Chapter 18: The Wisdom of a Great Nation

Beginning in Deut. 4:5, Moses tells Israel—and any other nation that might adopt the laws of God—that this is what makes a nation truly great.

I think this ought to be required reading every Independence Day for all Christian nations whose laws are the laws of God:

⁵ See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. ⁶ So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” ⁷ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the Lord our God whenever we call on Him? ⁸ Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?

These laws promote liberty without degenerating into vice. They respect nature while worshiping its Creator. These laws promote justice but not without mercy and grace. They give citizens personal responsibility to be charitable, without the government forcing them to give away their hard-earned property.

The Babylonian system fears the law of God, knowing that the light of the Word would expose its “mystery of inquity” and establish true “transparency.”

America was a Christian Nation

The American Constitution was men's best effort in world history to establish righteous government, which they learned in large part by the study of God's law. Unfortunately, it was men's best understanding—and not the law of God itself—which they established. For this reason, though it raised the bar very high among the nations, it could only degenerate from there as laws were added by those who knew not God or His law.

The legislature was empowered to write laws that were consistent with the Constitution. That was close, but not the same as writing laws consistent with God's law itself. And so over time, as men were elected who had little knowledge of biblical law, the godly legislators were eventually outnumbered and outvoted by those who were ignorant of God's law.

In 1892 Chief Justice David Brewer wrote a Supreme Court opinion, which ended thus:

These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. [143 U.S. 457 (1892)]

Pentecost in America

As Brewer was writing his Supreme Court opinion, sprinkles of Pentecost were beginning to rain upon the people. Mary Woodworth-Etter ministered in the 1890's and was known as the “grandmother of the Pentecostal movement.”

Charles Parham saw a great outpouring of the Spirit on New Year's Eve of 1900. Azusa Street came six years later through a black man, W. J. Seymour, who had been one of Parham’s students. In 1906 Seymour went to Los Angeles prior to receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We read on page 162 in The Life of Charles F. Parham, written by his wife in 1930, that. . .

. . . a door was opened among the Holiness people, where both black and white held cottage prayer meetings in a house of one of the members on number 214 Bony Bray; and Mr. Seymour received the baptism of the Holy Spirit here. Men and women sought more of God and their labor was blest. They sought wider fields, and rented an old building down town on Azusa St.

It is of particular interest to me that Seymour would receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit on a street named Bony Bray, for it is a sign of Pentecost. As I wrote in my book on The Wheat and Asses of Pentecost, Samson was an Old Testament Pentecostal type when he killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. Hence “Bony Bray” street is a fitting location for the most well-known beginning points of modern Pentecost.

In the midst of these events, John Alexander Dowie was founding a Pentecostal work at Zion, Illinois. He decided upon that location by the end of December in 1899, just before New Year’s Day when the Holy Spirit was poured out in Topeka, Kansas under Parham’s ministry. On page 52 Mrs. Parham wrote about how this began,

Sister Agnes N. Ozman, (now LaBerge) asked that hands might be laid upon her to receive the Holy Spirit, as she hoped to go to foreign lands. At first I refused, not having the experience myself. Then being further pressed to do it humbly in the name of Jesus, I laid my hands upon her head and prayed. I had scarcely repeated three dozen sentences when a glory fell upon her, a halo seemed to surround her head and face, and she began speaking in the Chinese language, and was unable to speak English for three days. When she tried to write in English to tell us of her experience, she wrote the Chinese, copies of which we still have in newspapers printed at that time.

This was occurring in Topeka, Kansas just about the time that Dowie’s ministry at Zion, Illinois was taking shape. Parham subsequently held many meetings at Zion. The tremendous healing ministry at Zion gave birth to John G. Lake, who himself received healing there and went on to become one of the greatest healing evangelists in the world.

Parham himself had the revelation of non-denominational Christendom. For this he was often persecuted, as Christians spread lies that he had left his wife and children, that he had “backslidden,” and even that he was a “desperately vile criminal.” Mrs. Parham wrote on page 201,

I believe, however, that the main secret of the fight against him was that he did not believe in organizations. Not giving any of his time to build up any denomination, he preached a free gospel everywhere to all who would receive it. . .

One newspaper report from The Daily Commercial of Three Rivers, Michigan, accurately described Parham this way:

“Mr. Parham follows none of the present day methods of evangelism; does not depend upon excitement, nor seek to create it. He will not tolerate fanaticism or wild-fire in any form in the meetings. He takes no collections, neither do any of his workers for their support, but are wholly dependent on God to supply their every need according to His promise. He is not forming a new sect or denomination, but is absolutely free of denominationalism. He preaches the Word of God in its fullness, and seeks only to bring people into a living union with a living Savior. He is one of the most loved, and at the same time one of the most hated, men in the United States." [Parham, p. 259]

This general outpouring of the Spirit, I believe, was timed by God to give the church and nation a final opportunity to repent in order to prevent the final phase of the Babylonian captivity from happening.

Denominationalizing Pentecost

Unfortunately, Pentecost was insufficient to stop this captivity, because most of the Pentecostal movements denominationalized in 1910-1912. Their level of the Holy Spirit apparently did not include any knowledge of the story of King Saul, who was a type of Pentecost. They did not know Saul was crowned on Pentecost (1 Sam. 12:17). Hence, each denomination wanted earthly “kings” to rule over them, establishing the rule of man in place of the Holy Spirit's direct rule.

The sentence of God was then passed upon America, and we came under the dominion of the Federal Reserve Bank in late 1913. By 1933 America was bankrupt and went into foreclosure to the wealthy owners of the Central Banks.

Seventy years later, in March of 2003, America and “coalition forces” invaded Iraq, the old territory of ancient Babylon. Our rulers knew not what they were doing, for in overthrowing old Babylon, they were establishing a prophetic type for the greater overthrow of modern Babylon—the banking system.

And so, in the decade after that invasion, we have seen the banking system of Mystery Babylon rocked to its foundations.

Through all of this, the divine call remains the same. The word (law) of God is our wisdom and our understanding. If we would study it and apply it, we would be able to resolve the problems of injustice and inequity in the land.

The Need for the Law and the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is called to write the law upon our hearts, as the New Covenant shows us (Hebrews 8:10). Apart from the Holy Spirit, the law remains external, where it can only be imposed as a discipline upon the carnal mind. I realize that no amount of law, no matter how righteous, will succeed in making any man righteous. Only the Holy Spirit working from within our hearts can actually solve this problem. At the same time, the Holy Spirit needs the law in order to write it in the hearts of believers.

Israel was given perfect laws, but see what happened to them. The law of God can provide the people with the proper setting, but when lawlessness abounds, the people will not comply with God's law, nor will they enforce it.

For this reason, we are in need of the New Covenant, which writes the law upon our hearts. If the law were written on every man's heart, there would be no cause to enforce it externally. It would be a waste of time to tell people not to steal or murder, if no one wanted to steal or murder anyway.

Nonetheless, the law of God must be followed one way or another. Either a person agrees with God and His righteous standard, or not. If not, the citizens must be taught, trained, and perhaps disciplined in order to comply. If the lawless ones multiply in the land, there is no feasible way to enforce God's law until an outpouring of the Spirit brings major change to the people themselves.

This is why I teach the law and pray for the outpouring of the Spirit.

Each Independence Day, we hear speeches extolling the greatness of America. Our national faults are overlooked and set aside for the day. Men attribute America's greatness to many things, including our diversity, our sexual freedom, and above all our freedom from God's law.

But we need to know God's point of view, as expressed in Deut. 4:5-8. Our greatness is actually measured by our knowledge of His law and how well we conform to its wisdom and understanding.

This is how we become doers of the word and not hearers only. This is how our faith in the Lawgiver is manifested. We can talk about our faith in God, but that faith is dead unless it is accompanied by obedience.

Someday, when God truly sets us free from this Babylonian system, we will have legislators whose authority will be limited to applying biblical law by the revelation of the Holy Spirit, rather than creating traditions of men.

When that day comes, many nations will need trained and experienced leaders in both the nation and the Church. Therefore, we should prepare to reign with Christ (Rev. 20:4) on the earth (Rev. 5:10). There are many ways in which we may “reign” here and now, but I believe that these are but training exercises for greater authority that is yet to be given.

As we hear His voice, learn the Word, and experience the Holy Spirit's leading in applying the Word, we should see each exercise as a training run for greater things to come. The nations are not quite ready for righteous government, because they still have remnants of faith in the Babylonian system. But God is in the process of discrediting that system, and when the people become disillusioned with it, they will seek alternative solutions.

That will be the time that God's people can step up to the plate and present their wisdom and understanding that comes from a revelation of God. When that day arrives, we will see that God has indeed raised up men and women from every nation on earth, who will be able to provide the much-needed solutions to the overwhelming problems in the earth. They will be Spirit-filled men and women in whose hearts the law of God has been written.