Omega Message – January 1984
Cecil J. duCille
The name Israel means Prince of God. This name was first given by God himself to Jacob, which means a supplanter, and his nature was changed, and as you know in the Bible nature means name, so his name was changed, and God spoke this word Israel. In our language it does not carry the meaning that it would carry in the Greek or in the Hebrew. The Hebrew says JAH, because JAH means God. We spell it JAH, but it is pronounced Yaa. The next letter is “Shin”, meaning El Shaddai, the big breasted one, God the great provider. And so Israelis a name with a very deep, profound meaning.
Now, we consider the historical Israel. What was God’s intention when he first gave Jacob that name, and the promises that he gave? Let us look at the promises to Jacob.
Genesis 28:13-15 “And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;”
28:14 “And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
28:15 “And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all the places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land, for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.”
These promises seem to say that it was an everlasting covenant between a man and God. Not between a man only, and God, but to a people. We find in the promises to Israel that it would be absolutely impossible to give those promises to a nation, a natural nation, that had no evolution or development into a spiritual nation. Therefore we see a natural Israel being called of God, and as the scriptures state:
I Corinthians 15:46 “Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural and afterward that which is spiritual.”
First the natural, and then the spiritual. The natural was first, and then came forth that which was spiritual: God bringing man unto himself to become his son. Look back again at the natural; Jacob robbing his brother Esau of his birthright and his blessing. The strangest thing with this story is that God would have given Jacob both birthright and blessing. Jacob’s nature was not to wait on God for it. Neither was his mother a person who could wait, and so they both connived to steal it, and thus stealing it, it showed up a few things about Esau also, for Esau did not care two hoots about the birthright, and so he gave it away for a bowl of soup, and he lost the blessing in consequence, because of his brother’s artfulness; Nevertheless God would have disqualified him because his nature was not that of the person who should receive the blessing.
Now we go back to Israel:
His nature therefore, the Jacob nature, was a supplanter. He took what he wanted. He went to his Uncle Laban, and his Uncle Laban robbed him, and cheated him, and finally made a very unreasonable agreement. The agreement was that all of the sheep that come forth spotted or blemished would be Jacob’s. It was a cruel and unfair agreement. Here and there you have a throwback through atavism in animal breeding, that throws back a coloration on an animal, to an old stock that was crossed long ago. And so this man intended to keep Jacob as a slave, and to keep him as a pauper, because he knew that his flock was all white. Instead of paying him a fair wage he made an unreasonable deal. The reason Jacob made the deal was because he was starry-eyed and in love with Rachael, and he wanted Rachael, so he would make any kind of deal just to get his love. And that is one of the weaknesses of youth. However, God intervened and gave him the wisdom to put a stick down in the water, to make it look like a serpent; Then to carry the ewes that were heavy with kid to the water and to frighten them so that their young would come with spots. This was done, but Laban felt that he had this boy forever as a slave, and when he did do some checking, it was too late for most of his animals, or at least the best ones, were spotted. He could not go back on his contract, and so Jacob took him instead of his taking Jacob.
Nevertheless Jacob was worthy of his name, the supplanter. After he left Laban, with his wives and children, on his journey back home, he had to face his brother Esau whom he had robbed and cheated, and who then wanted to kill him, but he escaped. Now Esau was coming with a might army towards him and he was in great despair, and that was a right atmosphere for him to touch the hem of God’s garment.
The Lord God Jehovah came down, and in a most dramatic affair, he wrestled with him like two wrestlers, and God said that Jacob prevailed. Now I don’t know how anyone can beat God in a wrestling match, but God said the this man had such fortitude that at many a time during the match any ordinary man would have given up, but God said Jacob persevered, and God admired him and loved him, and God gave him the match. Now he was about to leave in the morning, and Jacob said, “I will not let thee go unless thou bless me.” I can imagine that Jacob thought that he was wrestling with a man at first, but then afterwards he found that it was a supernatural being, and then he must have felt the blessing of God, and knew that it was God himself, or the angel of God, so he said, “Bless me.” And the blessing that God gave him was to change his nature. Now how did God change his nature? God smote him in his thigh and it sank in, and there was a hollow in Jacob’s thigh so that he walked with a limp from that day onwards. And that was the blessing. I think that God just operated on him and did something to his carnal man and delivered him from Jacob. I think Jacob died that night, and Israel was born, Prince of God – a man now with noble ideals – all of a sudden he lost his nature. The skullduggery that was in him was taken out and the man was reborn as Israel. This therefore is the birth of Israel. We see in the natural Israel having 12 sons, and these 12 sons having 12 different natures. And these 12 natures are the natures that God is working in his people. In the end when we meet Jesus Christ, Israel will stand before God in 12 natures, which will be the completion of light. The glory of God will come through these 12 natures. Let me not prevaricate, but let me return to the orderly procession of the story.
Now, we want to know, and I think every Christian asks this question at some time or another, what has Israel to do in God’s order of things in the history, or pre-history of the church?
In other words, the history of the church that God has already written that has not yet been unfolded – Has the natural Israel got anything to do with this situation that we are undergoing today? Now I’ll give you a story, and probably you’ll come to the same conclusion that I have come to.
One day in 1973 Israel was compassed about with the armies of Egypt from the south, and the armies of Syria from the north, Jordan from the east, and of course their backs were against the sea, and these armies had broken through the Bar Lev Line, which was the line on the Egyptian south side. And the armies had broken through Mt. Hermon on the Syrian side, and the armies of Jordan had been pressing the Jews in retreat on the eastern front, and the situation was very bleak in Israel. I was standing someplace, I do not remember where, but God came up behind me, and as he used to do in the days past before I received the inner-anointing and the speaking of God from the inside, he came up behind me and began to draw on the board. As he drew, he drew me a large fruit like a melon size, and it looked like a melon with the exception of a large seed inside which went fully three quarters of the way through the fruit. The fruit took on color and life, and I could see some things like gnats, or flies, attacking the fruit in waves. They attacked from every side, and the skin was torn off in the first attack. They pulled back and attacked again, and this time the pulp was torn off. The third attack was upon the seed. The seed was long, and black and rather flat, and the attack upon the seed polished the seed. As they kept attacking the seed it became brighter and brighter, and like amber it was shiny, and the Lord chuckled behind me, and he said, “They will never breach my elect.” And I said, “Lord, are you speaking natural Israel, or are you speaking spiritual Israel?” He did not answer. To me that meant that the question was superfluous. It was not necessary. God has one Israel. And this one Israel, though divided, though scattered, is to be brought together into one.
In the second chapter or Ephesians, Paul speaks of “out of twain he made one new man”.
What we are seeing now is the twain, and the new man is yet to be birthed out of the twain. Jesus Christ, one day was with his disciples and the circumstances were of such that they were thinking about the Jews as being entirely lost because they believe in God, but they would not believe in Jesus, so Jesus said, “He that believes in God believes also in me.” And in John chapter 14 he said, “In my fathers house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am there ye may be also.” Now, this clearly states that God has his way of bringing his people to himself no matter what they believe, or what they don’t believe, while they believe God, while they love God, while they want to serve God, God is going to make a way for them.
Now somebody is going to say, Cec, Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. For sure. Jesus Christ is the only Way. Is the only Truth. Is the only Life. But there is absolutely something beautiful about Jesus. Adam, came and Adam sinned, and Adam fell, and Adam died, and all of Adams children from Adam right down to Moses went to hell. Everyone who died went to hell according to the scripture, “Death reigned from Adam to Moses.” Moses escaped hell because he offered God a sacrifice and died upon the sacrifice, and thus he was sinless, because it was a type of Jesus Christ, the true sacrifice, and so he was sinless and he did not go to hell. Satan did not get a hold of him. You see it was broken by Moses. And if you will notice, that one out of every dispensation found his way into Heaven. Out of the Dispensation of Innocence we had Enoch. “Enoch walked with God, and was not, for God took him.” Out of the Dispensation of the Prophets we had Elijah who never died. Out of the Dispensation of the Law we had Moses. And so there was only one yet to come to break hell and lead captivity captive, and give gifts of holiness and immortality to men. So Jesus Christ stands right in the center. And to one side of his is the past, Adam to Christ, and to the other side of his is Christ to the Manchild. Those therefore who are from Adam to Christ must have the same opportunity as those who are from Christ to the Manchild, or the return of Christ, so that God might be giving each individual an equal opportunity. Therefore God creates an equilibrium in the human realm. We see therefore Adam in hell. David in hell.
Someone will say, Brother Cec, it was Paradise. Some people say Paradise, and some say hell. If you look at Psalms 16:10 you will understand the David said, “Thou will not leave my soul in hell.” We understand that the wages of sin is death. The wages of sin was not just death when the law came in, but the wages of sin was death from the beginning, because God could not take sin into Heaven. And so, while man had sin, there had to be a place for them. Surely they were not tormented as were those who were without hope, for it is the fire within that burns in the torment of hell. In the lake of fire there will be a fire that will be lighted outside, plus the fire within. But the fire within is the judgment that God has left man to himself. We shall not go too deep into that; But Adam, and all those men after Adam, with the few exceptions that we have mentioned, all went to hell. Now the rest of the story is, that Jesus, in order to create an equilibrium, had to meet them face to face, and ask each individual, “Do you want me to be your Lord, and Savoir, and King?” And each individual had to come to his conclusion. Since we understand that death is not the end, that man still has intellect after death, then we find that these men were in a better position to accept or reject Jesus, than humans were. I mean living humans with their bodies. Because sometimes we are to burdened by our bodies that we cannot live a Christian life, or cannot claim Jesus as our own. But when this burden is removed, man begins to see very clearly, and so this is the kind of vision that they all had in hell. Those who wanted Jesus accepted him and were immediately delivered from hell as Jesus Christ resurrected.
We find therefore with Jesus creating this equilibrium, presents the same position to every human being whether you are Mohammedan, or Jew, or a worshipper of Buddha, or whatever other religion you might be, or is you have no religion at all. Can you imagine atheists and agnostics hating Jesus Christ, and for the first time saying, “Well I knew all along that there was a God, I was only fooling myself”? And things like this will happen before Jesus Christ, when men will be brought into the clear light of his glory. We see then that Jesus Christ creates this equilibrium in all the earth; So he stands in the middle of time; time in the past, time in the present, and in the future. Those who never had that chance to meet Jesus, to see Jesus, the day when you are dying, as you begin to fade away, they would begins to see more clearly, and so man accepts Jesus in the clarity of his understanding and has that great opportunity of being with him forever. Now we find therefore that the Israel of God is no different from the natural Israel who believe in God, and the natural Gentile who believe in God. As far as God sees, he sees them all as the same Israel – Israel in ignorance. The spiritual person who is born again, and believes in Jesus Christ, Jesus sees us all whether we be Jew of Gentile, bond or free, whatever we be, God sees us all as Israel; Israel in darkness, Israel in light. “Them also will I bring,” is the word.
I want you to understand that very often our doctrines don’t mean much more than that they either hinder of help us. False doctrines encourage false spirits. They cause character blemishes. They cause people to live wrongly. And they can make a man lose his soul. Good doctrines, the doctrine of Jesus Christ, help the believers to walk in peace, and in righteousness strengthens the believer, giving him a better chance to become a winner, and to become an overcomer: For there are crowns , and stars, and great riches to be gained. Just like men in the natural seek riches. Business men go after it tooth and nail, so it is that there is an investment in Heaven – riches being stored up in the bank of Heaven. Some of us have a lot up there, and some have very little, and some have none at all. God wants us to understand this, and to deliberately work towards being part of the firstfruits company.
Natural Israel is being hindered in becoming the true spiritual son of God that God wants. Now the question is, does God have any sons that are ignorant? And I will shamefully say, yes. I have known some of the mightiest men of God to be spiritually ignorant. It’s a little bit shameful to say, but it is true that all of us have some kind of a spiritual ignorance that as a child in God we should not have. We can know many things on one side, and very little on another. And as far as ignorance is concerned, I have seen mighty men of God have the stupidest doctrines that you would ever conceive. And it seems to me that every mighty man of God that I know had some stupid little doctrine that hindered him from walking through the veil, and walking right in. Of course I am not saying that he could have, because if one thing did not stop him, the other would have. I am not a fatalist in this way, because it is wide open for us, but something seems to be wrong with us. And I think I could put my finger on it. I think that we need to hear the voice of the 6th angel calling us into the Holy of Holies. This voice is the overshadowing – The abiding under the shadow of the Almighty. It is difficult to abide under the shadow of the Almighty continuously. It is not so difficult to get in and out. And when something rushes after you, you rush in like a rat running into his hole, and peeping out your whiskers, and sometimes getting it singed, and running under again, and leaving your tail outside, and getting it chopped off. These sorts of things form a picture that I see before me of the way that we behave. But God wants us to be more responsible. It says, “Them that are led by the Spirit of God, are indeed ‘Huios’, sons of God,” full-fledged sons of God. And so we find that sometimes our being led is in a most circuitous way. We seem to be led by trial and error. We seem to be led sometimes by doing one thing, and then in the process of analysis we prove then that it is not A and B, it must be C. So we go the C way – but, do you know that I see something greater coming to us; Actually, God doesn’t want to lead us from out there; He doesn’t want to be shouting to us, “Boy turn to the right, now you turn to the left, now you lift your foot, now you lie down, now you stand up.” – But he wants the nature of God to be so imbibed in our being that our daily thinking be motivated by God, and by godliness, and godlikeness. That we move forward, even in the Spirit of God in our normal, daily thinking. We see therefore that Israel as a Prince with God stands before God, and God expects you to be a prince.
(To be concluded in the next issue.)
