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The Progressive Kingdom

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May 2014 - The Progressive Kingdom

Issue #310
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Issue #310May 2014

The Progressive Kingdom

In the progression of the Kingdom since the creation, we ought to know about the changes that God has made over the years, particularly at specific points in history.

Men have tried to explain these changes in various ways. The popular theory today was developed in the 1800’s by those who divided history into “dispensations.” Personally, I divide time according to the pattern of Israel’s feast days:

Pre-feast times: Adam to Moses

Passover Age: Moses to Christ

Pentecost Age: Christ to full Body

Tabernacles Age: Full Body to Great White Throne

Judgment Age: Great White Throne to Creation Jubilee

Each of these ages mark a distinct progression in the developmental history of the Kingdom. Before Moses the Kingdom was ruled by the patriarchs until Nimrod usurped their right to rule. He then organized his own kingdom by force of arms and ruled all that he could conquer. The rule of Noah and Shem depended upon the respect of the people and their faith in God who had given the dominion mandate to their lineage.

Shem then left Mesopotamia and built Jerusalem. His city then competed with Nimrod’s city of Babylon. The two cities later became types of a greater conflict between the New Jerusalem and Mystery Babylon.

The Passover Age began with the first Passover in Egypt, marked by Israel’s release from the house of bondage. The nation had opportunity, at least in theory to fulfill all of the feasts and to enter the Promised Land on the feast of Tabernacles, but it was too soon in the overall divine plan.

Nonetheless, Israel’s experiences in the wilderness established particular days that were later commemorated as feast days. Their refusal to hear the voice of God directly at Mount Horeb marked their failure to fulfill the feast of Pentecost (Exodus 20:18-21). Hence, each year when they observed Pentecost, they could only observe it under the limitations of a fleshly type and shadow. The intent of God for that feast was not fulfilled until the Spirit was poured out in Acts 2, beginning the Age of Pentecost.

When Moses built the two silver trumpets in Num. 10:1-10, that day came to be commemorated as the feast of Trumpets on the first day of the seventh month. From then on they were instructed to blow trumpets on the first day of every month, but the seventh month was special. It marked the day of resurrection in the future, when the dead would rise at the sound of God’s trumpet (1 Cor. 15:52).

In Num. 13, 14 we see the twelve spies giving their report after spying out the land of Canaan. Because the people did not have the faith to enter the land—having rejected the voice of God at Mount Horeb—they were unable to keep that day as a Jubilee. It happened to be the 50th Jubilee from Adam, but their lack of faith turned it into a Day of Atonement, a day of mourning and fasting for refusing to enter the Kingdom.

Even so, this day marks a future Jubilee celebration of the overcomers on the tenth day after the dead overcomers are raised (on the feast of Trumpets). The non-overcomers will then repent and mourn, having missed the opportunity to come into immortality at that time. They will have to await the second resurrection at the end of the thousand years.

Israel might have entered Canaan from Kadesh-barnea on the first day of Tabernacles, if they had had the faith to believe the good report of Caleb and Joshua. They could have entered the Kingdom without crossing the Jordan, for they would have entered from the South.

However, their bad decisions prevented the fulfillment of that feast in their time. So from then on they were required to observe the feast in physical booths, rather than in the glorified body, or “tabernacle.” Paul says that the booths or tents represented their physical bodies, and the glorified body was withheld from them and reserved for them in the heavens (2 Cor. 5:1-4). Once again, they were unable to truly keep the feast as God had intended from the beginning, but they were instead called to mark the time each year as a commemoration of a future time.

In theory, Israel would have conquered Canaan during the seven days of Tabernacles, and they would have had a great celebration on the morning of the eighth day, the last day of the feast.

Because Israel was not yet ready, the Kingdom in its final form was postponed for a later time, and all of their ceremonies then became mere types and shadows of greater things yet to come.

For this reason, God led Israel into Canaan, not on the feast of Tabernacles, but at Passover (Josh. 4:19). The Kingdom at that time was real but it was only the start of a longer journey through the feast days.

The Passover Age ended at the 1480th Passover from the first, which had been celebrated in Egypt under Moses. At that Passover Jesus died on the cross to fulfill the type of the Passover Lamb. From that moment on, keeping Passover changed from killing lambs to recognizing and accepting the true Lamb of God by faith. The carnal types had served their prophetic purpose and were replaced by the antitype.

The law demands that we keep each of the feasts in the place He has chosen to place His name (Deut. 16:2, 11, 15). During the Passover Age, His name was first in Shiloh and later in Jerusalem. The evidence of His name was the fact that His glory remained in that place over the mercy seat of the Ark. But when His glory left Jerusalem in Ezekiel 10 and 11, as it had departed from Shiloh some centuries earlier, His name went with it.

The glory was then given to the church at Pentecost in Acts 2. His name was then written on our foreheads (Rev. 22:4), and we became the temples of His glory. Therefore, the only lawful place where we may keep the feasts today is within the temples where the Holy Spirit resides.

While we may “go” some place to hold a conference at the time of the feasts, this is incidental to the true observance of every feast. No one keeps Passover except by his justification by the blood of the Lamb. No one keeps Pentecost apart from the baptism of the Holy Spirit. No one keeps Tabernacles apart from receiving the tent that is reserved for him in heaven. So says the law of God.

We have now come to the end of the Age of Pentecost, which was designed to last forty Jubilee cycles from 33-1993 A.D. The Old Testament types of this were Israel’s forty years in the wilderness and King Saul’s forty-year reign. I have explained this many times in other articles.

We are now in transition from Pentecost to Tabernacles. We are already experiencing the rise of spiritual authority that is needed to deal with Mystery Babylon. It has become clear that God intended for us to engage in spiritual warfare to accomplish this. God is working through us, rather than just doing it by Himself. In this way we are being trained by His Spirit as His agents of change, instead of sitting in the cheering section while God does all the work.

At the same time, however, it is a paradox, because we are also doing a rest-work. Our work is to say Amen to the divine plan, and therein lies the power to do all things.

The End of Beast Dominion

We are living at the end of a very long captivity, which began with the disobedience of Israel and Judah and their refusal to implement the law of God according to the mind and intent of God. The kings of Judah were descendants of King David, who had received the dominion mandate. But when they persisted in their rebellion, God finally gave that dominion mandate to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon (Jer. 27:4-8).

Jeremiah was told that this captivity would last seventy years (Jer. 25:11). However, this proved to be only the first phase of captivity, for Daniel later was shown that there would be a long succession of empires that would hold the dominion mandate. Babylon would pass the mandate to Persia, then to Greece, then Rome, and finally to the “little horn” that was an extension of Rome.

If we study history, we see that Rome fell in 476 A.D. and that out of it came the little horn that was to change times and laws. This occurred in 526-534 when Justinian I changed the calendar to date all events from the birth of Christ (526), and then changed the entire Roman legal system to conform to Orthodox Christian law (529-534).

This “little horn” was given 42 prophetic “months,” or 1260 “days” (years) in its first phase, according to Rev. 13:5. Then, says John, a second beast was to join it (in the 1790’s). This new beast was pictured as a financial/banking beast and is the origin of the modern banking system.

My question for many years has been: How long did this alliance of beasts have until the saints would receive the dominion once again? I believe now that the total time of the little horn is 1480 years. Dating from its beginning dates (526-534), this brings us to 2006-2014.

The year 2006 happens to be 2,520 years since the building of the second temple (515 B.C.) This was also the year that we concluded our Jubilee Prayer Campaign to overthrow Mystery Babylon. It was our understanding that Babylon would begin to collapse within a year of the conclusion of the prayer campaign. And so the sub-prime mortgage crisis hit the news in the summer of 2007, followed by the bank crisis of 2008.

Economists tell us that the banking system “broke” in 2008, and it has not been repaired to this day. The gov’t simply bailed out the banks, allowing them to continue their corrupt practice on a greater scale than before. This ensures a greater collapse in the days ahead, perhaps even in 2014.

The year 2014 is also a very important year in prophetic history.

The law prophesied that if Israel persisted in its rebellion against God, they would be sold into captivity for “seven times” (7 x 360 = 2,520 years). This is what happened in the days of Jeremiah and Daniel. The beast empires were given a 2,520-year contract to rule.

If these beast empires (from Babylon to the little horn) had ruled with no interruption, their 2,520 years would have lasted from 607 B.C. to 1914 A.D. However, from 163-63 B.C. their rule was interrupted for a century on account of the acts of Antiochus Epiphanes, who attempted to turn the temple in Jerusalem into a shrine to Zeus. The uprising of the Maccabees gave Judah independence for a hundred years, depriving the Grecian beast his final century of rule.

Judah once again came under beast dominion when Rome took Jerusalem in 63 B.C. For this reason, when we arrived at 1914 A.D., the beast systems had exercised dominion for only 2,420 years. Hence, another century had to be given to the beast system. It was marked by the formation of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1914, which became the Central Bank of all Central Banks of the world until now.

The year 2014 marks the end of the full 2,520 years in which the beast empires have held the dominion mandate. It is also the end of 1480 years of the little horn’s rule.

The significance of the number 1480 is seen first in the fact that Jesus died on the cross on the 1480th Passover since Moses. He qualified to pay for the sin of the world, because He was the Christ. The numeric value of christos in Greek is 1480.

This time also applies to the time allotted to the little horn, because it ends with the Body of Christ being given the dominion mandate. The first 1480-year period came to a climax with Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection and ascension to the throne of the Father. The second 1480-year cycle ends with the Body of Christ (overcomers) being given the dominion mandate, according to Dan. 7:20-22.

It is my revelation that we are to proclaim the transfer of the dominion mandate on the eighth day of Tabernacles, Oct. 16, 2014. While we have already seen an incremental transfer of authority from Saul to David in 1993 and 2000, this seems to be the completion of the process. It will be interesting to observe the changes that take place afterward in the coming years as Mystery Babylon falls.

Changes for the Future

At some point in this transition to the Age to come, I believe there will be a resurrection of the dead on the feast of Trumpets, followed by the “change” that the living overcomers will experience at the feast of Tabernacles two weeks after the resurrection.

Christ will come to unite the Head with the Body in the middle of Tabernacles, according to the pattern of John 7. Then the entire body of overcomers will be presented to the Father as the New Creation Man on the eighth day of Tabernacles. These Sons of God will then be “manifested” to the rest of the world, where they will minister as Christ to the nations and with their earthly kings and presidents.

Scripture gives us some hints about life in the Age to come. Most of humanity will remain mortal, even as we are today, for only a few will be raised from the dead or “changed” into His likeness on this occasion. There is still much more history to be fulfilled before the great Creation Jubilee marks the end of Time as we know it.

We are only at the end of the first six “days” in the great Sabbath cycle. We are entering the first Creation Sabbath, the 7th thousand-year period, wherein God is setting the world free of oppression from its Babylonian governments. It is the first Sabbath rest of seven.

At the end of this Great Sabbath, the Great White Throne will issue a subpoena for all the dead to stand before God for judgment. They will be adjured to speak the truth, and every knee will bow, and every tongue will swear allegiance to Him (Isaiah 45:23). In other words, all of humanity will then believe on Jesus Christ and declare Him their King.

However, they will still need to learn the lessons that believers today have to learn. Just because they become believers at the Great White Throne does not mean that they have come to full spiritual maturity yet. Their confession of faith will be their Passover experience, and no doubt they will also be filled with the Spirit and experience Pentecost. But they will still be required to learn obedience.

Hence, that Age of Judgment between the Great White Throne and the Creation Jubilee will be, as it were, another Pentecostal Age, wherein humanity learns to follow the leading of the Spirit and to be obedient.

In this disciplinary Age, they will learn obedience, in part, by paying restitution to those whom they have victimized during their life time. The manner and amount of restitution is set by the “fiery law” of God (Deut. 33:2). John calls it “the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:14). Daniel saw this fire coming from under the Great White Throne (Dan. 7:10), calling it “a river of fire.”

This is not a literal fire, but represents the law itself and its judgments. There is no law that demands torment in a literal fire. Rather, the judgment is in direct proportion to the crime itself. Every judgment is a “fire,” including the “few stripes” and “many stripes” in Luke 12:48, 49.

The Abolition of Death

The Great White Throne which initiates this Judgment Age will abolish death itself (Rev. 20:14). Those paying for their past sins, then, will have 42,000 years of servitude under the authority of believers. This will not be so bad, of course, because these believers will have the character of Christ with its perfect love for all of humanity.

Although they may run out of restitution payments, in the big picture, no man can fully repay the debt of sin. For this reason, they will have to remain in servitude until the Jubilee finally cancels all remaining debt to sin. Then they will return to their former inheritance that was lost in Adam.

Then and only then will be fulfilled the prophecy that the glory of the Lord will fill the whole earth (Num. 14:21; Is. 6:3, 11:9; Ps. 72:19; Hab. 2:14). The plan of Reconciliation will then be complete, where all that was created will be fully reconciled to God (Col. 1:16-20).

Two Types of Death

When John wrote of “the second death” in Rev. 20:14, he implied that there was also a FIRST death. What is the difference?

The first death came through Adam as the result of his sin. The second death is judgment for our own sin.

Adam’s sin was imputed to us long before we were even born, and as a result, all men are born mortal. We are mortal before we even had a chance to sin personally. So Paul says in Rom. 5:12 that through one man (Adam) “death spread to all men.” In other words, we are mortal on account of Adam’s sin, not on account of our own sin.

A literal rendering of Rom. 5:12 also tells us that this death that reigns in our mortal bodies creates a weakness in us that causes us to sin personally. The verse ought to read, “death spread to all men, on which [eph ho] all sin.” Jesus was the Last Adam who reversed the effects of Adam’s sin, Paul says, resolving the original cause of our own sin.

Hence, Jesus took responsibility for Adam’s sin upon Himself in order to right the temporary injustice of having Adam’s sin imputed to us without our consent. The imputation of Adam’s sin to us was done by the law of authority, which is seen in Matt. 18:25, where the debtor was sold, along with his wife, children, and his entire estate in order to pay the debt.

This may seem unfair, but it is reversed by the Last Adam by the same law of authority. Christ has been given authority over the whole earth and therefore, His act of righteousness on the cross applied to the entire estate that Adam lost through sin.

Adam lost it all through sin, and Christ regains it all through His righteous act. But the manner in which He regains it is the real question. Scripture shows that His plan is not simply to save all mankind in spite of their sin, but to draw them to Himself by a lawful path set forth by the feast days. All men must first be justified by faith (Passover), and then be filled with the Spirit (Pentecost), and only then are they ready for the full glory of God (Tabernacles).

We are able to experience these feast days in our walk with God, moving from faith to obedience to agreement. The first resurrection will encompass those who have come to spiritual maturity, and these are rewarded by the benefits of the feast of Tabernacles (immortal bodies).

The Tabernacles Age that is now dawning upon us will provide humanity with many examples of the righteousness of Christ, as the overcomers are manifested to the world. Hence, when the time comes for the Great White Throne judgment, many more will come into immortality, as Jesus said in John 5:28, 29. At the same time, the rest of the world that did not believe in Jesus or have faith in His blood will be raised from the dead so that they may receive a revelation of His majesty and love and come to believe.

Yet they will experience the second type of death, which is judgment for their own personal sins committed during their life time on earth. The first death (mortality) will be reversed on account of Christ’s work on the cross, but they will still have to be judged according to their own works, as John says in Rev. 20:13.

The law limits all debt which is incurred through liability for sin. This limitation is set by the law of Jubilee, which is the law of grace. Hence, all judgment is said to be aionian (Greek) or olam (Hebrew). The words pertain to a time of indefinite duration, not “everlasting” as often mistranslated.