Cecil J. duCille
Omega Message – May 1986
I John 5:4 “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. “
It is a common error which most of us make when in the heat of the battle – we forget that our power to overcome does not lie in ourselves or in our effort, but in our faith IN GOD. Faith does not necessarily have to be in God. Men can have faith in themselves, or in other persons, or even in other spirits. Today we find that this positive, but misplaced faith has invaded the Christian realm and is causing people to believe for things which are contrary to God’s will. Faith therefore can produce result and yet be not of God. The type of faith used by a well known “Rev” in New York to produce property and riches, definitely works for those who believe, yet he does not even pretend that it is of God. This faith forms the basis of Occult practices, but more and more it is being used by the Christian ministries to produce material results, without spiritual victory. In order to have the VICTORY we must place our faith in God, NOT COMMANDING GOD, as some of us believe we should do, but BELIEVING HIM to destroy the works of the world and the devil in our lives. To believe God, is righteousness.
Many of us are ready and willing to believe God but are lost in the confusion of voices, and cannot have a clear cut word upon which to place our faith. God has provided ways and means for us to overcome this confusion. There are basically three avenues through which God is speaking to us:
- God is speaking to us through His ministry – BUT there is a thousand ministers preaching a thousand different messages!
- God is speaking to us through His word – BUT there are so many different translations saying different things – I do not know which to follow!
- God is speaking to us from within by His own voice – BUT I hear so many voices within that I do not know when it is self, the devil or God!
In spite of the many ministries and the many voices speaking different things, the Lord God has only one ministry and one voice. Any voice which gives you VICTORY over the world, the flesh, and the devil, is the voice of God. You can get victory over an ailment, or victory over financial problems, BUT that is not the barometer by which you can test the voices. The test lies in the fact that you are gaining the victory over worldliness, carnality, and the influence of the devil in your life. The whole world lies under the influence of the devil; Sociology, Psychology, all the sciences, and even Theology, are the instruments of Satan to bring the people under his power. There is not one facet of our physical world around us which is not controlled by Satan, therefore, we must hear the voice of God in order to counteract these other voices.
God has set in the church a FIVE FOLD MINISTRY. This ministry consists mainly of two parts.
FIRST:
It is a spiritual endowment within the members of the church so that the church can recognize the ministry in other members of the body. The five areas are Apostolic, Prophetic, Evangelistic, Shepherding, and Teaching. If God did not place within the body the spirit of the apostle, how would the church recognize those who are sent to them? The golden rod, 30 cubits long which girths the tabernacle and keeps the boards straight in line, is the type of the Apostle, but for this rod to function, the boards had to be covered with gold, and have golden rings to embrace the apostolic rod. The gold of the rod is the same gold of the rings fastened to the gold of the boards. I trust this does not confuse you but many of the modern churches will not hear the voice of God because they refuse the men who God has sent to them. In closing the door to these they have closed the door to God. God’s method is to use humans to reach humans.
SECONDLY:
God has appointed some as THE MINISTRY to the body. It is an awful position and not one that reasonable Christians should grudge. It places a terrible and awful burden upon the individual to fulfill a divine mission which no one else can accomplish for him. The person therefore, who is appointed and apostle of God is taken through the fires of tribulation and testing and is not sent until he has passed the test. This work of training and furbishing is being carried on in the midst of the Body, and God is the author of it all. We should not ask why, when we are being tried, but we should say “thank you Lord.”
Faith, “born of God,” is the victory which overcomes the world. What do we mean by “faith born of God?” Faith can be born of greed. Someone can have faith to win the lottery, or to play the horses, or to get property. Faith born of God cannot be selfishly motivated. Faith born of God cannot be competitive or prideful – i.e. to have the biggest auditorium in the U.S.A. or the biggest congregation in the world. The root of the faith that is born of God is in God. “Whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world.” Finally faith born of God overcomes the world.
I see the children of God struggling under the burden of worldliness. Even the kids are made to uphold all the worldly standards and be a part of every whim of the world which the kids of the non-Christians uphold. Instead of being taught of God they are taught by the devils of the system. Their paragon is not Jesus Christ and the holy men and women of the Bible, but the cursed televised demons of Hollywood, Paris, San Francisco and New York. It does not matter how much faith you have for miracles and how much results you might have in this area, if you are not overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil, then your miracles are nothing but condemnation because you believe in a God of miracles and deny the greatest of all miracles which is the victory over self and sin and Satan.
Verse 4 quoted above, speaks of “Whatsoever is born of God” as the overcomer of the world, but let us look at verse 5 which speaks of the WHOSOEVER:
I John 5:5 a “Who is he that overcometh the world?”
This question in itself is a challenge. Do we know him? Are we also overcomers of the world? He said, “The prince of this world cometh and findeth nothing in me.” Is Satan finding something that belongs to him in us? Let us look at the rest of the verse:
I John 5:5 b “—but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God.”
Many of the things some of us do convinces me that we do not really believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I am sure this sounds very strange to the reader, but if you just look with me for a while at some practical examples; If we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, then we must also realize that He is here with us and that he knows our thoughts; that in the privacy of our very souls there is nothing hid from Him. How then could we live day after day and go to prayer, some of us even preaching to others, without repentance before Him, of attitudes and thought of others which are not apparent but secret. “Every work shall be brought into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil.”
Do we really believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? Then we are overcomers of the world system. When we fear the high and mighty hierarchy of man and cower before his power; when we have to go to politics for our deliverance then we are denying the power of Christ and we deny that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Once Jesus visited me in my room, just after I had gone to register for bible school. His eyes were ablaze as if a fiery steam issued from them; He pointed His finger in my face and said, “If you go to bible school you will be rejecting me as your teacher.” I had no such intention, nor would I ever consciously reject Him as my teacher, but by the act of TAKING ANOTHER TEACHER, I was automatically rejecting the one I had. When we accept certain things or do certain things, we automatically reject other things. Could it be possible that some of us are denying Christ by accepting some other thing or person?
WILL BELIEVING THE END TIME MESSAGE MAKE US OVERCOMERS?
The tendency in the groups and bodies around the world who believe the word of the end time messengers, is to believe that they are the first fruits company or even the overcomers. BELIEVING THE MESSAGE OF THE OVERCOMERS QUALIFIES THE BELIEVER TO BECOME AN OVERCOMER — BUT DOES NOT MAKE HIM ONE.
The high calling of God is given to many, but some fall like Judas going to the very depths of degradation, and others fail in a lesser sense, like the five foolish virgins; only losing their position and reward, but not necessarily their souls. There are also others who fail for one reason or another and force God to take them out of the battle rather than allow them to lose everything. The basic point here is that Overcomers must overcome the world, the flesh and the devil. This is the Victory. The victory which God requires is that the character of Jesus Christ be formed within the soul of the believer. God will not give the believer OVERCOMING as a present. The believer must overcome using the tools which God has given him.
We therefore, are being encouraged to turn away from the distractions which are so prevalent within the thinking and operation of the church today. The distractions are subtle and sometimes deceive the best of us. A good example of this is the case they had recently in Miami, Florida, where two bank robbers, long sought by the Police shot seven FBI men and were themselves shot and killed. It turned out that one of them was a well known “Born Again” Christian who was publicized in a well known Christian magazine as a model Christian. The reason why the Christian world accepts and fellowships with devils without recognizing them, is that our criteria for judging, say a Born Again Christian is absolutely not scriptural but according to our traditions and humanistic thinking.
Let us take for instance the subject of VICTORY for a Christian: – It is being taught and preached from the pulpits of almost every realm of the church as meaning those who can get miracles to physical bodies and also financial miracles. Although these can come from God, they are not on a plane where they can be the criteria for judging Godliness. If however, you can get a few miracles done, not only the crowds will come flocking to you, but the whole Christian world will look up to you regardless of your spiritual condition. Some live in adultery and others are fornicators. Some lie and cheat to get offerings and others are lords over God’s heritage, flaunting God to the face, but they are exalted by the church and the world as the greatest Christians of our time. According to the norm of our times, successful ministers must have big congregations and wield influence over many persons to be counted. Is this the Victory which Jesus Christ gives? No! The overcomer must live above earthiness. Devils do also get miracles done as stated in the scripture, that it would be an end time sign. Jesus Christ gave us a sure word pertaining to the discernment of those who are truly Christians: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Fruits are different from GIFTS. If he had said by their gifts ye shall know them, then we would be totally deceived. Gifts can be counterfeited, but fruits of the Spirit cannot. If you do not have the time or place to discern the fruits, then, the Holy Ghost will teach you every time the good from the evil. Words like “Love” have been changed to mean something else to deceive us, but the Holy Ghost is not deceived.
THE WORST PROBLEM in the Christian world is that the word “Born Again” has been compromised. People are asked to repeat the sinner’s prayer like the chanting of magical words, and are told that they are saved. Mass meetings of crusade dimensions are kept and we hear figures like 10,000 to 50,000 persons being saved, yet there does not seem to be any change in the quality of life in these areas. My opinion is that most of these people are being won to religion and not to Christ. This morning I heard a well known evangelist on his morning show say that rock music with Christian words is going down where the people are and that we should do this to save souls. I believe rock music is of the devil land it cannot save any souls. Let me tell you the story of a vision or dream I once had:
I was a young man filled with zeal but still struggling with the flesh. In fasting and prayer I would sometimes cry out to God to show me the way to overcome. Although to others I was a mighty preacher with a very powerful healing ministry, yet in the quietness of my room I saw the yawning abyss of failure and degradation before me. One night God gave me a dream:
I was like an ancient traveler passing through a strange land. The people all seemed strange and afraid. I tried to communicate with them but they were afraid to talk. Soon there was a parade coming down the street and at the head was a man of lordly appearance; he was their king and the oppressor. I soon learned that he would not allow any stranger to pass through his land unless this person could beat him in a duel of swords. I had no desire nor inclination to try to fight him but he gave me a sword and would have decapitated me had I not tried to defend myself. Soon I realized that he was only toying with me and that he could kill me at any time he chose as I was no match for him. In this dilemma I cried to God as to what to do. The Lord whispered in my ear that I cannot win him with his sword, that he would lose strength if I lifted him off the earth. (The earth was his strength). I waited my opportunity, and grabbed him around the waist and lifted him into the air we went, whereupon I cast him down to his death. Immediately a great chorus of singers broke forth, with dancing they lifted his body to their shoulders and sang, “The master of Yon Dong is dead, with joy we bear him home.”
The Victory over carnality cannot be won by using the sword of carnality. If we are earthbound we are losers; we cannot win Satan at his game with his tools. To win we must rise above earth, whence our adversary is weak and puny.
VICTORY OVER THE WORLD:
“And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the VICTORY over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.” Rev. 15:2.
Those who had gotten the victory over the four areas of satanic influence were seen standing on the “sea of glass having the harps of God.” This means that by their victory over the most powerful weapons of Satan, they had earned for themselves a place in that realm of transparency where nothing is hid, a city of pure golden glass.
Let us look at the four areas of overcoming mentioned above:
I. VICTORY OVER THE BEAST:
God made man Spirit, Soul and Body. The spirit in man was devised of God to lead man back to God. The spirit of man therefore is the connecting link between God and man, and the main difference between man and beast. When man began to depart from God the divine order was broken, and in some cases man became, body, soul and spirit. This happens when man is basically led by his feelings and the natural world around him. Instead of the body and the soul being the servant of the spirit; the spirit is entirely excluded and an evil spirit takes the place, so that the man does not any more reason or think human, but diabolical. Of this order of persons are some of the scientists of our time and men who worship the intellect and other things rather than worship God.
I was once invited to a school to speak to the science class where there presided a teacher who invited ministers to his class to prove to the class how stupid they were to believe God. Upon his first sortie he was knocked cold by the scientific evidence of the existence of God. Science wants proof, and since the Ford car by which we traveled to the school was conclusive proof of a Ford factory somewhere, then his very presence there was conclusive and scientific proof of a higher being who made such magnificent symmetry.
The soul of FALLEN MAN with its Mind (intellect) Emotion, Will and Desire is a beast – or to be exact four beasts in one. He who is led by his mind is led by a beastlike fallen nature and cannot please God.
In national and world affairs you will notice the flawed reason of those who do not believe in God. In reasoning with them one gets the feeling of speaking to a demon who has no specific basis of right and wrong.
One who has the Victory over the Beast therefore, is (a) One who first conquers the beast nature within himself, and (b) One who does not submit to the beast nature of the world, and (c) Does not submit to the beast nature of Satan, the adversary and tempter. One who has the victory over that beast nature cannot divorce his wife and marry another because she disagrees with him, and because others are doing it and it is legal. Many of the preachers are setting this example, but regardless of how many miracles they are having and regardless of their financial success, and regardless of how many millions of people are following them, they are not overcomers of the nature of the beast.
This beast nature will be personified one day in a mighty world leader and all those who have not overcome the beast will submit to him and to Satan.
2. THE VICTORY OVER HIS IMAGE:
The word “Image” has to be explained so that we can understand what the above passage really means to us today: God created man in his IMAGE to look like Him – intellect, love, will etc. He gave us free will so that we could become like Him; (in His likeness). When man fell he became like Satan, the beast that was wounded by a sword. The wound of the sword of Calvary was fatal and deadly and he could not have survived but for the fact that the church gave him life which was given to them, even as Adam did in his fall.
The image has three parts to it: (1) The Image in our minds, (2) The image in the world, (3) The Image of a man to be yet manifested. I will explain simply: The picture of Jesus Christ which most of us have hanging on our walls is, for the most part the image of the antichrist (Ninus). This was conjured up long ago in ancient Babylon and handed down to us via the Roman and Eastern churches. For this cause God told us in the word not to make any graven image of God. Again he told us that when he appears we shall be changed to be like Him, therefore we should not believe if any one tells us that “here is Christ, or there,”. In spite of the word which is clear and simple there are those who are looking for Christ to appear before us one day. When the antichrist manifests in person; therefore, he will not have much trouble with convincing Christians, if he had a miraculous appearance in the form which they already conceive in their minds. For the Buddhists he would appear as Buddha; for Islam as Muhammad; for the Africans as some god like the Maami spirit (mermaid), for India some Guru or Kamaswari or other popular one of their million of gods.
In the light of what modern technology can do I would not be surprised is Satan is not planning to project some three dimensional laser figure to convince the religionists of an Image that will speak and punish unbelievers.
THE VICTORY OVER THE IMAGE IS IN THE HEART OF THE BELIEVER.
3. VICTORY OVER HIS MARK:
(These words are left out of the Alexandrian text but appear in the Textus Receptus from which we have the King James Bible. We recognize this as the true text) The mark of the beast is in the forehead or in the hand. A mark in the forehead speaks of the mind being taken over, and a mark in the hand speaks of committed works. Those who have the mark of the beast cannot be saved, because they have committed the unpardonable sin of blaspheme (rejecting the Holy Ghost for the last time). When the word speaks of the mark of the beast it is taken by a person, it means that that individual would never accept Christ in time or in eternity. Judas sold Jesus, but he did not go to hell for that. He committed the unpardonable sin. He received the goodness of God, then rejected it and with it God and His Christ. He had his second chance when Christ preached to the spirits in prison, but Jesus tells us that he was lost, therefore he must be still in hell. The mark of the beast is a permanent disfigurement of the Soul into a demon creature which has no desire for God.
4. VICTORY OVER THE NUMBER OF HIS NAME:
In Revelation, Chapter 13 and verse 18 we are told that the number of the name of the beast is 666. In Scripture all figures are symbolic and this one is no exception. From ancient times man had come to regard numbers as having specific meanings. It is God who first applied meanings to figures and numbers to letters. For instance the Hebrew “Alpha” is not only the first letter “A” but the figure 1. It became to be a symbol of God who is One God, the First and the Last. The number six in the same way is the number for man. Everything that began in Genesis must come to its full measure in Revelation. In Genesis the devil was shown as a serpent with one head. In Revelation he is a dragon with seven heads – his fullness – he and his kingdom. The fallen man is shown in Genesis and the completed man is shown in Revelation 12, also the fallen woman and the completed woman. Symbolically when a number is repeated three times it shows that that number has come to its fullness. The number 666 therefore, is the fullness of 6. Now in the end of time everything must come to its fullness and must have its full manifestation. The full manifestation of evil man as well as the full manifestation of the Christ man:
Daniel 9:23 “Ánd in the latter time of their kingdom, WHEN THE TRANSGRESSORS ARE COME TO THE FULL, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.”
God is helping us today to have the Victory within, for without this we are losers.