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Turning our Captivity

Daniel prophesied of four beast nations/empires that would rise up in succession to fulfill the judgment of God upon Jerusalem for its sin of hypocritical religion. They had given lip service to God, but their traditions of men had nullified the law of God.

Each of these beast nations received authority from God Himself to rule not only Jerusalem but also whatever other nations they might conquer. God told the people through Jeremiah that anyone that would NOT submit to "Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, My servant" (Jer. 29:6) would come under divine judgment. Such was the decree of the divine court, yet other prophets of the day contradicted Jeremiah, saying, "You shall not serve the king of Babylon" (Jer. 27:9).

Many of the prophets of the day told the people that God wanted them to be free to serve God--that is, to continue serving God in the same hypocritical manner which had brought upon them the judgment in the first place. For this reason, they did not accept the judgment of the divine court, for they did not think that God would ever do such a thing to them, given all their religious activity in the temple.

And so the prophets induced the people to fight the king of Babylon, not realizing that in resisting Nebuchadnezzar, they were actually resisting God Himself. It is one thing to be religious; it is quite another matter to know God and to conform to His will. If the people had known the law (instead of their traditions), they would have submtted to the yoke. But in putting away the law, they disagreed with God and could not hear the word through Jeremiah.

The situation is not so different today. Back in 1914 God put America (and the world) under the yoke of Babylon. It was for the same reason--hypocritical religion. This was NOT accomplished because the bankers forming the Federal Reserve were so intelligent, nor was it because they were so successful in keeping their plots a secret. No, it was because God gave them the authority over us in the divine court after the Church(es) had put away the law of God for many years and had substituted the laws of men in their place.

The Church was the first to put away the law, and their civil government then reflected the desire of their heart. Christian people had elected representatives who legislated according to their own will, rather than the will of God. In other words, our government is a pretty accurate reflection of the heart of the people, collectively. And so God gives us the type of lawless government we desire in our hearts, and this is our judgment.

We get it until our sins correct us, as we come to see that man's way is not the right way. Perhaps God was right after all. Maybe God is, in fact, a very competent King of the earth, who has righteous laws which, if followed, would establish peace, justice, and love among the people.

Meanwhile, however, Christians themselves tell me that God's law is awful. They say, "Would you really stone someone for picking up some sticks on a Sabbath??" My answer is, "Would Jesus have stoned someone for such a thing?"

The answer is obviously NO, and yet Jesus did not put away the law. He understood it because He was its Author, the One who appeared to Moses as Yahweh and gave him the righteous law. So if Jesus would not have stoned someone for picking up sticks on the wrong day, perhaps it is because He had a little different understanding of the law and its purpose.

Likewise, there are two types of application. We can apply the law from an Old Covenant mindset, or from a New Covenant mindset. Most Christians assume that the law can only be applied in an Old Covenant fashion, and that somehow the two must always go together.

This wrong assumption is close to the heart of the problem today. They assume that the law is the covenant, when in fact, the covenants determine the manner in which the law is applied. Under the Old Covenant, the law was written externally on tables of stone and then enforced against people who were in disagreement with God. Under the New Covenant, the Holy Spirit writes that same law upon our hearts to cause us to come into agreement with God.

This was foreshadowed in Moses' day. The law was given to Moses twice. The first law was broken, smashed by Moses himself when the people were worshiping the golden calf (Ex. 32:19). The second law was exactly the same as the first (Ex. 34:1), a virtual repeat, except that it was given on the day thereafter commemorated by the feast of Tabernacles. Moses came off the mount with his face glowing on the 8th day of Tabernacles. This time the law was not broken, but it had changed Moses internally. Of course, this was only a type and shadow of things to come, yet it speaks to us today, particularly during the feast of Tabernacles.

Acts 7:38 tells us that those Israelites under Moses were "the Church in the wilderness." This is a positive statement, in that Israel had been called out of Egypt after everyone was justified by faith in the blood of the Lamb. They may not have known God by the name of Yeshua or Jesus yet, but Ex. 15:2 says that "Yahweh. . . has become my Yeshua. He is my God, and . . . my father's God."

The negative part is that the Church in the wilderness suffered from hardness of heart. They constantly complained, accusing God of mistreatment, not realizing that His Fatherly disciplines and hardships were designed to make them grow up and become spiritually mature.

The Church in Moses' day is a prophetic type and shadow of today's Church. Human nature has not changed in the least. The Church still disagrees with God but loves the trappings and rituals of religion, which give them a good religious feeling to mask their rebelliousness.

In biblical days, God dealt with this problem first by putting them into wooden-yoke captivities in their own land. The book of Judges records six such captivities. But finally, they came under the iron yoke, prophesied in Deut. 28:48, wherein they were taken to foreign lands to serve out their sentence.

We today have been brought into a wooden-yoke captivity. The Fed put us into bondage within our own borders, and the Federal Reserve Act was signed by WOODROW Wilson as a sign of the wooden yoke. I don't like this captivity any more than anyone else does, but I am grateful to God for blinding us and making modern Babylon a SECRET ("Mystery"). Otherwise, our religious leaders would have risen up with indignation and refused to serve our modern Nebuchadnezzar. And God would then have had to sentence us to the iron yoke, where we would serve out our sentence in a foreign land.

The solution to our present dilemma, then, is NOT to rise up in revolution. The solution is NOT to string up the Fed Chairman on the nearest lamp post, regardless of our view of him. The solution is for the people to remove the CAUSE of this captivity, so that God then would move to set us free. That cause is not Babylon. That cause is our own lawlessness.

The unbelievers are not the cause of our captivity. They are the result of it. God looks at the heart of the Church when deciding whether or not to judge a nation. Most (if not all) of the unbelievers have rejected Jesus Christ on account of the Christians who supposedly represent Christ to the world.

The solution is to turn the hearts of Christian people. When this is accomplished, it will be a small matter to turn the hearts of unbelievers. They are holding out for something better than what is being offered to them. When the Church repents of its lawlessness and the Holy Spirit is poured out upon them, Jesus will be irresistible to the unbelievers.