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Warfare in the Soul

This message entitled “Warfare in the Soul” was given by Brother Cecil duCille.

For more audio messages please visit Audio Messages – Foundational Teachings.

[Printable version]

Scripture reading: John 16:20-27

Ask, and Ye Shall Receive…

The first lesson I received in the power of the spoken word occurred one day when Jesus Christ came into my room during those memorable seven months in which He taught me the Bible personally. We had the usual appointment for four o’clock in the afternoon and I was in a little early, waiting upon Him. Suddenly He was there and His mood and attitude was upbeat. This means that I was lifted up in heavenly places the moment he appeared. He said, “Ask me for anything you desire and you shall have it.”

Immediately, my mind was thrown into a whirl and I could not think of anything to ask for. At first, I thought that, “Here is God; I need to ask Him for something I think He would want me to ask for.” At the same time I found myself thinking that maybe the Scripture had some translation error, which said you should ask for anything you desire. He said, “No, you ask for something that you desire, not what you think God wants you to desire.” I said, “Lord, give me a healing; let me see someone healed.”

I got His word and ran out of the room seeking for a sick person. I found a woman who was given up by the doctors to die shortly. I prayed a little prayer and spoke the word of healing to her, whereupon she got up and was totally healed. The one thing I will never forget is when she saw me inquiring from her husband if she was really sick. She laughed at me and said, “You don’t believe, do you?” It seemed to be too easy to be real.

What does it mean to ask in the name of Jesus? Unfortunately, the carnal person believes that it is by saying the words, “In the name of Jesus,” that it makes it so, but this is far from the truth. All through the Bible, we notice that the word name depicts nature. In Matthew 1:21 the angel said to Joseph:

“Thou shalt call his name Jesus (Iesous in the Greek, from Yeshua, in the Hebrew, meaning Savior); for he shall save his people from their sins.” 

A name always had a meaning. In Africa and India they would never think of naming a child by the name of a devil unless that child was specifically given to that devil. Names carry meanings and the nature of that meaning generally comes forth in the child. In the developed world, we find that some children are called names like Damian which, of course, means demon. If I were given such a name, then as soon as I become conscious of it, I would change it.

Jacob was a supplanter because that was the meaning of his name. He cheated his brother out of his birthright and robbed him of his blessing, but when he met God at Penuel, God wrestled with him all night and literally knocked the devil out of him. That night his name was changed to Israel, Prince of God, because his nature was changed.

When, therefore, we are told to ask in the name of Jesus, we are being told that we must ask as Christ Himself asks—we must ask in His nature. The angels of God that attend to us and do for us the works of God that we cannot do, can only obey the voice of God. When they hear us speak in the voice of Christ, they immediately obey, whether it be to the moving of mountains or of straws.

Whenever the believer is in the Spirit, he or she speaks with the voice of God. We know it is the voice of God (“It is God”) when:

(1) Our spirits bear witness with the spirit that speaks; and,

(2) It agrees with the written Word and the Spirit of God (which is in the Word).

In John 14:16, our Lord told us that He would ask the Father and that He would send us another Comforter.  In John 16:25-26 we are being told by our Lord that there is a day, a set time, when He will not pray to the Father for us: 25 These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. 26 At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you.

In the next verse, He gave the reason: 27 For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.

This is indeed a profound statement. Jesus Christ is actually saying that we will have the power to ask and receive as He did; that we will have an open line with the Father.

The hope and life of the church is all centered upon this one point of time, this day of the Lord. In this day, the spoken word will come to its full power. God has created both life and death in the power of the tongue.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, December 1993, pg. 9-11)

Thought for today: God longs to answer the prayers of His people. Ask in the nature of His Son and the whole heaven will move to fulfill your request.

[Printable version]

Scripture reading: John 15:1-11

…and the Word was God.” The Word is still God. He is still walking among us and living with us; and every utterance of God is God whether spoken through the Christ within or the Christ without; it will create or destroy as God Himself.

The person of Jesus Christ is alive and living with us in our daily operations. He says in Matthew 28:20, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. 

In our salvation experience, it is not just the will of God to give us the Blood of Jesus and the attributes of Jesus Christ, but He is creating in us the person of Christ Himself. Even as Mary became pregnant with the Christ child, so it is that God is impregnating our womb (soul) with Christ Himself in order to take us out of the human and incorporate us into the divine. Some of my readers might have some difficulty with this, but I am not speaking to you of some grandiose theory, but lessons which have been taught me by the Lord and which I have experienced. There is a Living Word, “Christ,” which the believer is destined to receive within his soul before he can enter into Christ. The Holy Ghost does this work. Even as He planted the seed of Christ in Mary, so the process is being repeated in the church. The apostle Paul confirms this in one of his letters to the Galatian church. Had they not been in a spiritual position to understand this, he would not write it to them:

My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).

This speaks of the forming of Christ in the believer as a fetus is formed in the womb; as Jesus was formed in Mary. It would be safe to say that the church is pregnant at this moment. Revelation 12 speaks of the woman being pregnant and in travail to bring forth the man child. This man child is none other than the fullness of Christ as the head and the Church as His Body, which is destined to rule (shepherd) the earth with a shepherd’s staff of iron:

And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule (shepherd) all nations with a rod of iron…” (Revelation 12:5).

This door is already open to us, but even as the tree of life was awesome to Adam, so that he did not eat of it when he could have done so, even so it is for us. The tree of life, which is Christ, is wide open to us at this time, but it is a dreadful and awesome place for us to enter. The Word in Genesis 3:24 says that an angel with a flaming sword was placed in the Garden to prevent man from returning into Eden:

So he drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”

The flaming sword that bars the four entrances of the soul will destroy anything human and carnal which tries to enter. The burning at the altar of incense must be complete before we can enter through the veil. Note that the veil has cherubim all over it. This is a symbol of the cherubim in the Garden of Eden. Anyone who dares to enter in will lose his life. If you think I mean he will just die, you are sadly mistaken. I mean he will lose himself totally and immediately would be persecuted by his own. He would be dubbed as absolutely crazy and his goods and estate would be taken and shared up among his family and friends as if he were dead. We had a friend who was so touched of the Lord that he began to give away large sums of his vast riches to the church. A restraining order was brought against him by his son and he nearly got himself thrown into the asylum as being demented.

You may call it the travail of the church, the burning at the altar of incense, or the great tribulation. All of these names would suffice, but our souls must be stripped of the body of this death (human thinking, feeling, hoping, and desiring) before we can receive the full power of the life of the Divine God in the soul. At present this power is in our spirits and by various means He is bombarding us to make the life (or, the Christ) come forth in the soul. The Word says that tribulation worketh patience, but I know now that it is not just patience that it works, but every grace given us of the Spirit. It is the fire that is promised by the Holy Ghost as a baptism of fire, which burns the dross out of the silver and the gold. Upon feeling the slightest sickness or pain, we run to the doctor, and our terror is complete as we hang upon the word of the doctor for his diagnosis. We are afraid of fire; we are afraid that God might burn us to cinders. In our trust and confidence in God, let us trust Him to burn the dross out of us so that when the prince of this world comes, he will find nothing in us.

At this time, just before the end of time, the Lord has begun to bombard all the souls of His people at once. This is called the great tribulation, or the travail of the Church. This bombardment has been continuing for a number of years now and it is getting worse every year. Finally, even as the plagues of Egypt got worse and worse until the culmination of the death angel being loosed at midnight, so shall it be for the world and the Church. The Church is being given the power to overcome just as Israel was in Egypt. In Egypt, they overcame the death angel with obedience to the Word and the blood. At this midnight hour, we will be overcoming with the power of the Word and the Blood:

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death” (Revelation 12:11).

In concluding this part of the word, let me say that the Living Word, Jesus Christ, is in our midst, among us and within us; and when He speaks, it is the obedience to Him that brings the results. In the first miracle of Jesus after His baptism, Mary told the servants at the feast that whatsoever He tells them to do, they should do it. Jesus told them to fill the water pots with water. They did. Then He told them to take the water to the master of the feast as wine. The moment the word went forth from Jesus Christ and the men obeyed, the water became wine:

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7).

Here is the formula for spiritual authority:

1.  Abide, abide, abide in Jesus Christ.
2. Let the Word abide in you.

The Word in you as a living person and you in Christ as a living organism – when these come together in divine unison, then every agent of God and nature must obey, for it is the Word of God.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, December 1993, pg. 7-9)

Thought for today: The Living Word, Jesus Christ, is in our midst, among us and within us; and when He speaks, it is the obedience to Him that brings the results.

The Living Word

[Printable version]

Scripture reading: John 1:1-14

The first phrase of John 1:1 tells us that God was before the beginning, since at the beginning “He was.” He Who has no beginning must have been before the beginning. This phrase, “In the beginning,” must mean, “in the beginning of our world and our realm,” since that which has a beginning must also have an end.

The Word of God transcends time and space and distance. We who walk by the Word need to constantly remind ourselves that we are dealing with a God who is outside of time and space and that His Word is timeless and unrestricted.

The Gospel of John tells us in the very first chapter that “The Word” was God and that it was the same God who manifested Himself in flesh as the baby of Bethlehem, whom we know as Jesus Christ, our Lord. He was the LOGOS. This same Christ, or Yeshua, was the living, walking, talking Word of God. This means that God, the Almighty Father, had visited us in a flesh and blood form, lived and dwelled among us, and through His Blood we, too, will be made to become the Word of God as the apostle Paul said, Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men (II Corinthians 3:2). Thus Christ Jesus, the Living Word, is bringing many sons to glory (Romans 8:29-30) and this must take place in our time.

The Greek word used in John 1 is logos, which literally means something said. Something said by God became a person. In Genesis we understand that God breathed upon a lump of clay, issued forth a part of Himself, and the clay became that which He had purposed – man, the First Adam.

Again, He issued forth His life into Mary and she brought forth a son – Jesus Christ, our Lord. Thus, we had a flesh and blood man who is God also – The Living Word. God’s word cannot die and although Jesus, the son of Mary, died, the Christ raised Him up from among the dead and we have proof that He is alive. Let me say directly and categorically that the living, walking, talking Jesus Christ is in our midst and He is working with us until we have the final victory over the human part of us, until we are changed into that which is Divine. The apostle Peter describes it in II Peter 1:4 thus, Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

We, therefore, see that the same Christ which was in Jesus is coming in us in order to make us like Him so that where He was we will be until we come to where He now is. If this is confusing to you, then I hope an explanation will not be more confusing.

In John 14:2-3 Jesus speaks of mansions and then He says a peculiar thing, “where I am, there ye may be also.” Many interpret this to mean that where He is now at the right hand of the Father, we will be. But this was not what He said or meant. He said that where He was at that moment, being the light of the world and the hope of mankind, that He was about to vacate that position and that we would be in that position. Truly, in the future we will reign and rule with Him, which is described as the right hand of the Father, but for now, we should be content to be in His place in the Earth. He was the light of the world; we are now the light of the world and that city set on a hill that cannot be hid.

Please do not be confused by the word mansions used by our Lord in John 14. He speaks of dwelling places in God, us abiding eternally in Christ, and Christ in God.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, December 1993, pg. 5-7)

Thought for today: It is God’s plan to make us like Jesus so that we would fill the place He vacated in this Earth – to be the light of the world. Then one day, we will rule and reign with Him.

The Dimensional Word

[Printable version]

Scripture reading: Ephesians 3:14-21

All of the Word of God is dimensional and none of it is natural, although it has natural dimensions. For instance, let us take the word baptism. In the natural dimension, this means being immersed in water as a spiritual covenant between the believer and Jesus Christ. In the spiritual sense, it is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In its fullness, it means the baptism into Christ. The scriptures for these three baptisms are Matthew 3:11 and I Corinthians 12:13.

I will give you another example of the dimensional Word. We can understand what peace is. One definition is the absence of war. This would be the basest plane of peace. On the other hand, we know peace to be calmness and tranquility, which is another dimension of peace. Yet, there is another and higher peace of love between persons and kindness and felicity. But the depth of peace is the peace of God which is on the fourth dimension and beyond the understanding of man.

From my experience, I remember the first day Jesus Christ came into my room and talked with me. My mind, my will, my desires, my emotions were all caught up into a heavenly tranquility, which stilled my whole body and being for the space of nine hours while He talked with me and I questioned Him concerning the Word. The Scripture describes it thus:

Philippians 4:7, And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Here we see an example of four dimensions of peace, and the fourth, which is the peace of God, passes all understanding.

We read of the dimensions in the word in Ephesians 3:17-19, That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.

From the context we see that only those who are rooted and grounded in love are able to comprehend the four dimensions. The word comprehend in this context means to lay a hold of, to imbibe and appropriate unto oneself. Thus we see the meaning extended beyond the English meaning of comprehend, or not merely to understand. The mystery of spiritual comprehension is that one does not know that he does not know the things he cannot comprehend.

In the natural, a dimension is a measurable extent of any kind as length, breadth, depth, area, volume, etc. We could describe a spiritual dimension as a spiritual realm or frequency of spiritual activity. Just as different frequencies of electrical magnetism might be carrying radio waves and television pictures all through your house while you remain in perfect calm, hearing and seeing nothing, so it is that the spirit world is all around us without our knowledge.

The Word of God and the laws of God exist on all the frequencies at the same time. When, therefore, the Word goes forth from any dimension of God, it permeates all the dimensions, even to the highest heaven and sometimes to the lowest hell. When God speaks a word on the natural plane, we must understand that as we grow in the Spirit, the same word will have a deeper meaning, and yet a deeper meaning, and yet the fullness of the meaning still lies beyond us in the heavenly realms.

There are no barriers to the dimensional power of the Word of God and this power has nothing to do with human faith or belief. One cannot say, “I will believe so and so in order that I might achieve this result or that,” because faith is not under our control, but under the control of the Word of God.

Romans 10:17, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, December 1993, pg. 3-4)

Thought for today: Even though we cannot always understand the depth of the Word of God, it is still there and available to all who dare to grow deeper in the Spirit.