ISRAEL Part II of III Cecil J. ducille When God called David as King, and gave him Israel, David made some awful mistakes, but his heart was so tender for God and his emotions, though possessing so much weakness, was open to God. David wanted to be all righteous, but he was so much man, and his human weaknesses sometimes prevailed. He sent out his army to fight against his son Absalom and then whispered in their ears that they should spare Absalom. Joab was the captain of the army, but he was full of rebellion. It transpired that the rebellion of Joab was sent to put down the rebellion of Absalom. When therefore, Joab could have saved Absalom from the thicket where he was fastened by his hair, he killed him with darts. David, in mourning for Absalom forgot the justice of God; All that he knew was the terrible pain in his heart, as a man that cries for his child, and he was not King then, he was just a man in pain crying for his son. I know that the mothers and the fathers will understand that pain in the heart for the little one, though he be rebellious and bad. Yet we have to thank God for Jesus Christ, that we have ascended from David a long way, that we can stretch out our hand by the power of the Blood of Jesus Christ, and reach over there and touch that little one, and bring him to life, by our prayers. Let us go on. So, David again, in his naturalness fell from that kingliness; fell from that nobility, that Paul spoke about in the Thessalonicans when he said that the brethren in Thessalonica were not as exalted in the Spirit as those in Berea, because Berea studied, and searched the Word. The Bereans would not just take anything and swallow it, and run off with it, but they would search the scripture and make sure that it was good before they entered into it. Continuing with David we see him going up to his house-top and looking down he saw a woman having a bath, and was moved by lust. It is not impossible for a spiritual man, a Christian man, to be moved by lust, but lust must never have dominion over us, because we are kings, and priests with God. As princes of God we cannot bow to lust. David succumbed, and in order to cover his shame, committed murder. http://sonlightdevotional.org/ 1 of 8
It is so weird how that a man who knew God, knowing that God was standing right there looking at him, yet he had such a powerful lust after sin, and then to try to cover up by murdering a man. This whole story brings us to one thought: When God sent Nathan the prophet to David to tell him the story of the man who had one little sheep, and the other who had many, and though he had many he took the other man s one sheep and killed it for his friends David then was ready to bring justice down on that man then Nathan said, Thou are the man, David bowed before God; Here is the point, God said, You could have had anything you wanted, all the wives all the gold, anything you asked for I would have given, yet you went and did this horrible deed. Then God suggested that that was not the action of a king. This is the point that I want to bring forth, that as princes of God, we are above skullduggery. We are above baseness, base thoughts; base thinking. We are above sin. God is telling us not to bow. SO THIS IS ISRAEL: This is the noble thought that God has planted in the earth. This is our life in the Holy Ghost. RELIGIOUS ISRAEL: We find that people who keep the religious practices of Israel fall into two categories. There are among them, those who cry to God night and day, and are as genuine in their faith as men can be. They would be ready to die for what they believe in as many of us born again Christians. These call themselves by the name Zion. (Not the Zionist movement.) Zion is the Seventh letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and it means Strong Hold of God. We find therefore, that there are some Zion who are not of Zion the Zion of God and these are yet in darkness pertaining to the true Messiah or Jesus Christ, yet they love God with all their hearts. Of these God says, Them also will I bring; We should not have any problem about God handling his part of the deal in His own way. Many of us as Christians leave our part undone, and we start trying to do God s part. God s part is, I will build my Church. The church of God is being built by God; not by us. We are only commissioned to work with God as He would have us work, and God must do the spiritual part that we cannot do. There is a part for us, and there is a part for God. Give unto God the things that are of God and the things which are of us, will be given to us. It is not necessary for them to know that they are being brought to this one focal point, even into Christ. God is in the midst of the human confusion working His work and bringing us all unto One New Man. http://sonlightdevotional.org/ 2 of 8
The question that we have before us is: Are the present Jews the type of the church? In order to get a comprehensive answer to this question, we will have to go back to the scriptures to see what God did in the realm of the Jews, or of Israel, and what God is doing today. NATURAL ISRAEL: NATURAL ISRAEL has not completed its mission on earth. The Spiritual Israel which we are also has not completed its mission. The Israel of God, or the Body of Christ, is not complete. When I say not complete, I am not speaking of completion by way of numbers. I am speaking of completion by way of work, the work that God is doing in us. The natural Israel therefore, is also mixed and incomplete in itself. This means that what God is doing in them, He is also doing in us. Let us go back and trace historically what God started to do in Abraham, and what is being done today in the Jewish nation, as well as in all other nations. The Jew absolutely must fulfill his part, and we also must fulfill ours. The Jews must fulfill their part by coming to know Jesus Christ as their Messiah, and we must fulfill our part by walking in the Body of Christ as we ought. Thus everyone who genuinely believes in God, but do not know Jesus Christ and everyone who knows Jesus Christ, are being brought of God, along with all those who are called of the heathen, are being brought together; Yes, men are being called unto the true Body of Christ out of all the different sections of sin and error, redeeming them from the traps and snares of the devil. We will find therefore, that the Israel which is truly Israel will be also coming to this point in God called the Body of Christ, this meeting place of all the nations. Abraham was the man who received the promises of God. He believed them naturally and received them naturally, BUT refused to accept the idea that the end of them was in the natural. Let us look at this promise of God to Abraham. Genesis 12:1-2.. Get thee out of thy country, and from thy father s house, and go unto a place that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation---- God further promised Abraham that his children would be as the stars of the sky for number. Abraham must have taken this in the natural, because he left his homeland and began to seek for the land which the Lord spoke to him of. He found the land and lived in it and God renewed the promise to him, therefore we can say that this was one plane on which God was speaking, BUT Abraham realized that God must have been dealing with him on another plane: Hebrews 11:14-16 For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly if they had been mindful from that country from http://sonlightdevotional.org/ 3 of 8
whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, THAT IS AN HEAVENLY: WHEREFORE GOD IS NOT ASHAMED TO BE CALLED THEIR GOD: for he hath prepared for them a city. God knows that the spiritual man will only use the natural as the means to a spiritual end. The natural cannot be an end in itself, because everything that is natural was made by that which is spiritual. Let us go further back than Abraham, even to Adam. In the Creation, God made all things in six days, and on the sixth day He made the beast and then the man. We find that each of these days in the natural referred to a thousand years of time. 2 Peter 3:8, tells us that with the Lord a thousand years is as a day, and a day as a thousand year. God said to Adam, In the day that you shall eat of this fruit you shall surely die. (Gen. 2:17) Satan twisted the word in speaking to Eve and made it a natural day in order to deceive her, but that lie never changed God s day Adam surely died before that thousand years and since then no man has lived for a thousand years. Methuselah lived for nine hundred and sixty nine years. We see that everything God created in one day was brought forth in its full dimension in a thousand years, so Jesus Christ the light of the world, brought forth the moon (the church), the stars, (the sons of God), on the very fifth day in which the great lights were created. I am saying all this so that we can understand that it is FIRST THE NATURAL THEN THE SPIRITUAL. God does everything in that order. Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had a dream which was interpreted by Daniel to mean that there would be great kingdoms on earth and that the SPIRITUAL KINGDOM OF GOD would take over all the kingdoms of the world and would fill the whole earth. If we watch history and understand what God is doing, we will see that we are at a point of time where God is now bringing forth this ONE NATION out of all the nations. This one people will be a God-people, not any specific color, nationality, or denomination, but chosen ones (the eklektos), and out of these many God is making one new man with on head, Jesus Christ. The peculiar and wonderful part of it is that he had to start with a people, and so He chose the Jews. He taught them simple human cleanliness of spirit, soul, and body, and the way to overcome the rebellions that he knew would come forth in all their forces in the human realm, and how to submit to authority and live one with another in peace and unity under God. The question that stands still before us therefore, is, Are the Jews still today that arm of God that they were in the times past? Are the Jews the elect of God? We begin with Abraham who was an Elect person. God promised Abraham that he would bring an elect people out of him for one main purpose; that they would bring forth an elect man - The Seed of the Woman Jesus Christ In thee shall all the nations of the world be blessed This man Jesus was brought forth of Mary who was also an elect person, God himself being His http://sonlightdevotional.org/ 4 of 8
father. Thus God and His creation, the human race, became related and brother. The purpose of Jesus Christ then, was to bring forth an Elect people. This is God s final Election to fulfill in the human realm the plan of God for Adam when He made him to be completed in the Image and likeness of Christ. Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. We see then a SPIRITUAL ELECT people coming forth through Jesus Christ. Jesus teaches us about the Kingdom of God and this people who will come forth as the stone cut out of the mountain in Daniel, without hands. This means that it will not be by man s effort or any organizational operation; Just God, and this stone will smite the world kingdoms, destroy them by the power of God, take over with Jesus Christ the head reigning and ruling in the earth. Let us go back then to the scriptures to get a clear answer as to whether the Jews of today are still being used of God for a special work. Again we go back to Daniel and to those Kingdoms. We find that the spirits that ruled in the first Kingdom, which was the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar, the head of gold, that when Nebuchadnezzar died and his kingdom was taken away by the Medes and Persians (Iranians), that those spirits entered the Medes and the Persians who were a baser kingdom, even as silver is baser than gold. In their Governmental capacity they did not have the gold quality. To this day these spirits are trying to maximize their lust among the nations and to bring forth their natures in the human realm. When these men passed away, we find that Alexander the Great came along with still a baser kingdom. The scriptures described his kingdom as Brass. A lot of power and a lot of strength, but a baser metal than silver. This man was base in his thinking: A military genius and a destroyer of human beings. He was perverted in his whole thinking and life and died at the age of 33½ years, a worthy type of the anti-christ. (Incidentally the exact age at which Jesus Christ was crucified.) If we can understand therefore the ways of God, we will see then that the spirits from the Grecian Kingdom came down to the Romans, and the Roman Kingdom was spread over the whole world, so that the greater part of the world speak the Roman language in one form or another. We say we speak the English language, but English is only a derivative of Latin. The base of our law is the Roman Law. The whole world is under the Roman influence, although we don t know it. Some of us would hate to think that it is so, but the very religion that we have, which we call the Christian religion is more Romish than Christian. I was just thinking of the Easter we just finished celebrating. We say it is the death and resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, but VERY LITTLE OF IT HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH JESUS at all. http://sonlightdevotional.org/ 5 of 8
First the name of it is called Easter or ISHTAR, the ancient goddess of the Babylonian system which has been incorporated into Romish religion worship. Secondly the time of keeping it is not the time of the Jewish Passover which is about a month different, but the time of the worship of the goddess of fertility, Ishtar. Thirdly it is kept exactly as the heathen did thousands of years ago in worship to the heavenly host with a SUNRISE SERVICE. Ezekiel 8:14-16 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord s house which was towards the north: and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. (OBSERVANCE OF LENT). And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord s house..and their faces towards the east and they worshipped the sun toward the east. Fourthly the easter egg found no where in scripture BUT was the symbol of life used for Ishtar (Aphrodite, Venus) who was called the Madonna and was supposed to be immaculately conceived, having been born from an egg found on easter morning. Fifthly The bunny rabbit Not of scriptural origin, but a symbol of fecundity, and rightly depicting the Aphroditish nature, no wonder the Playboy club uses this as their coat of arms. Sixthly The word Easter is not a scriptural word. In Acts 12 verse 4, the translators in the King James Bible put the word Easter instead of Passover, nevertheless the word is clearly the Greek word Pascha, which means Passover and should have been rendered thus. Seventh The word of God speaks against observances of times and holydays, and there is no precedence for any such observance in scripture. Paul derided the Galatians as having been deceived and turned away from truth when he found them practicing these religious holydays: Galatians 4:10-11 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed labor upon you in vain. Our Romishness is not just with the holydays we keep like Christmas, Easter, Valentine s Day, etc. but the very construction of our Organizational System is not built upon DIVINE ORDER but on the Romish order, basically and in most cases directly opposite to Scripture and to God s order. Matthew 23:8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ. 23:9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. 23:10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. http://sonlightdevotional.org/ 6 of 8
The word master in the Greek (didaskalos) is the word from which we derive our word Doctor. The Bible directly instructs us not to call any man of God by the title Doctor pertaining to his work in the things of the Lord. We are not to call anyone father. Contrary to scripture the Roman Catholic priests are called father and the Pope means the great father. GOD S ORDER IS HERE OPENLY FLAUNTED AND DISREGARDED, because we are following the example of the Romish church. In Matthew 20:25-27 we are instructed of Jesus Christ not to exercise positional authority over the people of God, yet in every local church, we create positions of Pastor (unscriptural) Pastors are herdsmen of the sheep, but the scriptural shepherds are examples in righteousness. There is not one place in the New Testament where there was ever such a position of The Pastor. Jesus Christ is the Shepherd of the Church, but Rome instituted this, and although we say we broke away from Rome, we still practice her sins. The spirits that ruled Babylon are ruling the religious systems of today and preventing the people from walking into the true stature of ISRAEL Prince of God. The dividing of the churches into clergy and laity (Nicolaitanes Rev. 2:6 which God says he hates) is basically Romish and carnal, and not of God. It is not of God s order to have two classified types of Christians in His Body. God s order sets up Elders (older ones), servants, ministries in His church. I even hate to call it ministry because Rome has changed the word minister to mean the head of the church when originally the Latin word Minister means servant, but now it means the boss of the church. The FIVE FOLD MINISTRY Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherds and Teachers, have all been changed of Rome, and as a matter of fact they have no such order in their denominational system. The Biblical order says GOD HAS SET IN HIS CHURCH. In God s order there is no place for the Cardinals to vote in a Pope, or in a smaller sense the people to vote in a Pastor (or a herdsman). God has set, not man, yet their ministries go to their colleges, and get ordained, and get appointed to churches. There is even worse than this, for there are those who APPOINT THEMSELVES. It is not just enough for us to say Rome is wrong, and then jump on the opposite bandwagon, and go ahead and create another order. We are really standing at a place where God Himself must move in this church, and where God will judge between the sheep and the goats. I am sure He is about to judge between shepherd and shepherd, for this whole church has been Romanized. As Daniel saw it the end part of the Fourth Kingdom, which represents Rome, is iron mixed with clay. Now what has this to do with our subject? It is very, very important. What we are seeing, is really spirits working in the human realm. If a spirit had been given the authority to do something, two thousand years ago, that spirit is going to continue to do it until he maximizes, until he reaches his fullness, until he can do no more. In the word the Lord http://sonlightdevotional.org/ 7 of 8
speaks of the fullness of time. We find therefore, that God is bringing His people also to their fullness. HAS ISRAEL REACHED TO THE FULLNESS of those promises that God had given them? It does not take any great wisdom to see that the answer is NO. Has the church reached its fullness? The answer is NO. We are all therefore working and moving towards that fullness. The Church; Israel, good and evil; are all moving towards their fullness. God. This is the strongest point in our study and in our believing the word of THE CONCLUSION IS THAT THE JEWS WHO RECEIVE THE PROMISE OF THE LORD UNDER ABRAHAM, WHO LIVE IN THAT promise, must get the fulfillment of that promise. Those who are not Jews but believe as they do will also come under that promise. Those who accept the promise under Jesus Christ will come into the promise through Jesus Christ, BUT in the end all things will come under Christ ALL THEM THAT BELONG TO GOD MUST IN THE END COME THROUGH JESUS CHRIST Amen. (TO BE CONCLUDED IN THE NEXT ISSUE) http://sonlightdevotional.org/ 8 of 8