Kingdom Come

Reminds me of the good ol’ days when God populated the entire world with just Adam and Eve.

The Adversary’s key characteristic is “I!”

The Singularity’s key characteristic is “Us.”

God is all about relationship. And there is incredible power in a solid relationship between two or more gathered together in his name / attribute of “submit yourselves one to another.” Far more, I’m certain, than in a crowd of strangers at a megachurch.

It’s the unity that empowers. It’s the manifestation of YHVH’s Singularity, overcoming the destructive division of selfishness, exploitation of others, hoarding out of fear of the unknown future while others are starving for lack of resources now. It’s the ultimate expression of faith in YHVH’s promises to meet our every need, when we need it. It’s the spark brought to life by flint on steel that lights up the world – and burns it down.

That unity is expressed at the most basic level of social organization – a man and a woman becoming one in hieros gamos – sacred sex – as per the Creator’s design, to perpetuate mortal life, as well as at the highest level of society in Melchi zedek – prophet, priest and king – guiding the way to eternal immortal life.

While the position of Melchizedek is intended to be unified in one person devoted to the Almighty God, such as Moses and David, it can also be split among mortals, especially in prophecy when the spirit of Almighty God unites them.

When God removed Israel as his Chosen Nation to lead his rule on earth, God replaced the nation with a succession of Chosen Nations led a King who accomplished his will, with righteous priests and prophets, creating a multinational Melchizedek consortium. And it wasn’t Christianity.

“Blessed be the name / attribute of God for ever and ever: 1) for wisdom and might are his: 2) And he changeth the times and the seasons: 3) he removeth kings, and setteth up kings:” (Daniel 2:20-22)

Daniel’s prophecies makes it clear that the highest world rulers are controlled by hyper dimensional spirit beings.

 ^“Daniel spake and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold,

1. the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.
2. And four great beasts rose up from the sea” (Daniel 7:2-3)

Daniel gives two of the winds of heaven the names of Gabriel and Michael. so we deduce that all four winds / spirits are God’s messengers, and Ezekiel confirms this.

“Thus saith the LORD God; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live…and the breath came into them, and they lived. (Ezekiel 37:9-11)

Christians are accustomed to identifying the successive manifestations of the four beasts seen by Daniel as having the same spirit described by Paul as “the mystery / secret knowledge of iniquity” (II Thessalonians 2:7)

1. “The first was like a lion, and had eagle’s wings. (Babylon)
2. a second, like to a bear. (Persia)
3. another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. (Greece)
4. a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth…and it had ten horns.” (Rome) (Daniel 7)

But God’s spirit is also evidently working through them. Stay with me, I can prove this from scripture.

I) Babylon ~605-560 BC was a wicked nation, but nonetheless it was God’s change agent, the means of impelling correction forewarned to his people.

1. all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers…
2. But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets. “Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence…Therefore will I also deal in fury.” (Ezekiel 8)
3. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees…he gave them all into his hand…And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: (II Chronicles 36)

More importantly, Nebuchadnezzar knowingly spread the knowledge of the One True God throughout his realm. And that wasn’t just the territory he personally governed. The trade routes were the communications highways of the ancient world. 

“Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto you. I thought it good to shew the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought toward me. How great are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation.” (Daniel 4:1-3)

The prophet Ezekiel relays a promise of restoration of Israel as God’s Chosen Nation with the requisite temple for the priests..

“In the five and twentieth year of our captivity…In the visions of God brought he me into the land of Israel, and set me upon a very high mountain…behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass…and in the man’s hand a measuring reed…” (Ezekiel 40)

And it goes on in minute detail for chapters on end, exactly like the instructions given to Moses for the Tabernacle.

This doesn’t happen right away. Not until God’s chosen priests from the tribe of Levi step up to their assigned positions.

Nebuchadnezzar’s successor was deposed when he didn’t acknowledge the true Ruler of the World.

“O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour…whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down…But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven…In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom.” (Daniel 5:18-31)

Note, “the kingdom” is not the Babylonian kingdom, but God’s kingdom on earth.

II) Persia ~ 550 BC

“King Darius wrote unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto you. I make a decree, That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for he is the living God, and stedfast for ever, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end…So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” (Daniel 6:25-28)

The historic account of rebuilding God’s temple is key to recognizing the recurring pattern of events in the future occurrence of rebuilding the temple.

“Now these are the children of [Babylon’s] province [of Judah] that went up out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away…and came again unto Jerusalem and Judah…

1. 1. with Zerubbabel [reinstated heir of the deposed king, ruling as governor in the Persian hierarchy],  
   2. Jeshua [the High Priest],
   3. Nehemiah [the treasurer]“(Ezra 2:1-2)

Notice how God doesn’t work anything single-handedly. After Cyrus completed his assigned task of enabling the rebuilding of the temple, Zerubbabel and Joshua pick up the reins of leadership to ensure the completion of the project, which naturally encounters opposition.

A start was made in the time of Shesh-bazzar [governor after 538 B.C.E.], but the disturbances made continuation of the work impossible.

Opposition to the rebuilding of the Temple came especially from the nobles who had taken control of Judea after the exile. They were probably closely related to the aristocracy of Samaria.

“Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the LORD God of Israel; Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God.

“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” (II Corinthians 6:14-18)

Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, And hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until…the days of Artaxerxes…king of Persia…”(Ezra 4)

Under the exhortation of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. despite continued harassment by their neighbors, the Judeans persevered in the work.

“In the second year of Darius the king [successor to Cyrus] came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel…governor of Judah, and to Joshua…the high priest, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts…Consider your ways. Ye looked for much, and, lo it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.

Then Zerubbabel…and Joshua…the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the LORD their God, and the words of Haggai the prophet...and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God.” (Haggai 1)

“And he shewed me Joshua / Yeshua / Jesus  [the human High Priest] standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.” (Zachariah 3:1)

III) Greece ~330 BC

The Greek experience, in particular Antiochus Epiphanes’ cruelty towards the Jews, is memorialized in the books of Maccabees and the Works of Josephus. What is frequently overlooked in the secularization of the Jews by integration into Greek culture, mentioned in the gospels’ references to Decapolis / Ten Cities.

The Greek city, known as the polis, was the vehicle for the assimilation and Hellenization of the indigenous peoples of the Near East. Newly founded Greek cities, populated mostly by local people, were the cultural melting‑pots of the East. The institutions of the Greek way of life were opened to all who wished to participate. The Greek language was rapidly adopted as a sign of Hellenization.

People from the surrounding areas, streaming into the cities, quickly gained the legal and economic advantages afforded by citizenship in the polis-‑exemption from certain customs and duties and participation in the municipal government. In the Greek cities, the upper classes of the Near East were acculturated through the schools and other institu­tions of the Hellenistic world.

The Greek empha­sis on physical culture and on beauty also spread throughout the Near East. The religion of the Greeks was fused with that of the natives in many different forms and local cults. All of this was abetted by the polis and its official city cult, in which the Greek and the Near Eastern were in constant symbiosis…[and] led to the several varieties of Hellenistic Judaism.

IV) Enter the Romans

In complete accord with the gods’ strategy of degenerating God’s people through “the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life” (I John 2:16), otherwise known as civilization (see the post The Way of Cain), Herod endowed his realm with massive fortresses and splendid cities,

• of which the two greatest were new, and largely pagan, foundations: the port of Caesarea Palaestinae on the coast between Joppa (Jaffa) and Haifa, which was afterward to become the capital of Roman Palestine…

• At Herodium Herod built a great palace…
• In Jerusalem he built the fortress of Antonia, portions of which may still be seen…
• and a magnificent palace (of which part survives in the citadel).
• His most grandiose creation was the Temple, which he wholly rebuilt. The great outer court, 35 acres (14 hectares) in extent, is still visible as Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf.
• He also embellished foreign cities—Beirut, Damascus, Antioch, Rhodes—and many towns.
• Herod patronized the Olympic Games, whose president he became.
• In his own kingdom he could not give full rein to his love of magnificence, for fear of offending the Pharisees, the leading faction of Judaism, with whom he was always in conflict because they regarded him as a foreigner.

Herod undoubtedly saw himself…as the protector of Jewry outside of Palestine, whose Gentile hosts he did all in his power to conciliate.

This is a huge clue to the succeeding actor in this role during current events.