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"Teaching the things concerning the kingdom of God..."
FROM THE CANDLESTICK TO THE THRONE
Part 136
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
We have pointed
out that the temple and the two witnesses are figures of a progressive unfolding of the
Lord in and through His people. The ministry
of the two witnesses issues forth out of the temple, and the two witnesses are caught up
to heaven, into a high realm in the Spirit, following which they are seen as the
The deep mystery
the Holy Spirit would make real to us here is that it is the union of the two witnesses the spirit and the word within us that conceives the manchild
within us, making us the woman ready to be delivered of the manchild. In nature every child is conceived through union of male and female, of sperm and ovum. If there be no union, no joining of two, there will
be no conception of life. God has revealed
this profound mystery of union bringing forth
life within His very own nature!
In the
increasing light with which God is filling the hearts of His elect, this scripture, Hear,
O Israel: the LORD our God is ONE Lord, bears a depth of meaning greater far and
deeper than the surface truth that there is only one true person of God. That this passage may become clearer to our minds,
scintillating in heavens light like the ray which is broken into many prismatic
hues, consider now the glorious things concealed in this mighty word of the Lord. A clear understanding of this truth will bring us
back to the significance of the conception and
birth of the manchild. The Lord our God is
ONE. One, in the numerology of scripture,
means UNITY, UNITED, UNDIVIDED, UNFRAGMENTED. One
is the primary number, denoting beginning or source. Unity
being
In reference to
His substance, God is SPIRIT. In reference to
His state of being, God is ONE. That which is
ONE is that which is UNITED, UNDIVIDED, UNFRAGMENTED.
Oneness speaks of unity, harmony, singleness, concord, solidarity. God is ONE! The
fact that there is one God must not be confused
with the truth that God is one. Surely HE alone is God! But this one God,
There can be no
doubt that each aspect of Gods being moves in perfect harmony with every other part
of His being. Here in the physical world there
are contradictions in our value system because there are contradictions in moral
philosophy, limited by finite and faltering human nature and reason. What is the ultimate contradiction in moral
philosophy? In moral philosophy, the ultimate
contradiction is between justice and mercy. The
judge, if he is a good judge, will be just. He
will not let somebody get off, without paying their dues.
Moral justice demands that evil be punished.
Because if evil goes unpunished, then the judge is a participant in the
crime, by letting it go unchecked. Justice is
one side of the coin. The other side, the
other value is mercy. Mercy says, I want
to forgive you, when you dont deserve it. And
the more undeserving you are, the deeper my mercy runs. This is a contradiction! How can you possibly combine these two creatively?
Justice and
mercy can only be harmonized by making them ONE. And
this can be done only in the realm of the God who IS ONE!
Every facet of Gods nature is unified, so that His justice is not
warring against His mercy, neither is His judgment set against His grace. Herein lies the mystery and the wonder of it all
there is no conflict in God, no contradiction!
In God, and in God alone, we see the contradictions combined, and justice
and mercy kiss each other. Christendom has
spoken of Gods justice being satisfied, as if He were an incorrigible tyrant that
must somehow be appeased. They speak of
eternal punishment as a self-evident result of Gods eternal, unchanging nature of
infinite justice. Apparently, according to
this crude theory, one is to think of two parallel lines, divine mercy and divine justice,
two divine properties, running close beside each other but
diametrically opposed to one another, each in its own right, continuing on
into infinity. Not only love, but also justice
must run its full course, and thus justice and mercy are isolated from each other endlessly. In
this view God is both INFINITELY JUST and INFINITELY MERCIFUL at the same time but
I am constrained
by the Holy Spirit of God to cry out against such a blasphemous absurdity! Our God is not
schizophrenic, He does not have a split personality!
He is not both INFINITELY MERCIFUL and
INFINITELY VINDICTIVE! The Lord our God is
ONE, all the attributes and powers of His Being are working
together in perfect accord, each
harmoniously synchronized in the same purpose and toward the same end, without any
contradiction. In the scriptural view, HIS
JUSTICE is linked inherently to HIS SALVATION. There
is no God else beside me, a JUST God and a SAVIOUR; there is none beside me (Isa.
45:21). May I add, He is a SAVIOUR because He is also JUST! His righteous nature requires that He be our
Saviour. He knoweth our frame; He
remembereth that we are dust, and He knows right well that the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath
subjected the same in hope (Rom.8:20). Does
Gods justice only demand punishment? No
way! How truly the apostle wrote, If we
confess our sins, He is faithful and JUST to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness (I Jn. 1:9). The justice of God demands that He forgive us! Thus, He is a just God and a Saviour! Isnt it wonderful!
Yes, He will correct us, and by this very correction
make the necessary changes in us, and then He will bring us into the fullness of
salvation. In Him mercy and truth are met together;
righteousness (justice) and peace have kissed each other (Ps. 85:10). These are
None of us has
stood perfectly in that unfragmented nature of God. We
have in our emotions, nature, and experience been fragmented, at times swinging to one
side and again going to the opposite extreme. We
have known turmoil, agitation, confusion, and warfare within ourselves. The flesh has warred against the spirit and the
spirit against the flesh. We have had within
us conflict between good and evil, between law and grace, between the letter of the word
and the spirit of the word, between mercy and judgment.
Some people are grace people who condemn no one for anything, while others
are law people who damn to hell everyone who doesnt measure up to their standard of
righteousness. Everything has been out of
balance! But in God there is unity. In the nature of God every attribute is harmonized
and balanced. Thats why the
Few people have
understood the great truth that every natural thing is a picture and parable of spiritual
realities. The scriptures abound with these
analogies.
In his little
epistle the apostle James makes this meaningful observation, A double minded man is unstable in all his ways
(James 1:8). Let us look for a moment at the
mysterious structure and function of the human brain the seat of human mind. For
many years it has been known that the brain has two parts called hemispheres
a left and a right. A picture of the
brain reveals that there are
The left brain. The
research has shown that the left side of the brain tends to handle logical thought,
language, abstract thinking, analysis of details, and ones ability to do
mathematics. The left hemisphere controls the
ability to speak and write so much so that people with left brain damage often are
unable to use language. More recent research
has suggested that the left side is associated with happiness, positive feelings, and even
the ability to spell.
The right brain. In
contrast to the left side of the brain, the right brain deals with the ability of people
to appreciate and produce art, to be oriented in terms of space, to be creative, to be
coordinated in sports or mechanical abilities, and to be able to appreciate anything
visual. The right side has been called the sad hemisphere
because some depressed people tend to have abnormal brain waves on the right side and when
people are deep in reflection or unhappiness they tend to gaze left as the right side of
the brain is stimulated.
People differ in
their styles of thought, outlook, and personality, depending on which half of the brain is
dominant. The great danger lies in that
abnormal condition where one side of the brain becomes too dominant producing, for instance,
either deep depression or
Some of us are
creatures of intuition (right side) while others
of us are creatures of logic (left side). A very intuitive person tends to not be very logical about many of his or her conclusions,
whereas a very logically-minded person is rarely guided by any sense of intuition. They just want the facts, Maam!
How vastly different these people can be in their understanding of and
approach to life! And this fact mirrors for us
a great truth in the realm of the spirit! Some
of the Lords people are word (spiritual left side) people, whereas
others are spirit (spiritual right side) people.
Some
This latter
class is one of the things that has given me blessed assurance and divine confidence that
the word we are hearing from God in these days is the sure word of the Lord! Let me tell you something that may come as a shock
to some who read these lines. I have a high
school diploma. That is the extent of my
formal education (though I have read and studied extensively my whole lifetime) except for
the fact that some of my high school education was at the academy of a theological
seminary where I was required to attend two hours of Bible classes daily. My high school diploma is the most prestigious
certificate I possess to adorn a wall! Yet, a
friend took some of my writings and ran them through a computer program to determine what
academic level they are written on and the analysis defined them as college level material
the work of a scholar!
Let me tell you
something else. There are many precious saints
across this great land and around the world that cant write me a letter and spell a
dozen words correctly, yet they perfectly understand everything I write and knew it before
I wrote it! So you have a man with a high
school diploma writing on college level things that are already understood by precious
little old ladies (and men) who cant tell you the difference between a noun and an
adjective! They have little education in the
learning of this world, and certainly dont know Greek or Hebrew, yet they have plumbed the depths of God by the spirit, they
comprehend the deepest mysteries of God, they have explored the celestial heights of the
eternal purposes of the Lord, they have tapped into the infinite
How do these
dear saints gain knowledge of such high and holy things?
They know them by spiritual intuition! We all know these truths by revelation, yet I
know them also on the hermeneutical and theological level where I can exegete them to
those who require scriptural proof. Through
many years I have met vast multitudes of Gods sons and daughters who know nothing of
such high-sounding terms, yet receive marvelous revelation by the Spirit of God into the
deep things of God far beyond anything I can conceive of.
Everywhere I have traveled through the years I have heard such profound
truths from the anointed lips of the most humble and unlearned of men and women. This is how the mind of the Lord works in His Spirit-led people! Truly, it is the mind of
the Lord!
I do not believe
you will be able to understand this phenomenon apart from the sacred knowledge that the
mind of the Lord works on two levels that of the spirit and the word. Just
as the human brain has two sides which function by intuition
and logic, so the mind of the Lord has two
dimensions, two spiritual hemispheres, which function on the level of the spirit and the word. As
you come to know the mind of the Lord you will know His mind in these two areas of the
spirit and the word. These are the only two
realms in which the mind of the Lord may be accessed!
One person may
say, I know the word. I have studied the
Bible and God has spoken to me out of the scriptures, and I can teach that word. Another may not have that vast knowledge of the
scriptures, but is one of those who receive truth by the spirit. We might conclude that the first person is moving
out of the left side of the mind of God, while the second person is functioning out of the
right side of the mind of God. And that is
certainly how it has been many times! But I
now earnestly pray that the Holy Spirit will give each of us the understanding that the Lord our God is ONE LORD, in Him all
attributes are harmonized, united, and unfragmented, so that nothing in God stands alone,
independent of all the opposites. Judgment and
mercy kiss each other! In wrath He remembers
mercy! He is a just God and a Saviour! Can we not see by this that there can be no
division between the spirit and the word; the two must be brought together in perfect
balance, harmony, and unity, so that there is no fragmentation of the mind of the Lord. How wonderful it is that these tremendous and
almost incredible principles are vehicles of the demonstration of the true nature and full
revelation of the glory of God! Now consider
how important is the balance and harmony between the two sides of the mind of
Christ. You have probably noticed that the
spirit without the word in mens experience often leads to fanaticism, just as the word apart from the spirit
quickly becomes error and often leads to legalism and bondage. The spirit and the word must not only agree, they must find
When you have
the spirit without the word, or the word apart from the spirit, you are moving in an
incomplete, unfulfilled, and unbalanced dimension it is like having a man without a
woman, or a woman with no husband. In the
natural I can do many things a woman usually does. I
was raised in a home with three brothers and no sisters.
So I learned how to cook. I know
how to wash dishes. I know how to clean a
house. I could do a pretty good job of all
those things before I was twelve years old! On
the other hand, my wife is more mechanically inclined than I, and at times does things
that the man normally would do.
The great truth the Holy Spirit would make
real to His called and chosen elect in this significant hour is the truth that the spirit
and the word in union within ourselves IS THE SECRET MYSTERY OF LIFE! Only through union is love known in its profoundest
depths, and only by union are children conceived. In
that long ago beginning the Word spoke and the Spirit moved (vibrated) so that out of that union
creation was brought forth (Gen. 1:1-3). God said, Let
there be
And the Spirit of
God moved upon the face of the deep
God said and the Spirit moved! These two can
The life of God
within each of us is both spirit and word, for we have been born again of the Spirit (Jn.
3:5-6) and by the incorruptible Word of God
which liveth and abideth for ever (I Pet. 1:23). The
Lord is now bringing the spirit and the word into union within each of us, so that we do
not walk in the word apart from the spirit,
nor in the spirit apart from the word. When
these two truly are united within us we become that glorious sun-clad woman of Revelation
twelve bearing within ourselves the seed of Christ, the
manchild who is to rule all nations with a rod
of iron! If, on the one hand, we seek to be a
word person apart from the spirit, we will not conceive within our womb the
manchild, the fullness of Christ. If, on the
other hand, we pride ourself in being a spirit person, walking in the spirit
with no counter-balance from the word, we likewise can
I meet many
people who have received revelation and it is revelation as a word without spirit. It is mere head-knowledge, intellectual
understanding, information, doctrine. They can
mouth all the right terminology and expound to you all the correct concepts of the
The sun-clad
woman finds herself pregnant in this heavenly or spiritual realm. The great truth is that the revelation of Christ
will plant a seed in you that will produce something!
In these days there is a fresh overshadowing
of the Holy Spirit over the elect of the
Lord that has caused it to receive seed.
CHRIST
FORMED IN US
The firstborn
Son of God came in a woman. Hidden but
growing, He came. So today the seed of Christ
has come in a people. He is hidden in them as
He was hidden in Mary. He is growing in them
as He grew in Mary. He is taking form in them
as He took form in Mary. As He came forth out
of Mary, so is He now coming forth out of our flesh to be visibly seen, manifested right
here on the earth! He will be revealed coming
out of the womb of the
Brother Bob
Torango once expressed the truth in this way: I
ministered recently to a group that the butterfly was always inside the genetics of the
caterpillar, waiting for his day of revealing. He
waited along with the worm the time of limitation, crawling on the ground, imprisoned to
the earth until an appointed time of release and together they went into the cocoon, the
worm and the butterfly, and through metamorphosis the butterfly released not just himself,
but the worm also. Together they crawled into
the cocoon, and together they soared away from the cocoon, only this time the worm was hid
in the butterfly. Christ in us the HOPE of
glory; us swallowed up into Christ the EXPRESS glory!
Some have questioned, Is sonship the manifestation of the sons of God or is it the manifestation of God in His sons? The answer is that it is both! And
if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ: if so be that we
suffer with Him, that we may be also GLORIFIED
TOGETHER. For I reckon that the sufferings
of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be REVEALED IN US. For
the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the MANIFESTATION OF THE SONS OF GOD (
I am always
blessed by the deep spiritual insights expressed in the writings of brother Carl Schwing. Some years ago he wrote the following. We have all heard stories of the near
death experience, of the tunnel of light, the mist, the fog, the clouds, the steps
of gold, the long journey upward. The stories
were beautiful, and quite detailed with the religious teachings of the old order. Our Father is loving and gracious; He only gives to
one according to their understanding
according to what they have been taught.
Remember
when we found Jesus and gave our hearts to Him and the joy we experienced? Remember when we were baptized with the Spirit and
the anointing we experienced? Remember in
48 when the fire of the Spirit fell upon the saints and the mighty signs and
wonders that followed? Remember when the Lord
called us out of the church systems and drew us unto Himself? Remember the first time you entered your closet
of prayer and had spirit converse with the Father?
Remember the first time you were seated with Christ in the heavenly places? Remember when you started your journey into the
depths of Jesus Christ? My dearly beloved,
these are just some of our profound and sacred experiences in Christ
they were, so to
speak, our NEAR LIFE EXPERIENCES. And,
they will become richer and fuller as we are drawn closer to the life we had with our
Father, and His Christ, in the Beginning. The
people of the world say we are crazy. The
church-goers would say we are backsliders and heretics.
But,
There is
infinitely more to the
There is
nothing and no one that can stop the birthing
process that is taking place today. The
power and might of the heavenlies are moving in the perfect timing of the Spirit. The Father is receiving His sons unto Himself. Their minds are being renewed and their lips are
being opened, and the first words of the Everlasting Gospel are being spoken. A glory of transcendent magnitude is falling as a
holy anointing upon them. The things that were
unlawful to speak of are being revealed to those who have taken refuge in the
depths of the Fathers greatness. The Day
of the Lord is hastening on as the fullness of the Father expands into His vast family of
sons filling them with unfading light, ageless truth, and undying love.
The
creation is on tiptoe, waiting and longing, perhaps even sensing, that the time is at hand
for the Manifestation of the Sons of God. The
world and its people are crying out for freedom; proclaiming the dawn of a new age
yet,
how little they know of what THE DAWN shall bring! Far
greater is the rising of the sons than the sunrise of the morning. They bring with them the fulfillment of all that
the creation has moaned for: Justice, Peace, Equality, and the
A
fellow-traveler in the
THE TRAVAIL OF THE WOMAN
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
Those who in
this hour yearn for the promised manifestation of the sons of God feel spiritually much
like the expectant woman whose due date for
The baby in our
The woman is in
great travail and excruciating pain to
There is a vast
company of saints today that is caught up in the travail of this birthing experience! These have been doing everything they know to do to
bring this manchild to birth and his head hasnt crowned yet, but the struggle tells
them clearly that he is on his way! It is
always painful to birth a new order in God! Ask
Moses, ask Joshua, ask David, ask Jesus, ask the apostles, ask Martin Luther, ask John
Knox and George Fox, ask the early Pentecostals yet none of them ever knew the pain
of birthing a full-grown male child a man in the full stature of Jesus Christ! Oh, how painful it is! Were going to give birth to this son, my
beloved, and that secret knowledge, that which we have pondered in our hearts, that which
we have cherished as a hope, that which we have dreamed of, fantasized about, preached
about, prophesied of, and anxiously awaited is about to be birthed in reality into our
midst! Everything will change in heaven and in
earth when this takes place!
The following
testimony by Elaine Cook is both inspiring and instructive to all who cherish the
beautiful hope of sonship. In the early
sixties, after a miraculous healing from leukemia, my husband and I and our two children
went to the mission field in
After
several years, the Lord spoke to one of the other missionaries that He would soon be
bringing me into something new. When
it came, it was the fulfillment of Proverbs 20:12: The
hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them. I began to see things, as it were, in
my minds eye, and to hear the understanding of it in my spirit. It was quite a shock at first. It is with rejoicing that we see the younger
generation the eleventh hour believers enter into this realm very quickly,
as they are taught by the revelation of the Spirit. One
of the first revelations given me was the fact that we would not be raptured
away, for the Lord purposed to bring His children unto perfection and to use them to bring
forth a righteous kingdom on this earth. It
was not hard for me to embrace this, for the rapture theory had
During the
first few weeks on the mission field, we had a most remarkable experience and the Lord has
been reminding me of it recently as if to say, Now is the time of the fulfillment of every
vision this is that. As we were sharing the evening prayer time with the
other missionary couple, the Spirit spoke to us, Consider not your pillows, but seek Me
all this night. We were quite surprised at
this request, but we all complied and sought Him obediently.
In the back of our minds we all thought wed have a rest on the
following day. No such luck! Combined, we had seven children to care for,
Once
again, for the third time, He required us to seek Him all the night. He gave us no special burden of intercession. He spoke not at all to us for those two nights. As the dawn approached
of our third day of prayer without sleep, we
felt the presence of the Lord strongly in the room. Each
of us took off his shoes, and one brother turned down the coal-oil lamp. His presence was AWESOME. Then, the missionarys wife had a vision of a
woman in travail, bringing forth a manchild. The
Lord showed her that this manchild would come forth at the dawning of the third day and that we
would experience His resurrection life such as we had
We
can know of a certainty that none of the popular churches are the sun-clad woman of
Revelation twelve that they are not is
evidenced by the fact that they are not travailing
in pain to bring forth the manchild! Oh,
they are travailing alright; some of them travail for souls to be saved, they travail for
prayers to be answered, they travail for needs to be met, they travail for healing, they
travail for gifts and ministries, they travail for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, many
travail for finances, various ones travail for revival
but not one of them is in
travail to bring forth the manchild! Therefore
they are not the sun-clad woman.
Ray Prinzing
wrote, The forming of a body within the corporate body of Christ, is a
sovereign work of God. Man cannot gender this
son company, nor take this position unto himself. God
places within the hearts of
While
others are enjoying the general fellowship of the meeting, these strange ones seem
withdrawn, groaning and seeking for a
Our Father has
conceived within His wife, those who love and obey Him above all others, the son. The firstborn Son was brought forth as a pattern. He is the first-born among many
brethren! When a woman is carrying in her
womb a son, though she has great joy at the prospect of becoming a mother, she also
anticipates with some trepidation the birth process. While
there are some helpful suggestions, there is actually no book that can truly teach one how to give birth! This fact teaches us the great truth that we are
not going to bring forth the mature Son of God out of our lives on the basis of the amount
of revelation we have or as a result of how much we know.
You could go to
When a woman is
pregnant and ready to
Dont get
ahead of God! Youre not ready yet to
unveil to the world the fullness of
Just
as Jesus instructed His disciples two thousand years ago to not depart from
I feel to close
this message with these anointed words from the pen of Carl Schwing: We all have an
immense desire for the hour when all eyes will see what the eyes of our spirit have seen. The hour when all ears will hear what the ears of
our spirit have heard. The hour when all
hearts will know what our heart has always known. And
that hour will surely come in our Fathers tomorrow.
His tomorrow is not measured in
minutes or hours, or days or years
that is why He alone knows the day and the hour we
are waiting for. There are no clocks or
calendars in the realm of the Eternal One. All
things happen at His command. He who had no
beginning
He who has no end, fills all the spaciousness and timelessness of
eternities within Himself. All things remain
in Him until He calls them forth. At present
we live in, and are part of, our Fathers today.
Therefore, let us be most sensitive to everything that is happening around
us
to every hand that reaches out to us
to every voice that is crying out
to
the whole creation that is moaning. Rest in
the knowledge that all things will be fulfilled in our Fathers perfect will and
order.
As the sun
rises above the hills, one can see the mist drifting mystically through the hollow
mist,
rising from the creek like the whispered prayers of beloved saints. And rays of sunlight, like golden trumpets,
announce the birth of a new day. At that
moment we wonder if perchance this will be the day when our Beloved will
As I was
still, and my spirit was yearning for the manifestation of the sons of God, this vision
came to me: It was sunrise
standing in the brilliance of the sun was a messenger of
the Lord. His hair was the color of a field of
goldenrod in the autumn. His eyes were as blue
as the cloudless sky. His garments were as
white as freshly fallen snow which sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. Upon his head was a crown of cedar. With his right hand waving toward the heavens, and
his left hand moving across the earth, he beckoned Gods vast family of sons to
To be continued
J. PRESTON EBY
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