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Seven Divisions

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Scripture reading: Romans 8:29

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

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

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

1. The Church (The Outer Court):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Indictment

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Scripture reading: Isaiah 1:2

There is an indictment against the present church system. The reasons are following:

1) DIVINE ORDER is absent in the rule of our church government. Not Theocratic Rule as was God’s intention, but Democratic, Autocratic, Despotic, Plutocratic and even Totalitarian in some widespread instances. EVERYTHING OUTSIDE OF Divine Order is DISORDER, and the worst kind of disorder is an orderly disorder. Disorder which is deliberate and ordered is, in effect, a rebellion. This is exactly how God looks at it. “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.” Isaiah 1:2.

2) The church system presents God to the world as a God that is slack concerning His promises, and one that is unable to rule His own household, by presenting themselves as His ambassadors while living in every type of sin in which the ungodly participate.

3) In doctrine they say that God is too good to judge and condemn sin, robbing themselves of the knowledge of their own judgment. This doctrine says that God is going to contaminate heaven with a lot of unwilling, self-willed, rebellious and sinful people who hate God and all His works. In doctrine, they distort heaven, making it a faraway dwelling place of spirits, yet with streets of natural gold and walls of natural jasper, upon some carnal, physical, faraway planet. They distort hell, making it nothing but a myth in one rendition, and in another they make it a hole in the ground, in spite of the hint given by the Word of God, “bottomless pit” (Revelation 9:2). A pit without a bottom is not a pit at all. That in itself shows that it is not a natural pit, since every natural pit, to be a pit, must have a bottom.

4) Finally, under the name of God, the churches occupy the most popular corners of every city, and under the guise of charitable organizations, transact business, buying and selling, usurping and lobbying for laws to be passed in all the legislatures of the world to facilitate their pursuit of power. Because of these and more, it is very evident in our time that the church system is at its lowest ebb, while some of the people of God are rising to their highest.

The logical conclusion is that somewhere in the near future, there must be a breakaway of the true Christian from the false church.

(Excerpt from The Pattern, pg. 9-10)

Thought for today: Everything outside of divine order is disorder.

God’s Right Hand

This message entitled “God’s Right Hand” was given in Stuart, Florida in December 2008 by Brother Cecil duCille. It was given shortly after Sister Mavis duCille’s funeral. This is part two of four in the “Overcomer III Series.”

For more video messages please visit Butter and Honey.

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Scripture reading: Revelation 3:14-18

We are at present at the end of the age of the Laodicean church which is described in Revelation 3:15 as being “neither cold nor hot,” but “rich, increased with goods and having need of nothing.” This means that all the seven churches with all their rebellion have come together in one church. This is the picture of a church well settled in the world, being the richest institution on the face of the earth, and wielding political and economic power of great proportions. Spiritually, she is inept and sick unto death with divisions and sin. The doctor would say her condition is incurable. The modern church system has slipped into a quagmire of preaching one thing, and finding it totally impossible to practice its own preachings from the Bible. Thus something more like the generation gap exists, ever widening, between her and her Bible. Something has to give. Therefore the Church, instead of giving way to the Bible, has been trying to bend the Bible to the Church.

By 1991, many of the churches had changed their hymnals to suit the trends of the time. Some have printed a new Bible which puts God in the feminine, and now we see the “overspreading of abominations” (Daniel 9:27) in the holy place. This alerts us that there will soon be the desolations and then the consummation of which this passage speaks.

The difficulty is like dealing with a pernicious disease, for the Bible was never written for carnal men and CARNAL INTERPRETATION. To remedy this ailment, every major religion has either done it herself, or embraced a translation of the Bible which appears to support her position doctrinally. In spite of this, the Bible as a whole condemns these organizations of man. Men who lack godliness institute doctrine to bind their adherents. Thus in this late hour of time, we find an influx of translations, with some passages being made clearer, and at the same time, other passages being made darker, increasing the confusion. It is alleged that even the Communists made a Bible translation.

One POPULAR TRANSLATION changes all the figures in the Bible, bringing them to their English equivalent, thus destroying all their SYMBOLIC meanings. For instance, 12,000 furlongs translated to 1,500 miles destroys the symbolism of 12 with three zeros behind it to a meaningless figure. Not only this error, but others of a far-reaching nature such as errors of making a passage clearer according to the writer’s natural scope of understanding, when there is a spiritual understanding beyond the scope of the writer. Because of the number of men who translated and cross-checked the King James Version of the Bible, it does not carry any slant of any special doctrine for any particular group, whereas most of the other translations do carry such a slant.

(Excerpt from The Pattern, page 8-9)

Thought for today: Remember: The Church is to give way to the Bible and not bend the Bible to the Church.

I Would Rather Die…

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Scripture reading: Genesis 39:7-20

Brethren, you have to know who you are. You have to have a Godly ambition. Don’t let sin take you! When the man Joseph was faced with sin, he was tempted – that woman had been looking at him long ago. He knew she had a crush on him. Yes, and he was tempted. When she grabbed him, he knew that was the moment of truth. In his mind was, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against my God?” (Genesis 39:9). That means that he thought of it. Yes, he thought of just submitting to her. He would have a great time in the palace. But to resist her would be death, because she was going to lie about him anyhow. And so he said, “I would rather die.”

Brethren, God is asking you to give up your lives. Make your life an offering to God. Make up your mind that you would rather die than submit to sin. And more than that, God is calling a people to be His precious treasure, and I want to be the precious treasure. There are a lot of other things that I can be but I am saying, “Lord God, if so and so, if this action, if that action is standing on my rights over here, it is going to take away me being that precious treasure – I’d rather die. I’d rather die.”

I told you the story of how I made up my mind to die. I decided to die. I stopped eating because the youthful lust that was within me would have destroyed what God was doing to me, and I was at a crossroads just like Joseph. I said, “Let me die, my God.” I stopped eating for forty days. God sat down there and watched me. He was watching me to see if I would break down, but I was determined. Blood was coming through my mouth. I was coughing so hard I couldn’t hold myself down on the bed. I was just coughing and the blood was spattering out. I refused to drink water. Some of the willing workers, a band of women from the church, came in. One powerful woman held me down. She took a spoon with water and put it in my mouth. They also took a cornmeal poultice and put it on my chest. I couldn’t help myself. I was weak. And when they had gone, God came to me. He had a chart and was showing me how I was going up the hill. He took up the chart, then He put it down and said, “Turn back.” And I had to go back. But I put God to the test. However, God did not want me to die. One day He came to me and said, “You are healed.” As simple as that! He came in, showed me the same chart again and said, “This is the top of the hill.”

The place where I was staying at that time was a house up on a mountain. The same day that God came to me there was a knock at the door. My brother Frank came in saying, “I have been hunting all over for you! I couldn’t find you anywhere. I did not know where you were.” He kept asking and asking for me until he found me up on that mountain. God sent him to give me a bottle of cod liver oil and malt. Those were the first things I ate and they started to heal my body. My health began to come back.

I want you to understand that if you are in a condition where a naked woman could come in and take you, you are in a bad shape. You have to get to the point where that wouldn’t phase you, where that wouldn’t affect you. The only way you can get to such a point is if you allow Christ to come into your mind and control your body so that your body will not obey any other master but your mind and your spirit; and your spirit, the Holy Spirit!

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, February 2007, pg. 42)

Thought for today: God is asking you to give up your life. Make your life an offering to God. Make up your mind that you would rather die than submit to sin.