Kingdom Come

I think Sunday School is one of the worst experiences we can give our children. The dumbed down and sanitized “stories” become permanently infantilized and lose their impact when the kids grow up into adults.

What images come to your mind when you think of Moses leading 9 million refugees into the wilderness?

As of 2015, it was estimated that over 21 million people in the world were living in refugee situations…a majority are hosted in third world or developing countries, presenting…challenges such as terrorism and insecurity, nationalism, xenophobia and intolerance…the issue of protection of refugees, in the background of continued conflict remains a cause for concern in many countries…

Most refugee camps do not have sufficient food to provide to their populations…caloric intake is further reduced as refugees tend to sell food rations for other non-food goods. Moreover…lack of food variety, fruits, and vegetables causes many refugees to suffer from deficiencies in essential vitamins and minerals, which can lead to a variety of diseases…

more than half of the refugee camps in the world are unable to provide the recommended daily water minimum of 20 liters of water per person per day…with the presence of diseases such as diarrhea and cholera…

The provision of adequate sanitation services is crucial to prevent communicable diseases and epidemics…still 30% of refugee camps do not have adequate waste disposal services or latrines…

Housing in refugee camps is often overcrowded…poorly ventilated…Malaria poses a huge threat…without window screens or solid doors…infecting 200 million every year…increased presence of rodents, which causes an increased incidence of Lassa fever in West African countries.

The acclaimed historians Will and Ariel Durant begin their massive multivolume account of human history with this concept in Volume One, Chapter One, paragraph one of The Story of Civilization.

CIVILIZATION is social order…Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral traditions, and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. It begins where chaos and insecurity end. For when fear is overcome, curiosity and constructiveness are free, and man passes by natural impulse towards the understanding and embellishment of life…

Certain factors condition civilization, and may encourage or impede it. First, geological conditions…Rain is necessary; for water is the medium of life, more important even than the light of the sun…If the soil is fertile in food or minerals, if rivers offer an easy avenue of exchange, if the coast-line is indented with natural harbors for a commercial fleet, if, above all, a nation lies on the highroad of the world’s trade… then geography… smiles upon civilization, and nourishes it.

The Promised Land, as described in the previous eponymous post, was such a land. Highly desired by all the early nations who fought each other for possession, it was given to YHVH’s people as long as they used it for his purposes of redeeming the world.

There must be political order…men must feel, by and large, that they need not look for death or taxes at every turn. There must be some unity of language to serve as a medium of mental exchange…there must be a unifying moral code, some rules of the game of life acknowledged even by those who violate them, and giving to conduct…some direction and stimulus. Perhaps there must also be some unity of basic belief, some faith, supernatural or utopian, that lifts morality from calculation to devotion, and gives life nobility and significance despite our mortal brevity. And finally there must be education — the lore and heritage of the tribe— its language and knowledge, its morals and manners, its technology and arts— must be handed down to the young, as the very instrument through which they are turned from animals into men.

Are we Americans so insulated from the world at war that we don’t immediately grasp that the top priority for the nine million refugees Moses led out of Egypt is a system of law and order providing the basic necessities of life and protection from internal and external harm?

The primary sources of international refugee law are the [United Nations] Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951…with the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees…lauded as containing a system of protection to those in need by providing protection to those who no longer have it from their countries of origin.

The law of Moses is not so unique a legal document. There is good reason for its similarity to Hammurabi’s Code that has nothing to do with Moses plagiarizing Hammurabi. It is written in the format known and used by the people of the time as a covenant between a people and their gods, or in  their unique case, their God (detailed in the post Government: Covenant vs Contract).

The highest authority in any form of government, ancient and modern, is the person or group that passes judgment, not just on guilt or innocence, but on what course of action out of available options is to be taken by the people within that sphere of influence. Why do you think the place where a king exercises his power is called his court? Why do you think a judge’s decision is called ruling? Even in the American system designed to distribute power as evenly as possible over three branches of government, it is the “Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, by which it determines the constitutionality of executive and legislative acts,” that maintains greatest power in the judge.

The exercise of power in the kingdom of heaven and earth is no different. God is the Supreme Judge of the whole earth, but he doesn’t act alone. The entire court system is in place, his divine council of spirit beings in heaven as well as humans on earth

“And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death. And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.” (Deuteronomy 33)

The immediate failure of the Commonwealth of Hebrew nations to represent him as the unique God of gods ended the covenant before it was ratified.

What the text clearly states, but what has been glossed over in the various religions’ application of this passage to suite their egos, is that when the Melchizedekian priests within the Hebrew nation rejected election to government at Mount Sinai, God gave it to another group, but God did not exterminate the Hebrew Commonwealth.

Follow the patterns of history. As patterns on wallpaper they repeat and reveal what came before and what comes after.

“Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom [rulership] of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits [productivity] thereof.“ (Matthew 21:43)

“(Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto….And this I say, that

• the covenant [with Abraham the Hebrew], that was confirmed before of God in The Promised Seed / Christ,
• the law [of Moses], which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise [to  Abraham the Hebrew] of none effect. (Galatians 3:10-17)

“ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh…without Christ / YHVH’s Chosen…aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:11-13)

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that the commonwealth of Israel is the same thing as the nation of Israel.

Recall what the title “Isra-El” was given to Jacob as a Hebrew, long before the establishment of the nation of Israel under Moses at Mount Sinai. “Isra-El” is a title meaning Prince of God. It is simply another designation for Melchi-zedek / King of Righteousness, i.e. ruler of the Commonwealth of Hebrew nations

“Thy name shall be called no more Jacob / Supplanter, but Isra- el: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.” (Genesis 32:28)

This understanding is confirmed by the continued designation of Jacob’s / Israel’s people as Hebrews.

“Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, Let my people go.” (Exodus 7:16)

As a cohesive royal family with a generations-long heritage of personal relationships and experience with YHVH and proven partnership with him in action, it’s just common sense that the Children of Israel would be elected to positions of responsibility in the new government.

• “my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.” (Isaiah 42:1)
• “Jacob my servant…and Israel mine elect” (Isaiah 45:4)
•  I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob…and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there.” (Isaiah 65:9)
• “that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth” (Romans 9:11)

“What advantage then hath the Jew? …chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” (Romans 3:1-2) 

Just as “the United States, as the strongest country in the world and the largest UN donor, has a major input into how the UN operates, it does not own the United Nations,” when the nation of Israel became the leader of the Hebrew Commonwealth of Nations it did not completely absorb it, but it remains a separate nation within the multi-ethnic Hebrew Commonwealth of Nations.

The nation of Israel became a specialized offshoot of the existing and ongoing Melchizedekian Hebrew Commonwealth of Nations. Its function was to detail and exemplify specifically, what it means to “walk before me and be thou perfect” as stated by YHVH to Abraham.

“Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added…”

Added! To what? An existing covenant! And that is detailed as the passage continues:

“because of transgressions, till the seed / Melchizedek should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator…Is the law then against the [pre-existing] promises of God? God forbid: for…the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of YHVH’s Promised Savior / Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe…Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Melchizedek / Christ, that we might be justified by faith.“ (Galatians 3)

Just like our modern individual states are subsets of the United States of America with laws applicable only to them but subject to federal regulations, all the subsets of the Commonwealth can have rules and boundaries that apply only to them while being primarily subject to the regulations governing all Israel.

Likewise the nation of Israel can have laws that apply only to them but not the larger Hebrew Commonwealth of Nations led by Melchizedek. Although treated as such thousands of years later, “Hebrew” is not the equivalent of “Israelite” or “Jew”.

Each serves a different purpose with a different population, as explained in Hebrews 7-8.

• Purpose
  • Levitical: under it the people received the law
    • “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the [seed [of the Woman should come to whom the promise was made [to deliver from death through resurrection]” (Galatians 3:19)
    • “Now we know that what things soever the law saith it saith to them who are under the law [follow rules of good behavior to be accepted by God into everlasting life after death]: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world [every religious system of good works] may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified [including the Jews] in his sight:”” (Romans 3:19-20)
  • Melchizedekian: “able also to save them that come unto God by him”
• Population
  • Levitical: “the house of Israel and the house of Judah”
  • Melchizedekian:  “the uttermost parts of the earth  i.e. the whole world
• Time frame
  • Levitical: “that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”
  • Melchizedekian: “he ever liveth to make intercession for them.”

The Apostle Paul goes to great lengths to prove that Abraham’s Hebrew identity predates and therefore supercedes that of his future offspring Jacob / Israel and what became known as Christianity.

“What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?…what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness…reckoned…in uncircumcision…to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) ” (Romans 4:1-17)

“Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture , Behold, I lay in Sion [in Abimelech’s time the mountain held by Shem Melchizedek] a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on hm shall not be confounded / put to utter confusion and shame.” (I Peter 2:6, also Romans 9:33)

This establishes that membership in the order of Melchizedek to Abraham and his heirs remains in the purview of Abraham’s world-wide Hebrew nation with the ascension of the ultimate Melchizedek.

“(Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto….And this I say, that the covenant [with Abraham the Hebrew], that was confirmed before of God in The Promised Seed / Christ, the law [of Moses], which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise [to Abraham to Abraham the Hebrew] of none effect. (Galatians 3:10-17)