The Kingdom of God!

 

Chapter 108

 

This week we lost Queen Elizabeth. The Lord took her home. Now England has a new King, King Charles. There is a lot of history that most Christians don't know about the British Iles. Did you know that the rock that Jacob lay his head on in Bethel is under the throne where the Kings of England are initiated? How did it get there?

 

To understand this you have to go all the way back to the account of Judah being seduced by his oldest son's widow. This is found in Gen. 38. You will probably recall reading about this but why was it so important to be recorded in the Bible. She tricked Judah into having sex with her because he had not given his last son to her to be her husband.

 

She got pregnant over this and had twins. When the time come for them to be born, one of the twins stuck his hand out of her womb and the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said that this one came out first. But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out and he was named Perez, which means a brake or a breach.

 

After this his brother came out who had the scarlet thread on his wrist and he was named Zerah, which means from a rising of light; like the rising of the sun. It also means seed.

 

Why was this so important? It was because the blood line of Jesus had to go all the way back to Adam. I can't go into all the scriptures to show you how the Lord preserved this blood line. It is recorded on my website which is www.rejoicinglifeministries.com It is contained in several articles; Who is Zerah and Perez, Tephi, daughter of King Zedekiah, What Two Nations Fulfill Jacob's Prophecy, and The Great Seal of The United States.

 

In Matt. 1:1-3,

 

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar!"

My question to you is, "Why was both Phares and Zara recorded here." The answer to that is quite interesting. Why does it not say, "Abraham was the father of Isaac and Ishmael and Isaac was the father of Jacob and Esau? And why does it not say that Jacob was the father of Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah?

The main reason is that they are not a part of the lineage of Christ. But when it gets to Judah, it says, "Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar! Perez and Zerah are both a part of the lineage of Christ. It involves the prophecy that Jacob, or Israel, gave to Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh. One was to become a league of nations and the other one was to become a great nation.

Even though Judah failed, God will be faithful to the promise that He made. David is of the lineage of Pharaz or Perez who is of the lineage of Judah. But so is Zarah of the lineage of Judah. As long as the promises God gave to Judah goes through any of the lineage of Judah, God has been faithful to his promises. God made a promise to David, who is of Judah's and Perez's lineage, that there would never come a time when one of his seed did not sit on a throne. This is so, even to this day. There are earthly kings of the lineage of David who sit on the throne of the Tribe of Judah until Jesus returns to earth again.

 

There were kings from the lineage of Perez on the throne until Zedekiah was led into Babylonian captivity where he and all of his sons died causing the end of the Perez linage. In Zedekiah's 11th year as king, the Babylonian army besieged Jerusalem, entered it; the city was broken up, the palace and temple destroyed. All the sons of King Zedekiah were killed before his eyes. So that there would be no man to carry on his dynasty, all the princes of Judah were also slain. King Zedekiah's eyes were put out, and he was bound in chains and carried to Babylon where he died. You will read of all this captivity in II Kings 25, II Chronicles 36, Jeremiah 39, and 52.

 

What happened to the promise of the Lord that,

" The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people."? 

 

For this purpose God raised up a very special prophet, whose real call few, indeed, understand. This prophet was Jeremiah. He was sanctified before he was born. (See Jeremiah 1:5.) Jeremiah, when first given his vital call and commission, was a young lad about 17. Before he finally completed it, he was an aged, white haired patriarch. The commission is recorded in Jeremiah 1:10, 

"See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant."

I want you to notice that Jeremiah was set over the nations, more than one. He was a Jew, of the tribe of Levi, living in Judah. He was set a prophet over Judah, but not Judah alone. Over the nations, Judah and Israel! He was set over them to do two things: to tear down something, and then to build and to plant something. Jeremiah was used of God as a prophet to warn Judah of their sins and of the coming invasion and captivity at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon unless they repented. He was used as a go between, a mediator, between the kings of Judah and Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian King.

It is well known that Jeremiah was used in destroying the kingdom of Judah. But note it in your Bible! He also was commissioned to plant and to build! What was he to plant and build? Why, naturally, that which was pulled down and rooted out of Judah, the throne of David. He was set over the Kingdoms of Israel as well as Judah. He was used in throwing down that throne from Judah. Then what was he commissioned to do in Israel? The second half of his strange and little understood commission was to build and to plant! So far as the world knows, the last king to sit on that throne of David was Zedekiah of Judah. He was thrown down off it and the throne rooted out of Judah nearly 600 years before Jesus came on the scene! 

And now the first part of Jeremiah's strange commission is accomplished! So far as the world could see, or has seen since, the dynasty of David had ended! No king remained on the throne. Judah's last king was dead. All his sons were dead. All other princes who might be possible heirs to carry on the dynasty had been killed. No possible heir of Zedekiah to the throne, so the world then believed, remained alive.

What, then!! Did God forget his covenant with David? Did the throne cease? True, the government of Judah ceased, as had the Kingdom of Israel more than 130 years before! But see what else Jeremiah was commissioned to do. To plant and to build! To plant and rebuild among the House of Israel who supposedly were without a king, lo, these many days and now supposing that they were Gentiles! Therefore the identity and location of the replanting has remained hidden to the world until this time of the end in which we live today!

But how about the second part of Jeremiah's great commission? Was God able to keep his covenant with David? Was he able to plant, and rebuild that throne? Jeremiah was among these captives Jews. Yet he must remain free to carry out the second part of his mission. So the captain of the guard said to Jeremiah in Jer. 40:2-4, 

"The LORD your God decreed this disaster for this place. And now the LORD has brought it about; he has done just as he said he would. All this happened because you people sinned against the LORD and did not obey him. But today I am freeing you from the chains on your wrists. Come with me to Babylon, if you like, and I will look after you; but if you do not want to, then don't come. Look, the whole country lies before you; go wherever you please." However, before Jeremiah turned to go? Nebuzaradan added, "Go back to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has appointed over the towns of Judah, and live with him among the people, or go anywhere else you please."

 

So the captain of the guard gave him victuals and a reward [expense money] and let him go" (Jeremiah 40:1-5). Jeremiah was left free to perform the second half of his commission. So where did he go? We come now to an amazing, fascinating, thrilling part of the book of Jeremiah, which has been almost entirely overlooked. "Then went Jeremiah unto Gedeliah, to Mizpah; and dwelt with him among the people that were left in the land" (6th verse). Now this Gedeliah had been made governor by the king of Babylon over a remnant of Jews in the land, and since Jerusalem was destroyed, he had made Mizpah his headquarters. But the king of Ammon plotted with a Jew named Ishmael to assassinate Gedeliah. The plot was executed; the governor and part of the Jews were slain. Jeremiah was among the survivors. Jeremiah 41:10 says, 

"Then Ishmael carried away captive all the residue of the people that were in Mizpah, even the king's daughters, and all the people that remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard [from Babylon] had committed to Gedeliah... and carried them away captives, and departed to go over to the Ammonites"

 Did you catch it? Read that passage again. Among these Jews were the king's daughters! Daughters of Zedekiah, king of Judah and of David's dynasty! King Zedekiah had died. All his sons had been killed. All possible heirs of Zedekiah to David's throne had been killed, except the king's daughters! Now we see why Jeremiah went to Mizpah!

Time and space will not allow me to go into all the details of how Jeremiah accomplished all of this. If you can't get on my website to read of the detailed account of how Jeremiah accomplished all of this, you can send an email to me at ddj@suddenlink.net and tell me you would like a copy of these articles. It will surprise you at what some of these articles will reveal to you.

You can search the Bible from one end to the other and not find recorded as to how he accomplished this mission. We have to look at history and understand the various markings left in the path of where Jerimiah took the daughters of King Zedekiah until one of them was married to one of the kings of Zerah's linage thus healing the breach.

You must remember that this happened some 600 years before Jesus was born.

Something great has happened in the Great State of West Virginia this week!

West Virginia Legislature Passes Bill Banning Abortions, Will Become 16th State to Protect Babies

QUOTE:The West Virginia legislature has passed a bill to ban abortions, protecting babies starting at conception. Once the House approves the Governor Jim Justice signs the measure into law, West Virginia will become the 16th state to ban abortions.

The state legislature is holding a special session on a few political issues, including abortion. Knowing that the state's old abortion ban is tied up in courts, supposedly for lack of clarity, Governor Jim Justice called on the legislature to pass a new abortion ban that would stand up in court following the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

"From the moment the Supreme Court announced their decision in Dobbs, I said that I would not hesitate to call a Special Session once I heard from our Legislative leaders that they had done their due diligence and were ready to act," Justice said in a statement. "As I have said many times, I very proudly stand for life and I believe that every human life is a miracle worth protecting."

 

This is great news for those of us who live in the State of WVA! We pray that other states will follow our example.