use those twenty scriptures whereas it is only one that He wanted, for if you use the twenty it will twist the message. In other words every message has a specific point of pressure, do you understand? You might add on and make it so broad and so wide that nobody gets the right thing. Or you might twist the point of the message to another place.
I want the fresh bread flowing from heaven
As far as I am concerned, I want the fresh bread flowing from heaven, the Holy Ghost giving me the direct thing, because this is the covenant that I have with the Lord. I have an agreement with God that I wouldn’t study a message to tell His people. Do you see what I mean? So I cannot 100% criticize the other brothers who have to do the other thing, but what I know is that my specific ministry cannot do that, because the Word that I give you must be a prophetic Word. That is it must come directly from God through me to you at a specific time.
So FEED THE FLOCK. There is a possibility of you feeding the flock and you not being fed. You can be a feeder and not an eater. You just take food and give it, take food and give it.
Yes, I never forgot the night when God told me, “Appropriate it before you export it.”
“Appropriate it before you export it.”
I thought He was giving me a message to give you. He was giving me a message for me. Amen. I am burning with fever and Jesus came to me and spoke to me. You know it is always exciting when the Lord comes and speaks to you. I jumped for my pencil. I was going to write down what He was saying so that I don’t forget it for the next morning to preach it at service.
He said, “No. No. Put that pencil aside. You appropriate it.”
I began to repeat what He said and repeat what He said, until it began to sink into my heart. The fever, the cold, my throat, everything went immediately. I got up completely well the next morning. It was a lesson that He was giving me, but I was going to export it before I used it. I was thinking it was for you and not for me.
So God is saying that those who are given the oversight of the flock “which he (God) hath purchased with his own blood,” that you must feed them (Acts 20:28)
Now let’s take a few more scriptures here. Let’s go to the one in 1st Peter Chapter 5 and read from the 1st verse.
1Pe 5:1 “The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:”
2 “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;”
3 “Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.”
SO YOU FEED THE FLOCK BY EXAMPLE.
There is no way that a brother should come in the congregation and beginning to preach and tell the brethren how to behave at home with their wives, when he is not behaving at home with his wife. Amen. This is the kind of thing that goes on all the while.
Here is a man, a Counselor, a Divorce Counselor and in the midst of his counseling he got divorced. Do you see what I mean? He was counseling yet he had not counseled himself.
We are going to realize that preaching the Word of God is not jumping up and giving a message like I am doing now. But preaching the Word of God is the example. I tell you that the example goes further than words or actions.
I know that we have been married for over thirty years and we have never had a quarrel. We have never had a quarrel.
We have had disagreements wherein I said, “This is black.”
She said, “This is white.”
Immediately I want to find out why she should say that it is white when it is black and she is proving to me that it is white.
We said, “Okay, let us see whether it is white or black. We will find out soon.”
Then we agree to go either white or black, needless to say, most of the times I am on the losing side. Oh yes. So I learned to lose. You see, the image that a man goes into his home with generally is that he is always right. Sometimes you are ashamed that you are wrong, but you shouldn’t be ashamed. Here you ask God for a helpmeet and here you have another brain just as active as yours, another spirit just as active as yours, another soul connected with God and this is where your strength lies. But if you dare to overpower this child of God, this son of God in your house so that you are always on top, you have destroyed your sanctuary. That is just what God said about Satan, He said: “You have destroyed your sanctuaries.”
Ez 28:18 “Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries…”
In other words God gave you a woman, God gave the woman a man in order that between both of them no devil in hell, no nothing can proceed and conquer. Because you see, the two of you are a whole man. One of you is only a piece of a man.
Let me tell you, I thought I had great discernment. Oh man, I could see through a nine inch wall, but I found out that I was absolutely blind in some places.
When I asked God, “But I can’t understand, how can I see in this realm so much?”
Like in the realm of the word, I will see in the realm of the Word, I will see beyond most any man that I know. To see the word, the moment God shows me I can see way out there. I can see other things, I have discernment of spirits. I am sleeping here and a spirit comes through that door, I see him. I know exactly what he is, what he is in here for, everything like that. Yet I discovered that I was absolutely blind in some sections and I asked God about it.
God said that is the way that God made you. He said, “Can you see in the back of your head?”
You haven’t got a good idea of what your head back looks like, yet your wife has to put up with it every day. She sees the back of your head all the while and she knows it intimately.
The moment that you discover that you are weak in certain areas you will give way.
You will go to the wife and say, “What do you think about this?”
“How do you feel?”
There is another thing too that men lose out with, with spiritual feelings. Did you know that the five senses that you have: smelling; hearing; seeing; feeling; tasting; they are five spiritual senses. God would never have made you with anything natural that isn’t spiritual. The natural senses are only teaching you that there are five spiritual senses and you might be very good at seeing yet be kind of deaf in the ears. Anything you see or feel, you check it out with your wife. These women (now women this is not for you, I am talking to the men.) these women brothers, they have got a feeling sense that sometimes is very senseless.
You ask her and she says, “I don’t feel right about that.”
You say, “Why don’t you feel right about it? Isn’t it the Word of God? Doesn’t it look right? And so and so – every thing is right.”
“But I just don’t feel right about it.”
She can’t explain why she doesn’t feel right, it has no sense, it has no reason. Don’t step over it brothers. Don’t step over that little funny feeling.
There is a thing called, (the brothers used to say), “I have a check.”
If you are going to move this chair and you don’t feel 100% right about it, don’t touch it. It is a something that the Holy Ghost is putting into you so that you might not move out of spirit. If you don’t pay attention to it, you always get burned.
We are talking about FEEDING THE FLOCK OF GOD by being examples unto the flock. You feed them by example. Let me tell you something, people are hardly hearing what you say, they hear what you do. Oh yes. They are hardly hearing what you say. You believe me that what you hear me speak here, only 20% of it is going to stay with you, unless the Holy Ghost brings something back to you. But you are addicted to doing what you see me do.
Now the point that I was bringing was that Mavis and I will walk into a place and we will say nothing at all. We go in, we say good night, we go to bed and the people will be blessed and delivered. Oh yes. We went into a house and it was late night. We went to bed, we slept, we got up, we came out the next morning. By the next morning the telephone rang and the brother was told what a horrible set of people we are.
He said, “No it is not true, because these people came into my house and I had problems in my house.” He said, “The problems left and since that day we have been delivered.”
Oh yes. Why? Because there is a spirit that goes with you brother. If you just finished quarreling at home and beating your wife and you go down there to go and preach, that whole thing is going to let loose on that congregation without your knowing it. That spirit is going to take charge of them. Do you see what I am saying?
So I am saying now brethren we preach, we feed the flock by example.
An example is the greatest method of feeding the flock and there is no way you can deceive the flock. The flock tastes that food and it is bitter. They don’t know why it is bitter, you don’t know why it is bitter. The words were right, everything was quite in order, but the flock tasted a little bitterish taste. God is saying that as we begin to be careful one with another, to feed one another in the Spirit, that we are going to find that the very person that you just finished feeding turns around and is a strength to you and feeds you back. Look at your body. Every joint feeds the other joints (Eph 4:16). The blood has got to flow through this joint to get to this one. The blood has got to flow through these in order that I can lift something.
God is saying to look at your own body to realize what the body of Christ is. If there is no love in the body then the blood is stopped, the food cannot proceed.
Brethren, this is the time when the Devil is breaking up homes. I have never seen so many Christian homes being bombarded and broken. It is being broken up for nothing at all. Do you know what I mean?
Somebody might say, “Well we had a big problem.”
But very often it is little nothing. She moved a chair and the brother didn’t want the chair moved. He talks about it and it brings this and it piles up and it piles up and the Devil piles up a long thing against you.
One night Mae and I were lying down in bed and the Devil jumped right in between us. She got right up and rebuked that thing. Oh yes.
She rebuked that things and said, “Get out of here, we don’t want you.”
Why? Because everybody must be tested. You don’t believe that there is one man or one woman here that is not going to go through that test. You are going to have to go through the test and you are going to have to pass the test. I believe that the association between brother and sister is the nearest thing to Jesus Christ and His church. Anytime you overcome dear brother, you are going to win. Anytime you overcome, anytime you overcome that feeling of animosity against your partner – you are able to rise up and win.
“I am not going to have any feelings against him.”
“I am not going to have any feelings against her.”
Because sometimes men are involved out there in the world doing their business, sometimes they forget their wives, to be honest with you, just working so hard that they forget their wives.
Or you think, “She is put up aside there and when I am ready I am going to just turn on to her, but for now I am turned off and I am doing this and that and the other.”
Oh yes. I’m working outside and sometimes I rush to come right in and I feel that I have been out there so long and my mind is cut off from my wife and I don’t know what she is doing in there. Maybe the Devil is in there tempting her in some way.
I rush right in there, hug her and kiss her and say, “I’m going back to work.”
Oh yes. Over the years you learn how to beat the Devil and if a wrong thought comes to you brother, it comes to your wife too. Don’t believe it is going to come to you and not to your wife.
I remember one time I had a congregation and I could know exactly what the Devil was saying, because he would come to me with it first. When I would go to church and preach the message on what the Devil was saying, the brethren were shocked.
“How did you know?”
“That is what happened to me?”
Oh you had better believe it, that the same thing that happens to the shepherd, happens to the sheep.
So the feeding of the flock of God and the oversight of them, it is not necessarily always preaching.
Somebody believes, “To feed the flock I have got to get up and preach.”
But there is somebody out there that needs a little love. Oh yes. You look around the congregation and you see somebody who needs a little love. Don’t go away unless you go and give that person that love. Let them know how you appreciate them. Sometimes you ask them to forgive you of anything that might have come between. Because do you know what I found out? That there are some things between me and people that I don’t know anything about.
Somebody just go and said, “Cec so and so.” Or “He did so and so.”
You never did it, you never said it. You might have said something that had no relationship to that, but somebody interpreted it wrong and took it away. Somebody will hold you forever and it puts a block. He can’t get the food that God has sent for him. He begins to wilt and die just because of a lie that Satan told him.
You love God as much as you love the person who you love the least.
So let the flow of God be among you. Let me tell you, you love God as much as you love the person who you love the least. Did you get that one? It is not the one who you love the most that is the basis of your love for God. The love for God is the love for the unlovely. Those who are not pretty, those who behave bad, when you love them… Every mother knows what it is to love a boy who is kicking up his heels and doing all the wrong things in the world. Amen. Oh yes. Every mother knows what it is.
Sometimes I go down there, I can’t hug the boy because I feel so bad against him for what he is doing. He goes and he hugs his mother and you see them kissing each other. It is wretched, but that is what he needs. That is what he needs.
So the Spirit of God this morning is speaking to us about feeding the flock by example; feeding the flock by our own lives; feeding the flock of God.
Feeding the flock by example. Feeding the flock by our own lives, feeding the flock of God.
I see another scripture here that I am going to give you. It is in 1st Kings Chapter 17, verse 4, where God calls Elijah to be fed by ravens. God called Elijah to be fed by ravens, now why did He do it? Why couldn’t God get some beautiful, clean, nice doves or something to carry some meat to give Elijah? How would you like to get meat from a crow? Yuck! You know, this is God.
You say, “But this Bible is perfect. Why would God do a thing like that?”
Read it for me please:
1Ki 17:4 “And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.”
5 “So he went and did according unto the word of the LORD: for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.”
6 “And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.”
Well all right, here you are a prophet of God in the wilderness and God sends a flock of ravens down into a man’s bakery. You just get your hot bread out of the oven and ravens swoop down and pick up your bread and off they are gone with it. Hallelujah. So you are over there telling the butcher of this peculiar thing that happened, that these ravens come and pick up your bread. Lo and behold the ravens dive down at the butcher’s and took up some meat and took off with it and they did that in the morning and in the evening.
You ask yourself the question: “Why is raven mentioned in the Bible, an unclean bird mentioned as feeding the prophet?”
Okay, you check Leviticus Chapter 11. You want to find what the ravens mean. What is the meaning of ravens in scripture? So you take Leviticus Chapter 11 and this is where God speaks of the ravens as ministries that are unclean. They use dead things, they eat dead meat, vultures you see. They eat dead meat. There are some people, some ministries out there who thrive upon those who are not alive in Christ. In verse 14 it says vultures… Speaking of the unclean bird it says:
Lev 11:14 “And the vulture, and the kite after his kind;”
15 “Every raven after his kind;”
Now if you read The Pattern (I don’t know what page it is) it explains the whole Leviticus 11 and it explains the different birds as different ministries. You have the predator ministries that prey upon the people. You have the scavenger ministries, the scavengers are the vulture, the raven.
Now God is saying that because some of us are not feeding the flock – He allows ravens to feed them. You can get some good food from some of these ministries who are just working for the money and for whatever else. Paul said:
Phi 1:15 “Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will:”
16 “The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely,…”
18 “…Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea and will rejoice.”
Do you see what I am saying? So there are some that do that. I say that God allows His children to be fed, so you mustn’t despise all the food that comes from elsewhere.
“Oh, I am only going to eat at Brother duCille’s table.”
Or, “I am going to eat only at this one’s table.”
Because there is some good food coming from somewhere else. God is over overthrowing the very purpose of the rain by allowing them to feed His flock. You see?
God said that He is going to one day, the shepherds that feed themselves and will not feed His flock – He is going to put them aside and He is going to raise up shepherds that feed His flocks (Ez 34:2, 10;).
One day I said to the Lord, “Lord, I don’t understand why you allow these ministries here to be taking the bulk of the people and having them?”
Just having them and feeding them on just little things to keep them interested? Sweets actually like you have children and feed them on sweets, you see, to keep them coming back for more. So they get that sweet tooth so that they will not even eat anything else, all they want is sweets.
I said, “God how do you allow this?”
Do you know what He asked me?
He said, “Would you have Me to stop them from doing what they are doing?”
The question was the answer. I said, “Oh no God.”
He cannot stop them from doing it, because if He does, who would feed them? Are you going to do it? Are you going to go get the millions and feed them? If you do it brother, you would be doing exactly what those brothers are doing, because the people wouldn’t want anything else but what they are getting. You would have to give them what they are getting to keep them alive. So praise be to God. I am going to close here.
That God is saying that His flock is wandering up on the mountain like sheep without a shepherd, yet there is a body of Christ in our midst. I am saying to you body of Christ, “For Christ’s sake, come alive. Begin to realize your responsibility in a world that needs you badly.”
I am saying to you body of Christ, “For Christ’s sake, come alive. Begin to realize your responsibility in a world that needs you badly.”
Do you see what I mean? We have lost the spirit of evangelizing. Do you ever feel like an angel of God at your workplace? Or dealing with people out on the street? This is what God is saying: ev-angel – ev-angel is angel. You see, you are sent of God. As the body of Christ you are sent of God in the world to do a job. ARE YOU DOING IT? You have to start doing it in your midst, then you start doing it outside there. Jesus said:
Act 1:8 “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
We will take as a closing verse, Ephesians Chapter 4 and we go back to that very, very hackneyed verse which has been so used in my Bible that the leaf comes out, you know. The whole of Ephesians is out, it is so much used. Hallelujah. It is very appropriate to drop this in here. It says here in Ephesians 4, beginning at verse 11:
Eph 4:11 “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors (shepherds,) and teachers; 12
12 “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”
That is that the work of the ministry is not going to be done by the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teachers. But it is the saints that are going to do the work of the ministry. It is the church that must function. You are a living body. You must walk and talk and function in the world and bring forth fruit and you need to bring forth fruit after your own kind.
Some of us when we get saved we have no more friends among sinners. Isn’t that right?
“Oh we are just all saved. We don’t have any more friends among sinners.”
Don’t you go out there and you see a gal and your spirit just takes her and you just be friendly with her, just like you used to be? That is an outreach. Once there is a human being that you have a rapport with, it means that human being has a rapport with you and you are ordained of God to pull that person to God. We are not in the stage where they are pulling us into the Devil any more. Amen. We must love them. We must friend them. We must go to their tea parties. Oh yes. Have a little party at your home and call them in. Have a party, I don’t believe in birthdays but find a birthday if you even have to make one. Find a birthday and even invite them over to a birthday party. You know, you just serve them ice cream and cake and get the kids together.
Get the kids together. Do you realize that we are not doing the work that we could be doing among the kids in this area? Do you know what we could be doing? We could have the brethren picking up kids all over. Sometimes parents are too happy to get rid of their kids for a couple of hours.
We put up a babysitting operation and we said, “Every Friday evening parents all around the town, we are going to take your kids.”
You give them a whopping good time. Give them a little ice cream, but give them a lesson with Jesus. This place would be full with kids, or whatever you have would be full with kids. Your backyard, you have swings and whatever else and while some are swinging you are teaching the others about Jesus.
I know a brother that went as far as to build a swimming pool and have lifeguards. He had a bus, he got one of those old city busses and fixed it up. He began to pick up the kids all on the bus routes all over and bring them in. When he brought in one load of kids he didn’t give them the fun first. He gave them the songs and the Sunday school lesson and the played music and they sang and so and so. When they are through he puts them in the pool and some on the swings in his back yard and they had a good time. Mothers are happy to get rid of them for three hours. Then he is gone for another group of children and by the time he comes in with that group, this group is ready to go home and home they go.
What is wrong with us? What is wrong with us? Don’t you see that the time is late and we need to get hold of the people?
Let God work in your midst. Volunteer, get some of the people out there, those that don’t belong to us to volunteer to come and help. The next thing that happens is that they get saved too. Do you see what I mean?
We need an outreach of God because He says, “TO FEED THE FLOCK OF GOD.”
Act 20:28 “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his blood.”
Do you realize that the local church should take hold of the whole community? Oh yes. The time is coming when we are going to feed them. We have to take care of them. There are old people who need somebody to take them to the market, to the store, to pray with them just a little, just to talk with them. We should have brethren volunteering to go this evening after work to go to pick up the older people. Some people can’t drive, they can’t do anything. This service is part of your ministry in the whole area.
God is saying, “We must stop sleeping and we must wake up and we must begin doing what God wants us to do.”
Praise God, because it is the body that ministers. The more alive the body gets the more ministry you will do.
God bless you and God help us really to hear Him, to hear His voice. You know it is not all the while that I get a message to bring to you. Some of the time when I come here He just speaks and flows. But this one, I got it. He came to me this morning. He showed me the scriptures. He tells me what the need is here.
I believe brethren that some of the reasons why we have dissention and problems one with another and can’t get on is because we are not doing what the Lord wants us to do. Amen. But I think God wants us to get together really and to begin to do. You see, God will tell each person what He wants him to do.
When a brother comes to you and says, “Well I think God is saying so and so to me. Will you be with me?”
“Sure, I’ll help you.”
Okay, he is doing something out here and all of us go along with him.
But this thing about the children and the feeding of the lambs, I am going to beg you to get together and plan it out and say:
“What shall we do?”
If we are going to have to take them up in three or four cars in the evenings, do that until God gives you a bus. Because this brother, after he had one bus, he had to go and buy another bus. Last time I saw him he had two big city busses and he had two more drivers with him, volunteers. They were volunteers. Then people begin to give them money to buy fuel. So after all it didn’t cost them anything, except their time and the joy that they have to see the children grow up in the Lord. Praise be to God.
God bless you. Amen.
Sister Mavis duCille
Psalm 37, beginning at verse 1:
Ps 37:1 “Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.”
2 “For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.”
3 “Trust in the LORD; and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.”
In other words, so shalt thou possess the land. If you dwell and you are fed means that you possess the land.
4 “Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
5 “Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.”
All the desires of your heart shall be brought to pass if you trust in the Lord.
6 “And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.”
7 “Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.”
8 “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.”
9 “For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.”
Here again we have possessing the land as the same as inheriting the earth.
10 “For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.”
11 “But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.”
[Do you remember that scripture?
Mt 5:5 “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.”
Ps 37:12 “The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.”
13 “The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming.”
I think that we can say that his day is come. The day has come.
14 “The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.”
15 “Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.”
16 “A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.”
17 “For the arms of the wicked shall be broken: but the LORD upholdeth the righteous.”
18 “The LORD knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be for ever.”
19 “They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.”
20 “But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of the lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.”
You could go on and on, but there is something here that the Lord brought so strongly to me this morning. That for so long it would seem as if the wicked or the unrighteous is having power and going from victory to victory. But the Lord says that the time has come that His people, the people who trust in Him, shall have power over all of the heathen and the wicked. But trusting in the Lord we possess or inherit the land, or inherit the earth.
The first land that we have to possess is this one (our soul). We must rise up and take authority over the ‘ites that abide here. It may not be called Canaanites, or Hittites, or Perizzites, or Jebusites, or Hivites, the Amorites, or whatever the ‘ites may be. They might be called Anger-ites, or whatever we may have in here. But I think that the ‘ites fear – I think that has bound a lot of us in fear, but God is greater than fear. The grace of God can put away every fear from our hearts. Anger, jealousy, malice, strife, speaking evil, sometimes evil will come to our hearts about others and it is the grace of God that will deliver our hearts from it….
The Lord says that the time has come that His people, the people who trust in Him, shall have power over all the heathen and the wicked. But trusting in the Lord we possess or inherit the land, or inherit the earth.
