The Ark of the Covenant was sealed, not by pitch and tar which was designed to withstand water, but by GOLD, which is only purified by fire, not destroyed by it. When Noah came out of the Ark, God showed him the sign of the rainbow, which meant that no more would the earth be destroyed by water, but by fire. The earth here means humanity, since although the earth was destroyed in the time of Noah, “terra firma” still remained.

The Ark, of course, represents the LAST CHURCH, which will come forth on earth and is of the sixth church, the church of the Overshadowing. This last church, therefore, is called the church of the Manchild.

INSIDE THE ARK

On the inside of the Ark, there was the “testimony” which God gave Moses. This was, of course, the Ten Commandments. This represents the divine order of God, which He is planting in the hearts of His people. God’s law is being written in the nature of man, so that we will no longer need anyone to tell us what to do, but we will have the nature of Him who works within us.

THE GOLDEN POT OF MANNA

There were two living miracles in the Ark. They were the pot of manna which never grew stale, as a sample of the food that God fed the children of Israel with for FORTY YEARS, and a dried branch or rod which budded overnight and brought forth fruit.

Exodus 16:33, “And Moses said unto Aaron, Take a pot, and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay it up before the Lord, to be kept for your generations.”

This manna represents the Christ-life: energy food which we shall receive in the Spirit to bring forth the works of power which we will need on earth. Psalm 78:25 calls it angels’ food. “Man did eat angel’s food.”

Revelation 2:17b calls it “hidden manna.”

“To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna.”

This manna represents Spirit energy. Our realm is being robbed of all the energy to bring forth life that God has endowed us with, and there is not one man of us, who is satisfied with the power to deliver humanity which we have. There is such great disparity between what our Bible says, and what we achieve.

THE PROMISE

This Revelation 2:17 promise gives us hope. There is the promise of power; the promise of an energy-forming food enabling the Manchild to rule the nations with a shepherd’s staff of iron.

WHO IS THIS MANCHILD?

To understand who and what the Manchild is, we must first search the scriptures, and see what references are made of him, his work, and his destiny. We will first take some of the types in the Bible of the Manchild. From these we will see something of the work which he is to do in the last days. He is called a Manchild, because God is making all His people into one, with one HEAD which is CHRIST. We can see from the outset here that the Manchild is a many-membered body. God sees this one-man company coming upon the world in the last days, and delivering the earth from heathen rule. This Manchild company will follow Jesus in his ministry as a flesh and blood human being, and then he will follow Jesus through death and resurrection.

Types of the Manchild and where found in Scripture.

1. Samson – Judges 13-16
2. Gideon’s 300 – Judges 6-8
3. Ezekiel’s Army of Dry Bones – Ezekiel 37
4. Elijah – 1st Kings 17; 2nd Kings 2
5. Elisha – 2nd Kings 2-13
6. Joel’s Army – Joel 2
7. Manchild – Revelation 12:5
8. 144,000 – Revelation 7 and 14
9. Moses – Exodus
10. Joshua – Joshua
11. Zion – 2nd Samuel 5:7; Spiritual Zion, which refers to the elect of God – a people out of a people – Isaiah 4:5, Isaiah 51:16
12. Firstfruits – Revelation 14:4
13. The Overcomers – Revelation 3:12
14. Enoch – Hebrews 11:5
15. Melchisedec – Hebrews 7:1
16. Elect – Isaiah 42:1; 65:9, 22; Matthew 24:22; Colossians 3:12
17. Two Witnesses – Revelation 11:3
18. Stone Cut Out of the Mountain – Daniel 2:44-45
19. His Shoulders – Exodus 28:7; The shoulders of the priest where the stones are placed, Leviticus 7:32; the right shoulder of the bullock, and finally the shoulder of the body of Christ, Isaiah 9:6.
20. Saints of the Most High – Daniel 7:18, 28
21. Saviors – Obadiah 21
22. Virgins – Matthew 25:1 and Revelation 14:4

THE PROPHETS’ VISION

The prophets saw the vision of a one-man company of people coming forth in the latter days to set creation free. Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 26:17-21,

“Like, as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O Lord. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have NOT WROUGHT any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: For thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.”

In these verses, we see God speaking of a woman being with child, as in Revelation 12, and the coming forth of this child should be to bring deliverance in the earth. The wicked inhabitants of the earth should fall, and then there would be a resurrection unto immortal life. It also speaks of the divine protection over God’s people while the INDIGNATION is on. The next scripture is Isaiah 66:7-8,

“Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a manchild. Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.”

Here the analogy is used again of bringing forth the Manchild as a deliverer.

Jesus, speaking to the apostles, likened them to a woman in travail bringing forth a manchild.

John 16:21, “A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.”

The travail of the apostles should bring forth a church, which would continue to travail until the final church is born in the earth. This is the event for which the heavens and earth wait.

Some Bible students feel that the message of the Manchild is a message of the first coming of Jesus the Christ, but this is clearly not so, as proven by scripture.

Revelation 1:1, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.”

This scripture shows that the Revelation was written of things to come, and not signifying the past. There are occurrences in the past which pointed to future events in the life of the church. Therefore, there must be a correlation of things which happened in the life of Jesus, the Christ, which will take place in the life of the sons of God, when the Christ is coming forth within humanity. It is the same Christ that was in Jesus that is coming forth WITHIN THE CHURCH. The manifestation must be the same.

WOMAN CLOTHED WITH THE SUN

There has been much conjecture about the woman of Revelation 12, but there is no doubt that she is the church in a special age, and not Mary, the mother of Jesus. The revelation is of Jesus Christ and all the presentation of it was for the future and not the past.

Revelation 12:1, “And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.”

This verse must refer to a heaven other than the invisible realms of God’s dwelling place. In this heaven, there was also a seven-headed dragon (verse 3). We see in verse 5 where she brought forth a Manchild, and he also was caught up to another heaven, to the throne. Thus he went from heaven to heaven.

The third verse identifies heaven with this statement.

“And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.”

WE KNOW THAT SATAN HAS ALREADY BEEN CAST OUT OF HEAVEN. The heaven mentioned here is a heaven to which Satan has access. Heaven is the whole human realm where God is preparing to live. It must be clear that the word “dragon” here refers to Satan. The acquirement of SEVEN HEADS and ten horns shows a subtle UNION BETWEEN THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT, THE DEVIL, AND THE ONE WORLD CHURCH.

We will deal with this presently, but now let us concentrate on the woman. THIS WOMAN, the church, had been lifted from the realms of EARTH to the realms of HEAVEN. This does not mean that bodily she was removed. The whole of Revelation is couched in spiritual language, and you must be in the Spirit of God to understand it. The picture here is of a woman or church which had been lifted to a realm above dependence on the natural, and to complete dependence on the spiritual. Moses in his day was such a man, and walked in a different and high realm while he lived here. Joshua, Elisha, Elijah, Enoch and JESUS CHRIST, the son of God, have walked in this realm, too. Jesus, therefore, is bringing forth a whole church of people who will walk and live in this realm or place in the Spirit.

“CLOTHED WITH THE SUN”

This phrase means that the glory of God is upon the church. Her clothes are her righteousness and covering, but the sun, which is a type of God Himself, became her covering. She was not covered by water, or in other words, clouds, as Moses was in the wilderness, BUT by FIRE, the sun. This was the prayer and promise in John 17:5 and 22.

Verse 5, “And now, 0 Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”

Verse 22, “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.”

In spite of ourselves, we, the true people of God, will reach to that place where we show forth the GLORY OF THE LIVING GOD. God must be manifested in the earth, in the human realm, before men and angels.

“THE MOON UNDER HER FEET”

In this scripture, the moon represents the OLD ORDER CHURCH. This business of church never did please God fully. God was never absolutely pleased with any church. In our operating churches in the name of the Lord, we have been in the good will and the acceptable will, but never in the PERFECT WILL OF GOD. Paul lamented in Philippians 3:12b,

“But I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.”

In the old-order system, God permitted man to use the church as his stock in trade, and become rich in the world by obeying God. Now this age of man’s handling of things for God is over. God is RAISING UP A BODY in the earth with A HEAD CALLED CHRIST. Christ is becoming visible through His people. There are men right now on earth who are seeing this thing, and are willingly giving up their hold on the church, and are commending the BODY TO CHRIST. Paul saw this, and when his influence over the churches which he had formed in Asia was broken, he wrote to the Corinthian church informing them that he had espoused them to Christ, and that they had no other husband.

2nd Corinthians 11:2, “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.”

Christ, here and in several other scriptures, is the husband of the church. The husband cares for the wife, protects her, covers her and gives her his seed. WE MUST FACE THE FACTS. The seed of the minister has never been good enough to bring forth IMMORTAL LIFE in the earth. This is old order. Now the minister is presenting the bride to her TRUE HUSBAND, no longer trying vainly to bring forth a man church from himself. Every time we try, we bring forth another church system as bad as the one we came out of. The old order is past, and the new BODY MINISTRY IS HERE. Men again are trying to deceive the bride, and take her unto themselves, but GOD IS REMOVING THEM OFF THE SCENE. Let us make sure that we are moving in God’s order at this time.

The old church is under the feet of the new. For this glory is greater than the former. The old system, however, is the foundation on which the new stands. “Under her feet” suggests beneath; below; less than. And so it is.

“AND UPON HER HEAD A CROWN OF TWELVE STARS”

Jesus Christ is described as “the bright and morning star” in Revelation 22:16c. This woman had twelve stars, which signifies that she is the complete woman of God’s making. She, therefore, must bring forth IMMORTALITY in the earth, since this is the perfect will of God for humanity. This is the completion of what God meant woman to be, bringing forth the completion of what God meant man to be – the manchild. Her head is CHRIST, and upon her head, stars. The crown made her a QUEEN, the wife of the King of Kings. This brings us to the period of church history when Christ has already taken His bride, and is in the process of bringing forth CHRIST IN THE EARTH.

SHE TRAVAILS and is pained to be delivered. This is the tribulation during which the church will bring forth the Manchild. It is not a man, neither is it an organized church as some are now saying, BUT it is the issue of the MYSTIC BODY OF CHRIST, the woman, OR THE CALLED OUT OF THE CALLED OUT.

They will, under one head, move as one man before the rest of the church comes forth. This will be a time of much pain and suffering. This pain and suffering will purify the church as never before. This woman and her child is not referring to natural Israel, because natural Israel is not the bride of Christ, neither could she be. But individual Jews, as any other nation, will be a part of this group.

The proof of the fact that the church will be in the tribulation is that there is no pain and travail in heaven, the invisible realm of God, where the saints who have passed on are. FURTHER, the word “dragon,” as applied to Satan the devil, never showed him with seven heads and ten horns. In Genesis 3:15, we see that Satan had only one head.

“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise HIS heel.”

This seed, of course, is Christ; Christ in Jesus and Christ in us. We see here that the dragon, Satan, in the beginning had only ONE HEAD. The seven heads and the TEN HORNS speak of the world powers and their rulers, who will give themselves to the beast. In turn, Satan will give them all the power of his seat and authority which he usurped from Adam. Just by way of comprehending the full picture, let me remind you that Satan offered the kingdom to Jesus Christ when he tempted Him in the wilderness. Luke 4. Even as Christ is having union with the church to bring forth a MANCHILD CHURCH IN THE EARTH, so also Satan is having union with the world to bring forth a ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT, with a ONE WORLD CHURCH, to counteract God’s united body of Christ.

This dragon, Satan’s worst manifestation on earth, and the worst that will ever be, will be among his last acts before his banishment. “Tail” refers to the end of his power, which “drew the third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to earth.” Many mighty ones of God will in this hour be debased and made low.

“And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.” Revelation 12:4b.

A devil which had a record of killing the saints, and a church system which had a record of killing the saints, will unite, and must again try to kill the saints. The hour of the coming forth of the Manchild is the death knell of the killers.

“And she brought forth a manchild, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.” Revelation 12:5.

In order to understand what the bringing forth of a Manchild means in this passage, we must first understand what kind of pregnancy this woman has. In the first place, the woman is not a natural woman, but the church. The womb of the church could not be physical. Therefore it has to be the souls of the saints. If the church then is pregnant, she must be pregnant in her soul, “pregnant with celestial fire.” (This quotation is from ‘The Elegy’ by Thomas Gray). If she is pregnant in her soul with the Christ nature which is to come forth, then her child must be the Christ nature which is to come forth, or, as stated in 2nd Peter 1:4, THE DIVINE NATURE which comes forth in the human realm to make us EXACTLY LIKE JESUS CHRIST. This will be the human nature giving way to the divine nature, and the arrival of the long looked-for change from mortal to immortal, from corruptible to incorruption. 1st Corinthians 15:53.

CAUGHT UP

The word “caught up” means, in the carnal understanding, just a lifting up in the air, and many teachers teach that we will be taken away from this earth to another planet. There is no scriptural basis for this. Paul was caught up, but he was still here in body. Truly, there were men who were caught up and lived no more among men, although they have been seen here on occasions. The Manchild, however, when he is caught up, will be immediately given a place of rulership on earth. The word “caught up,” therefore, must be a lifting up from the human realm to a higher realm, where he will be living in immortality, and yet in humanity, even as Jesus Christ after His resurrection. Whether “caught up to meet Him in the air” means a physical catching away or a spiritual one, IT IS AN OCCURRENCE WHICH WILL TAKE PLACE IN THIS ATMOSPHERE. It definitely will not be taking men away to another planet. The scripture speaks of “the air.” The Greek word is “aera,” meaning atmosphere. 1st Thessalonians 4:17.