Dec 23, 2006

The Kingdom of God can be traced back to the Garden of Eden. It was lost through sin, and Adam and Eve were expelled. This does not mean that they were unbelievers, however. It simply meant that they were believers but had lost the Kingdom of God. We are still in that position to this day.

God is re-establishing His Kingdom in three basic steps that are defined prophetically through the three main feast days: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. In order for the Kingdom of God to be fully re-established, the fullness of the Spirit must be present through the feast of Tabernacles. Anything short of that will fail in the long run.

In the days of Moses, God took Israel out of Egypt at Passover, gave them the law at Pentecost, and would have taken them into the Promised Land at Tabernacles if the people had had sufficient faith. This set the basic Kingdom-building pattern in Scripture. The history of Israel in the wilderness under Moses became a short-term type of a long-term plan.

The pattern set under Moses began to be re-played over thousands of years. In coming out of Egypt, Israel showed that it had sufficient faith for Passover. But they were unable to hear the rest of the law at Pentecost (Ex. 20:18-21), and so they did not have Pentecostal faith. It would take Pentecostal faith to prepare them to enter the Promised Land with Tabernacles faith. So obviously, they would not be able to complete the pattern in that day.

God re-established the Kingdom of God through Moses, but it was limited to the level of Passover and its first level of faith. Though God gave them a very good administrator--not only Moses, but also Joshua in the next generation--they were doomed to failure in the long run. Even so, the House of Israel was the Kingdom of God in that time.

The history of the Israel Kingdom is somewhat complex, of course, and I do not want to get sidetracked by all of the details. But let me say that Judah possessed the Kingly, Messianic line, while Israel was the Kingdom itself. The Kingdom of Israel was destroyed from 745-721 B.C. The Judah nation continued to represent the Kingdom of God partially (having been given the Israelite tribe of Benjamin), but its main function was to bring forth the King, the Messiah. This occurred, of course, when Jesus was born.

By the time of Jesus the Kingdom of Israel had been lost and dispersed for over 700 years. It was an utter failure under its Passover level of faith. But then God did a new thing. He re-established the Kingdom of God under a Pentecostal level of faith, beginning in Acts 2. This time the disciples in the upper room (and all the true Judahites who had accepted Jesus as King) did not follow Israel's example of fear in Exodus 20, but showed themselves full of Pentecostal faith.

Thus, the Kingdom of God was re-established with King Jesus, His commandments (the divine law), and citizens of the Kingdom. The only thing they lacked was territory. And so, while the Kingdom of God was "within" them, and their bodies were made of the dust of the ground, the process was not yet complete.

If we place ourselves in the shoes of the early Church, we can sense their enthusiasm and excitement about the new anointing that God had put upon them. Miracles were happening, and the power of God was manifesting wherever they went. But after twenty years of this, the leaven of Pentecost had already begun to manifest, and we find the Apostle Paul giving them a reality check. He spoke of their Pentecostal experience in terms of "the earnest of the Spirit" (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:14).

In other words, it was not the full Kingdom of God yet, in spite of its Pentecostal manifestation. As I have shown many times, it was a "Saul" Kingdom, not a "David" Kingdom. Saul's kingdom had thepotential for enduring forever (1 Sam. 13:13), but because Saul was crowned on Pentecost, it was established in leaven. Pentecost was a leavened feast (Lev. 23:17), and so it too was doomed to fail.

And so the establishment of the Kingdom of God is now awaiting a Tabernacles anointing through a people with Tabernacles faith. This was not possible any time earlier, because, like Saul, the Church under Pentecost had been given a certain allotment of time in which to rule. Even as Saul was given 40 years, so also the Saul Church was given 40 Jubilees (1,960 years) to 1993.

Anything done prior to 1993, then, was accomplished under the anointing of Pentecost, even when done by potential overcomers who understood the message of the feast of Tabernacles. The Roman Church was the long-term manifestation of King Saul. With the Protestant Reformation, many people left Saul's house with the desire to join "David" as overcomers. Some really were overcomers, but over all, they were still living in the days of Saul's rule.

And so, the various denominations of Protestantism generally started out good, but as time passed, they have followed in the steps of Saul, each having its own doctrinal flavor, but all with leaven.

America was then founded in the late 1700's by many who believed that this was the fifth kingdom of Daniel, the Stone Kingdom that would crush the Babylonian-Roman image on its feet (Dan. 2:35). America means "heavenly kingdom" in the ancient tongues. But America had its own leaven in the form of Masonic founders and others. So at best, America could not go beyond the Pentecostal time in which it was founded.

Other religious groups, such as the Mormon Church (founded in 1830), had no chance of establishing the Kingdom of God--if for no other reason, simply because they were established during the reign of "Saul."

So now we have come to the end of the reign of Saul on Pentecost, May 30, 1993. And, according to biblical pattern, David ruled only partially for seven years and six months (2 Sam. 5:5), bringing us to up November 30, 2000. On that day (I believe) the spiritual authority to establish the Kingdom was fully transferred from Saul to David--that is, from the Pentecostal Church to the Tabernacles Church.

I believe that momentous events are just ahead. From 2000-2006/7 we poured out 7 vials upon Babylon. That foundational work has now been completed as of last October. I believe that the overcomers are now called to do the work of re-establishing the Kingdom of God. This means we should learn how to do this as well as something about timing. It is not enough to do the right thing; it should be done at the appointed time as well.

If we look at America's founding two centuries ago in the light of the timing of the Pentecostal era, we can see that America was unable to establish the Kingdom by a Tabernacles anointing. It was simply too early. Under Pentecost, it would always be leavened, and over time, the leaven would soon take over the whole loaf.

Yesterday we asked if America should exclude Muslims from holding office. In today's leavened, secular America, there would be no point in excluding them. Who would replace them? A Jew? A Buddhist? A Saul-type Christian? All are leavened. We get to pick our brand of yeast, but it's still yeast.

Of course, I have my preferences, as do others. But America has been leavened by non-Christians and by carnal Christians even since before 1776. There was no way to exclude them from the country, and as more immigrants arrived, there would be no way to exclude them from holding office as well.

We can do what we can to make America the best place to live, but once the leaven is in the bread, it can only be stopped by baking it in the oven. The baptism of fire is needed to accomplish this. This divine fire is not designed to destroy, but to cleanse by His Spirit. This is the outpouring that we now await.

This is the second part of a series titled "How and When to Establish a Christian Nation." To view all parts, click the link below.

How and When to Establish a Christian Nation