KINGDOM BIBLE STUDIES

FROM THE CANDLESTICK TO THE THRONE

 

Part 137

          

THE WOMAN AND THE MANCHILD

(continued)

 

            “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun…and she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.  And she brought forth a manchild, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron…” (Rev. 12:1-2,5).

            What does it mean for this sun-clad woman to be with child?  It means that a child is in the mother’s womb, and the child and the mother are united in one body.  When the mother eats, the child is nourished.  What the mother eats, good or bad, is transferred to the child.  The condition of the mother is the condition of the child.   On the other hand, this child is different from the mother; it is another being.  If you say that they are one, it is the truth, for the child receives its life from the mother.   Yet, as far as his future is concerned, he is different.  His future is entirely distinct from that of his mother.  Immediately after he is delivered, he is caught up to the throne of God, while his mother flees into the wilderness for testing and proving, as was Job who was declared by God to be a perfect man, yet was untried and unproven.  While the woman is with child, all that can be seen is the mother; the child is hidden.  Outwardly, it appears that there is only the mother.  The child assuredly does exist, but he is hidden with the mother; he is included in the mother.  People only recognize and address the mother, although they may have been told she is with child.

            While the individual application of this truth is precious, pointing to the Christ-life conceived within each of us, concealed within the womb of the soul, ultimately to come forth in power and glory to reign over the soul and all inward powers, yet it is to the corporate truth that I would now draw your reverent attention.  For many years the body of Christ has been in a process of special preparation.  There is a people that has come to the kingdom for such a time as this!  And hidden within this body is a group of people among them.  This group is a portion of the whole, a part of the many chosen for this hour.  This is the manchild to be brought forth by the woman!  This means that the manchild is not a single individual, but a composition of many saints.  In comparison with the mother, this manchild appears to be small.  When this group is compared with the whole, their number is in the minority.   But God’s plan is fulfilled in them and His purpose rests upon them.  As the mother is the final glory of the church age, the manchild is the firstfruit — the glory and power of the greater and more glorious age to come!   The woman gathers within her the harvest of this age at the end of the age, whereas the sons of God inaugurate and establish the new order of the kingdom of God for the coming age.

            This is the revelation of Jesus Christ — that God be manifested in the totality of His divine nature, wisdom, and power in a company of sons born from this Virgin Church, into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.  The church will come to perfection in its realm.  God will see to it that the Holy Spirit brings her to perfection.  There is approaching the day when she comes into her glory and fulfills her perfect work, but she will never be the sonship company nor do his work.  In spite of the fact that she will finally be brought to perfection, she is not God’s final revelation of Jesus Christ.  She is His bride!  A sonship company must be born out of this bride-church.  Then in the union of the masculine and feminine nature of God shall be seen the full revelation of Godhood.  Great is the mystery!

            This woman, the Virgin Church, dwells in heaven, in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus!  Not everything that calls itself a church is spiritually a virgin.  Nor do they dwell in heaven!  The vast majority of  “churches” function on a very low earthly realm of carnality.  Not everyone who calls himself a Christian is an overcomer.  But this woman is an overcoming woman!  She is a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle, and she is clothed with the sun of righteousness, the moon of religion is under her feet, and she is crowned with the illumination of the mind of Christ in God’s divine order.  The purpose of this woman is not to draw a crowd, not even to save the world.  Nor is her purpose to bless people with superficial benefits, profit, and favors, nor even to birth millions of more little babies in Christ.  The great purpose of God in this woman is to develop something mature within herself and give birth to something that has never been birthed before in the history of the world.   

            This child, as we have previously pointed out, is a full-grown male — a man!  He represents an order we have not experienced before!  This order has not been seen yet, but she’s been carrying it for the symbolical nine months and speaking to her family about it.  She says, “I have a new order in me; I don’t know much about it, but the glory of the Lord and the power of the Highest that has come upon me has impregnated me with it.   I have had this revelation in me for many, many years and it has been growing and increasing within me until I am pained to be delivered.  I can’t tell you much about it, but it feels powerful!”  This manchild is not an apostle, he is not a bishop, he is not a prophet, he is   not an evangelist, nor is he a pastor or a teacher.  All of those ministries have been given to the woman to assist her in nurturing this manchild unto the event of his birthing.  

            Many who read these lines have been apprehended of God to sonship.  Still, we all know that though the sonship life is growing up in us, we have not yet been “birthed” into manifest sonship.  That is why we have not now been given throneship authority and power!  We have not been able to go forth and do the “greater works” Jesus promised!  We ourselves, as our mother, are waiting for the birthing!  A man’s birth is the most important event in his life.   It is only by his birth that he comes into the possession of his own separate being.  It is only by his birth that he begins to enter upon his proper life.  A fetus has no birth certificate and therefore no legal standing.  The fetus has no recorded name, no legal identity, no social security number, no right of inheritance.  Under the law of Moses if a man attacked a pregnant woman and caused her to miscarry, he was made to pay a fine to both husband and judge.  But if the aborted child was old enough to survive and he then killed the child after it came forth from the womb, he was charged with murder and paid with his life (Ex. 21:22-23).  All through the scriptures great importance was attached to birth and nearly all things were determined and established from the time of birth.

            Hence the birth of this manchild must needs be the chief event of all history — the event on which his separate and proper existence as well as everything in his future destiny depends.  Without this birth he comes to nothing, and his entire purpose miscarries.  It is the point to which everything of the church age points, and from which the age that follows dates its beginning.  Of what kind is this birth?  It is not literal birth, for the woman is not a literal woman, but a corporate body and a city.  It is not spiritual birth, or regeneration, for the persons constituting this child are already born of the Spirit.  It is symbolic birth, yet the symbol stands for a glorious reality!  It is a birth, a resurrection into a new and higher order of relationship, life, calling, and ministry in the kingdom of God.  In a word, this great and glorious birth is the entrance of the sons of God into incorruption and immortality!  The ministry of the church is to “build up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:11-16). The ministry of the sons of God is to deliver creation from the bondage of corruption — from sin, sickness, sorrow, and death in all its forms (Rom. 8:19-23).  The manchild is truly begotten, generated, quickened by the Holy Ghost, and full of prophetic yearning for what is beyond; but he is not yet born.   These sons of God are still invisible, hidden, enclosed, and restrained.  They do not yet know fully what they shall be.  They pulsate with a heavenly and divine life, but it remains for them to be set free, to themselves be “brought forth,” to be “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.”  “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even now we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption (Greek: son placing), to wit, THE REDEMPTION OF OUR BODY” (Rom. 8:22-23).   That is the mystery.

            A birth is a manifestation, a bringing to light, the making visible of what was before invisible.  It is the presentation to mankind of the fullness of divine, incorruptible, and immortal life!  It is the manifestation of the sons of God!  It is Christ, Head and body, coming to light, the many sons brought to glory revealed in all the majesty of their glorious Head, in the power of His resurrection!  Here, then, is a most momentous birth!  It is the greatest birth of all time.  It is a birth experienced only by one Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the firstborn from the dead!  But it is a birth to be experienced by all who have received the call to sonship!

            No saint ever trod where we are treading.  Millions trod in their appointed paths, did their work, triumphed gloriously, and entered heaven.  But, although the same spirit, the same faith, and the same love animates and sustains us, as it did them, our road into the kingdom purposes of God for this day is a very different one to their road in the first and all succeeding centuries of the church.  They never stood in the hour we stand in.  They never had the vision we have seen in God.  They never had the work to do that we have.  No man has ever walked in this place before!  There are no precedents for the dealings of God and our response to them in this generation!

            There are many across the land today who call themselves “the manifested sons of God” and make much of their exalted position in the kingdom.  Of course we must take their word for it, for in many I fail to detect either the holiness of character or the awesome authority and power that attend such a high calling.  How sickening it is to hear men who have nothing boasting that they possess all things!  Sons do not become sons merely by asserting that they are sons.   A great evil among those who would be sons today is that they proclaim their own sonship.  How often are they merely self-styled and self-appointed sons!  The model Son did not proclaim His own sonship.  “If I bear witness of myself,” He said, “my witness is not true.  The Father Himself, which hath sent me, HE HATH BORNE WITNESS OF ME” (Jn. 5:31,37).

            The apostle Peter tells us in words freighted with wonder how the disciples were convinced of Christ’s sonship.  “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and manifest presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty.  For HE RECEIVED FROM GOD THE FATHER HONOR AND GLORY, when there came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory, THIS IS MY BELOVED SON, in whom I am well pleased.  And this voice WHICH CAME FROM HEAVEN WE HEARD, when we were with Him in the holy mount” (II Pet. 1:16-18).  When a person does actually come to the manifestation of sonship he will never need to declare his sonship, for it is the Father who both sends and announces the sons.  There is no need for a manifest son to stand up and tell the people that he is a son of God, or that he is reigning with Christ, or that he will never die, or that he is infallible, or that he is in some mystical way reconciling creation, for the Father Himself will declare him, if indeed he is a son of God; and from that blessed moment forward his word will be with such authority and his actions will speak with such power that there will be no need for him to utter a word concerning himself.  Those who gather about will cry, “Truly, this is a son of God!”

            What this first Son, Jesus, spoke came to pass.  It was impossible for Him to speak a falsehood or to say anything that would not come to pass.  He made it very plain that what He was saying to the people was not His own word.  But whatever He did speak to them, they could know and understand that it was the word of the Father — THE SOURCE.  It was the Father speaking through the Son.  Jesus made it plain that He did not come to do His own will, but the will of the Father.   He did not speak of Himself or out of his own imagination, desire, or will.  It was entirely the will and word and work of the Father!  THEREFORE THERE WAS NO POSSIBILITY THAT IT COULD BE WRONG, and therefore the winds and the waves, the diseases and the devils, the elements and all things OBEYED HIS COMMANDS!

            Jesus spoke of other sons who would stand in the same position before the world and before the Father in which He Himself stood.  They would enjoy the same privileges He enjoyed, but they would also share the same responsibility that He bore from the Father.  They would speak the same word of authority and do the same works and show forth their glory in the times when His body would grow up unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.  When Jesus said, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also,” this most emphatically was not a reference by Jesus to the so-called second coming or to some golden-streeted city in the sky.   Jesus is here telling the apostles, and telling us through them, that they, and we, will stand before humanity and before God in exactly the same position in which He Himself stood and stands.  Jesus most definitely spake not of going back to heaven, getting a construction crew together, and proceeding to build a lot of mansions.  He was telling them, and us, that He is preparing a place in the kingdom of God, a palace in divine sonship, a place in the throne of the universe — a place there for us!

            Truly we are pregnant with the manchild!  However, we must also know that we are not destined to live forever in the womb of expectancy.  There is a time for the baby to be born!  A woman can conceive; but she will not remain pregnant forever.  In due time she must bring forth that which was conceived in her.  In due time we must also bring forth that  which is conceived in us.  “Timing is everything!”  How often have I heard that expression applied to almost every area of life!  Timing, for example, is important when it comes to a marriage proposal.   You cannot “pop the question” too soon, in case it might overwhelm the other person.  But you can’t wait too long either!  Timing is also important when you are trying to find a job that fits your training and ability.  Having your resume in at just the right time and place can make all the difference in getting a great job or missing out.  Timing is also important when it comes to finding and fighting disease.  Early treatment can mean the difference between life and death.  Often the difference between failure and success is related to timing.  By the time Jesus was finally born, God had prepared all the nations and had brought them to the point where they could hear of Him, believe on Him, and receive Him.  The world was united under one empire with roads, communication, and commerce unto its farthest extremities, by which the apostles traveled and the gospel spread to the ends of the earth.  The conception of Jesus in Mary’s womb was one small part of the plan.  But the timing was perfect!  “When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son…” (Gal. 4:4).   God has a time for His manchild to come forth and stand up in the earth!

            This truth is graphically illustrated by the testimony of a dear brother, Douglas Clark.  He writes, “On Friday, June 30^th I drove to Battle Creek Michigan to meet some friends at Don Pablo’s for dinner at 5 p.m.  I estimated it would take me one hour and forty-five minutes to get there.  Unfortunately I left ten minutes late, plus I had to get gas, take an alternate route due to construction, and to top it off, I got behind a slow moving farm vehicle for about five miles.  As I reached my destination I pulled into the parking lot, found a parking space and turned off the ignition.  I glanced at my watch to see the time and it was five p.m. to the second!  In a thousand attempts I could not have made that happen.  There were so many variables, yet I managed to arrive at the appointed time.

            “This is what the Lord is doing with each of us individually.  We are often filled with stress thinking we are running late, taking an alternate route, or dealing with some obstacle in our way, yet God’s plan will be accomplished right on schedule.  He has taken all the variables into consideration!  It is happening with all of us individually, but the sweet surprise that awaits us is that our individual experiences will supernaturally fit together in such a way that will display a corporate picture of the body of Christ for the entire world to see at God’s appointed time.  This will be in contrast to what man is doing through his hierarchical and horizontal control.  No matter how hard we try, WE CAN’T MAKE GOD’S THING HAPPEN.  There is a divine order that has been preordained and nothing we can do will hasten it or prevent it.  God’s promise to Abraham that his descendants would be so many in number that they would be uncountable, like the dust of the earth, was a promise that Abraham could not bring about by his self-effort.  The same is true for us.  We must wait on God to do what He says He will do.

            “Isaac, the promised son, was the seed of Abraham, but he was conceived by divine intervention.  Like Abraham, this is where we get confused.  We each feel the heartbeat of the Holy Spirit and the inner knowledge that God wants to manifest Himself in and through His people.  It is the waiting for the appointed time that challenges us, and exposes the ‘self’ life that refuses to be still.  Notice that God’s timing always happens in a way that is impossible for man to fulfill.  ‘Is anything too hard for the Lord?  I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son’ (Gen. 18:14, NIV).  Sarah didn’t conceive until it was well beyond her time to bear children.   The best we can do in our attempt to help God fulfill His purposes is to conceive an Ishmael!

            “Two opposing moves are unfolding in the earth today, and yet each of these manifestations will fulfill His purposes.  One will reveal the futility of man’s efforts as it seeks to tighten its grip upon God’s people, refusing to let God’s people go!  The other move will manifest the nature and life of God in His people independently, completely orchestrated by the Holy Spirit.  The move of futility that even now is revealing itself is very much like what happened to Saul.  He was told to wait in Gilgal seven days until the appointed time when Samuel would join him.  He did wait the seven days, but just when he was so close to being obedient he rushed ahead, deciding to offer up a burnt offering to God.  Then just as he finishes Samuel shows up!  He was so close but he failed to wait for the appointed time. (That’s when Samuel rebuked Saul, saying, Obedience is better than sacrifice!).   The appointed time is not just about the appointed day, but the appointed moment!  You won’t find a clearer picture of what is happening today than Saul’s example.  Just when we are so close to experiencing the manifestation of the kingdom of God in the earth many have surmised the situation and have decided it is up to us to make things ready.  The judgment of those who are like Saul will be severe.  Yet when their plans come crashing down the Holy Spirit will come to them in reconciliation and they will be saved through the flames of fire!”   — end quote.

            With these thoughts filling our hearts let us approach the heavenly wonder John saw that day when he was caught up in the spirit and witnessed the birth of God’s manchild.  We use the term “manchild” because we are all familiar with it from the King James Bible; of the many key phrases of scripture, however, that fall short of expressing the original thought, this one is notable.  Neither man nor child is correct!   Of the three Greek words translated “man”, this one has the least claim to it, for English has an exact equivalent, and that word is male.  Though all men are of the male gender, yet the meaning is not precisely the same.  John was simply identifying this one birthed as a male in contrast with a female.  Then the word “child” is defective and misleading, for the Greek word huios meaning “a mature son” shows that, though newly born, this was not a helpless infant by any means!

            Nearly all who read these lines are aware that in the scriptures there is a vast distinction between “childhood” and “sonship,” which is practically obliterated by most Bible translations.  Sonship involves a maturity, a dignity, a position, and responsibility which is not the case with childhood.  All who believe are the children of God!  All have God for their Father.  In a broader sense God is the Father of the spirits of all men.  But it is only in the measure  that we express the Father in the maturity of His nature, character, mind, will, wisdom, love, glory, and power that we are sons.  If you see a sign on a business that reads BROWN AND SON HARDWARE you certainly would not expect to walk into that store and find Mr. Brown with his one-year old male child nearby in a play-pen!   BROWN AND SON indicates a father and his grown, mature, son who shares the ownership and responsibility of the business  That is the scriptural concept of  sonship! 

There is blessing and satisfaction for us in the certainly that we are God’s children.  But there is glory and honor, authority and power, manifest through us when we become mature sons!  This is what is involved in the expression used here.  The way the Greek text actually reads is, “And she brought forth a son — a male!”  Is not every son a male?  Of course, but in the Greek this is a very unusual phrase.  Perhaps we shall still better get into the spirit of it if we borrow a slang phrase from the street, and translate it: “a son — a he-man!”  It is vehement, almost a fierce assertion of the virility of this one born of the woman, as if John means to say that here comes a regular two-fisted fighter, a mighty one, an invincible one, who shall conquer and triumph over all!  And he is born that way!  God is in the business of making men — “sons of God” (Rom. 8:19).  “Son of” is a Semitic idiom used throughout both the Old and New Testaments meaning “like.”  Hence, “sons of God” signifies “men like God” — men like Himself in nature, character, knowledge, wisdom, truth, love,  glory, and power.   And how is this handiwork accomplished?  By what “master stroke” does He bring such “sons” into being?  By fashioning them in the womb of the “woman” and birthing them into the world of mankind!

            The mysterious types, shadows, parables, and allegories of the Bible have always been a source of joy and amazement to me.  One of the most remarkable is the birth of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah in which we find a beautiful type of the birth of the manchild in this our day.  “For the promise that he should be heir of the world was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.   Therefore it is of faith…as it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations, before Him who he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.   Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.  And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: He staggered not at the promised of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform.  And therefore it was imputed unto him for righteousness”  (Rom. 4:13, 16-22).

            Abraham was fully persuaded that what God had promised He was fully able to perform.  The reason I speak into God’s people in this hour the word of manifest sonship is because I firmly believe that what God has promised He is fully able to perform and shall do so.  I believe God’s word to us is sufficient to bring this manchild to birth.  That’s faith!   Faith is simply trust in the promise of God!  When Abraham believed that God was able to perform His word to him, to give a son, he himself was an old man, as good as dead.  His body was probably still producing sperm, but his delivery system was no longer working and there was no Viagra in those days!  His wife was an old woman, her womb was dead, in the terminology of that time, and obviously she was no longer ovulating.  There was no possible way in the natural that she could have conceived a child, but he didn’t let those circumstances speak louder than God’s word to him.  He was fully persuaded that what God had spoken, regardless of his physical condition, regardless of Sarah’s physical condition, God was able to perform.  When Sarah heard that she was going to birth a baby, she laughed!   She thought God was making a joke!  And God spoke to Abraham and said, “Where is Sarah?  I heard her laugh!”  Then Sarah was embarrassed — “He heard me laugh!”

            When God speaks His blessed, wonderful promise into our hearts we find it difficult to believe that such a thing can really come to pass.  That Christ will be birthed out of us as a full-grown Christ — how impossible that seems!  That we will be the manifest sons of God and deliver creation from the bondage of corruption — surely that is too high for us!  That God is impregnating us with the salvation of the world — who can believe such a thing!  Beloved brethren, God is impregnating our soul with the seed of Christ and that holy thing which shall be born of us shall be called the Son of God!  I’m not ashamed to tell you that the Christ-child is being formed in my soul!  I say that in spite of my weaknesses, for I have within me the same flaws and limitations of my humanity which are common to all men; sometimes I do things I don’t want to do, and I don’t want you to do them either, but this one thing I will not do — I will not stagger in unbelief, I will not deny the work of God in me, I will not contradict the promise of God to me, I will not refute the word that is gone out of His mouth, and I will not depart from being fully persuaded that the beautiful promise and the bright hope of  sonship to God that He has conceived within me — HE IS FULLY ABLE TO PERFORM IT!   Oh, the wonder of it!

            My father in the flesh was a Pentecostal minister, and by God’s design, he was stuck in Pentecost.  The Lord moved my wife and me on into a deeper move of the Spirit, into a further word, and I remember I used to talk with my did, and of course, I wanted him to see the glorious things we were seeing in the Spirit.  I wanted him to have an ear to hear, but he never could hear.  So usually our discussions would end up in an argument.  One day the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me, and the Lord said, “Leave him alone!  He is in the realm that I have appointed him to, and he will not be in another.”  And you know, that brought me a great peace, because now I was able to fellowship with him on the level that he could fellowship with me, without strain or condemnation, realizing that he was in the place that God ordained for him, and I was in the place that God had ordained for me.

            My father died almost fifty years ago, and he passed away in the Pentecostal realm, just as the Lord had said.  Shortly after he passed away, the Lord gave me a dream.  In this dream I was in the living room of our home and all of my family was there, my father and mother, my brothers, my wife and our kids were all there sitting in chairs and sofas around the walls.  My dad was sitting on the end of a sofa and looked exactly the way he did just before he died.  Nobody was saying anything, we were just there.  Suddenly my dad looked up, gazed intently across the room into my eyes, and said, “P-r-e-a-c-h   t-h-e  MANCHILD!”  Immediately I awoke out of that dream and in that very instant I knew two things by the Spirit.  I knew that now my dad knew something that he did not know here in the flesh.  But I also knew that he represented a cry that comes from the very realm of death itself, the cry of the groaning creation, that is groaning for the manifestation of His Life.  It is the cry of creation for the manifestation of the sons of God who shall deliver creation from the bondage of corruption!

Would you like to meet Jesus — hear Him speaking, see Him in action, know His personality?  Don’t just depend of a religious system or on what other people say.   Come and see for yourself!  Go to a house where Jesus is having dinner.  Hop into a boat with Jesus and His disciples.  Sit on a grassy hillside and listen to Jesus tell stories.  Walk with Him down the dusty roads and see how He relates to people.  Notice who likes Him, and why.  Notice who hates Him, and why.  Come and see!  How can you do that?   Do you need a time machine to take you?   No, you just need to come into the presence of those in whom Christ is being formed!  When you see the life of one truly called  to sonship you will behold Jesus in whatever measure He is developed in that life.  Oh, how creation groans, and how we  groan within ourselves to SEE JESUS IN ALL HIS GLORIOUS AND ETERNAL FULLNESS REVEALED IN THE SONS OF GOD!

            That is what the Transfiguration showed, that within the body of that carpenter was the fullness of the glory of God.  On that mountain it shone out through Him until His face became brighter than the noonday sun.  The glory of God radiated everything!  That is what we are coming to: The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ shining in our hearts and radiating out to enlighten and transform all mankind.  On that mountain the glory was so bright that you could not see the physical man.   After it was all over “they saw no man but Jesus only,” but in that hour all that could be manifested was the glory of the Father, the radiance of  His life and power, and the Father witnessed of the One through whom the glory shone, “This is my beloved SON, hear ye HIM!”

            We are moving into the hour when the glory of Christ shall so fill the sons of God that no longer will we be living by the works of the Lord, but we live only by the Father Himself dwelling in us.  In this state we will no longer rejoice in what God has done for us and is doing for us, but there is a rejoicing in the Father Himself, for He is the total reality of our being.  The hour will come when we will not ask the Lord to do anything more for us, for the Father will be manifested, expressed, revealed in all His fullness in His sons.  A son of God is not a spiritual baby that has to ask and beg for things, be cared for, watched over, provided for and corrected.  “The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the Father” (Gal. 4:1-2).  When you become of age no tutor can tell you, “Get down there and do your homework.”  No governor can tell you, “It’s time to go to bed.”  From now on, what Christ is, becomes the expression.  If at this hour we still need God to “do” for us rather than for Christ to “become” in us, then we are not ready for any revelation or unveiling.   When God sends His sons forth, He sends them forth as those in whom Christ is so fully formed that it is not a matter of needing God to do anything more, for Christ has “become” in us!

            Does there need to be more light?  Yes, but no longer light coming to us, but more light radiating out from us.  Does there need to be a greater expression of grace?  Of course, for “wherever sin abounds, grace shall much more abound.”  God is raising up sons in whom Grace Himself will be fully manifest.  Does there need to be love?  “God Himself will be with them, and be their God” and God within will be love.  It will be love in expression rather than love in reception.    The love of God shall be shed abroad, no longer will we get something out of it.  In the sons everything is turned around!  Sonship is the unveiling and expression of the Father so that when there is more grace needed, or more love, or more life, or more wisdom, or more strength, or more power, it will be there — not coming to us, but flowing out from us.   “Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water.”  When Christ is truly formed in us it is no longer a matter of what we are getting, but of what is flowing out of our innermost being!

            This is what our heavenly Father is bringing us to!  May Christ be so revealed in all of us is my prayer and my deepest desire.  May there no longer be the cry in our heart, “Oh God, do something more for me,” for that leaves me with myself on my hands.  The secret of Jesus was that for three and a half years He did not need to be more consecrated, He did not have to be  more dedicated, He did not have to learn any more lessons, He did not need any more re-fillings, He did not have to be more victorious, all He had to do was let the Father live out through Him.   Ah, let it be so in us!  May Christ be so fully formed in us that the work He is doing in us will finally come to an end, and Christ will be all-in-all!  This will mean the birth of the manchild!

            NOW HEAR THE WORD OF THE LORD!  When God’s spiritual work in the mind, heart, nature, and character is finished in each of His sons, the sign that the hour for the manifestation of the sons of God has arrived will be given throughout the whole earth.  On a day much like today, those who have been fully awakened within and transformed into His likeness in spirit and soul, will step into another dimension.  Suddenly, instantaneously, and simultaneously every sickness and disease in each and every body of all the sons of God will be totally and permanently healed.  This will be the most astounding mass miracle of the ages!   A shuttering will run through their bodies.  In an instant these sons will burst into the resplendence of the shimmering glory of God brighter than the noonday sun!  Incorruptible life will surge forth from within, quickening their mortal bodies with vibrant, self-perpetuating life!  It will be as it was in the garden tomb on that heaven-blest morning when the Lord Jesus suddenly came back to life, shook off the shackles of mortality, and arose triumphant from the realm of death!  Their minds will at the same time be expanded with divine wisdom, understanding, and discernment!  All things will become open and known!  It will be as though God “downloaded” His mind into their mind!   The secrets of the universe will become as clear as the letters of the alphabet!  Creative power will flow from their mouths and their hands!  The secrets of men’s hearts will be revealed and they will know all that is within man; but they will not be permitted to speak these things except in private; for God sends not His sons into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through them may be saved!  Only mercy, grace, omnipotent love, and redeeming power will flow forth to mankind!  No man on earth — rulers, educators, economists, psychologists, scientists, doctors, military generals, or any other will be able to gainsay their words, and should any try to capture them they will simply vanish before their eyes, and to kill them will be an impossibility!  But the very first sign that the hour of manifestation has arrived will be the sudden, instantaneous, and simultaneous HEALING OF EVERY SICKNESS AND DISEASE IN THE BODY OF EVERY SON!  You can watch for that sign that the day of full redemption and manifestation is here!  Some will not receive this word, but it does not matter.  The sign will be fulfilled, and glorious shall be the Day unto those who are appointed unto it! 

                                                                                                                                   THIS IS THE BIRTH OF THE MANCHILD!

On Tuesday morning, January 28, 1986, at 8:30 in the morning, the Challenger exploded.  America was galvanized in a shock that brought us together unlike anything since the assassination of President Kennedy, and surpassed only by the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001.  I’m sure I could ask each of you who are of sufficient age to remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard the news of any of these three events, and you would be able to tell me!  I remember!  I first heard the news of President Kennedy’s assassination at the airport in La Paz, Baja California, Mexico.  I had just attended a Convention near La Paz, and was flying back to our mission work on the mainland of Mexico.  We were told that the President had been killed, Vice President Johnson had died of heart attack when the tragedy struck, and we flew back to the Mexican mainland believing that was the case!  When the Challenger exploded I was working on Kingdom Bible Studies in my office in the converted garage of our house in Crystal River, Florida.   When the news broke Lorain called me and I moved into the living room to watch the story on television.  I will never forget it!  And when the Towers fell we were on a brief vacation on South Padre Island, Texas.  We saw the story unfold in the news before our first morning swim in the Gulf of Mexico.  I repeat all this to point out that you, I, and the whole world will remember forever where we were and what we were doing on the day and at the time when the sons of God are manifested!   Oh, yes!

            The manifestation of the sons of God has not yet taken place.   There are the “normal” workings of God — as if anything God does could be considered “normal”!  But there are the on-going, day to day activities of the Holy Spirit — all of them supernatural happenings, but all of them that which we are accustomed to experiencing.  The ongoing salvation of souls, the continual manifestation of gifts and ministries in the church, blessings of healing and deliverance, answers to prayer, meeting of needs, changing of lives, the progressive revelation of truth, testings and trials, the processings of God to conform us into the image of the Son.  Then there are the “interventions” of God.  The interventions of God are sudden happenings of God by which the course of human history is literally changed because God comes on the scene in an unexpected and accelerated fashion.   The scriptures usually announce an intervention of God by using the word “suddenly.”

            In Luke 2:13, of the birth of Jesus, we read, “…and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host.”  The annunciation of the Incarnation was a divine intervention.  Here’s a great one: “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all   with one accord in one place.  And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.  And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:1-4).  There in that upper room, united in their faith in Christ and in their holy mood of expectancy, these humble disciples received their marching orders and were empowered to carry them out.  They had had a long period of teaching and preparation; they had spent many hours in prayer and holy waiting.  The great day came for them on Pentecost, and they were ready to march.  March they did, right into the heart of the pagan world!  The Holy Spirit guided them step by step.  He told them where to go, what to say, what to do.  He walked in them and worked with them, confirming their word with mighty signs, wonders, and miracles.  Armed with the word of God, the love of God, and the power of God, they were unconquerable and turned the world upside down and changed the course of history!

            Then there was poor Saul of Tarsus, who ran headlong into a blinding suddenly:  “It came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come nigh to Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light about me” (Acts 22:6).  In Malachi 3:1 we read of another intervention of God — one reserved for our day:  “And the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple…”  This is a divine intervention — when God suddenly comes to His elect in a manner different from, and infinitely more powerful and glorious than His normal workings throughout the past age.   Glorious as the ministry of the early apostles and disciples was, and great as were the signs and wonders that accompanied it, it was not the manifestation of the sons of God to set creation free from the bondage of corruption.  Oh, no!  The apostles all died.  They established the church, the body of Christ, in the earth…but most of the world continued on much as before and all the blessed saints grew old, sick, and passed on.  The great apostle Paul, in spite of the power of his ministry, said that he and all the saints along with the whole of the created universe was groaning and travailing in pain waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.  The object of this groaning is that the entire creation itself shall be set free from the tyranny of sin, sickness, sorrow, limitation, corruption, and death!   Aren’t you glad!

            We stand in an hour not unlike the days preceding the day of Pentecost.   The next great feast, the feast of Tabernacles, is about to “fully come.”  The Christ is among us in a fresh manifestation of His presence, there is a new message going forth, a declaration concerning the next step and phase of the kingdom of God, there is a unique dealing of God, and a manifestation of ministry.  The greater glory to come, the manifest sons of God upon the heavenly mount Zion, the City foursquare coming down from God out of heaven, the tabernacle of God among men, the new order for the new age, will be birthed suddenly and sovereignly from the womb of the Virgin Church, and it will be the work of GOD HIMSELF when the fullness of time has arrived. 

Let no man deceive you!  Manifest sonship is not yet a reality in the earth!  The revelation of it has come, the hope has been conceived in our hearts, the preparations are in progress.  But most of those who currently proclaim sonship are still walking in the old order of Pentecost with their church meetings, praise service, preaching, gifts of the Spirit, etc.  Others who have been separated by the Lord even from this are alone with the Lord waiting…but they have not been birthed into the new order, either.  A new revelation has come to God’s called and chosen saints, but not a new order.  Nor even a new state of being.  You may not agree with me, my brother, my sister, but nevertheless I tell you the truth.  The Lord of glory will suddenly appear in His greater temple in the manifestation of incorruptible life and nature, and immortal power and glory — with no carnal efforts or soulish works to produce it.  In the fullness of time God will send forth His sons and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed before the face of all nations, tongues, tribes, and peoples — by a sudden, powerful, divine, incorruptible, sovereign move of God! 

            THIS IS THE BIRTH OF THE MANCHILD!

To be continued…                                                                                        J. PRESTON EBY