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The filet mignon of the word, part 2, The three churches

The feasts of the Lord apply to us and in prophecy in more than one way. There is a personal application, which addresses the progression in our personal relationship with Christ, moving from faith to obedience to agreement. These can also be seen as three levels of sonship.

Another is a long-term prophetic application, where we see the development of the church. There are essentially three churches in succession. Acts 7:38 KJV speaks of “the church in the wilderness,” a reference to the Israelites under Moses, but more broadly from Moses to Christ. I call this the Passover church, because it began properly on Passover, when Israel left Egypt, and ended many centuries later when Jesus died on the cross—again, at Passover.

The second church is a Pentecostal church, beginning in the second chapter of Acts and ending on Pentecost, May 30, 1993. This church spent 40 Jubilee cycles in its own wilderness. We are now in a transition into the third church, a Tabernacles church, that is being formed for the 1000-year Age to come.

God has used this progression to refine the church. Israel as a nation was called out of Egypt, as the Greek term ekklesia indicates. The word refers to those who are called out to assemble as a separate body. But the Israel church was in great need of refinement. It was an Old Covenant church that had laws but lacked the power of the Spirit to change the hearts of the people.

Even the New Testament church had problems, as we see from the apostolic writings. This church was being called out of Judaism. Paul wrote letters to correct these problems, and his letter to the Galatians shows how many in the church were unable to immigrate from Old Covenant thinking to New Covenant thinking. Many found it difficult to make a clean break with the temple worship. Paul had to remind them that Jerusalem was “Hagar” and corresponded to Mount Sinai in Arabia, the inheritance of Ishmael and the birthplace of the Old Covenant.

This problem became even more visible in the past 150 years with the rise of Christian Zionism, which places the earthly Jerusalem at the center of prophecy and eschatology. It appears that God’s most important concern has been to refine the church of its Old Covenant beliefs and practices.

So in recent years, and especially from 2023-2024, the issue of Jerusalem has come to the forefront. God is refining the church.

Therefore, another refinement is necessary. This time the overcomers are being called out of the church—especially out of Christian Zionism and all other forms of Old Covenant religion. Those who heed the call will truly be New Covenant believers that will reign with Christ in the Age to come.

The Pattern of Gideon

In Judges 6-8 we read about the story of Gideon, who delivered Israel from the Midianite captivity. Gideon raised an army of 32,000 (Judges 7:3). God then refined the army by sending home 22,000 who were fearful. Fear and faith are not compatible.

The second refinement then took place when God said to remove those who drank water (the word of God) without discrimination (Judges 7:5). This time only 300 remained (Judges 7:7). These 300 represented the overcomers and correspond to those today who are more careful about drinking the word of God and in their discernment of the truth.

The world has been in a long captivity to the various beast nations prophesied in Daniel 7. The story of Gideon’s war against the Midianites is a type and shadow of the present war between Babylonians and overcomers.

Divisions and Reunification of Birthright Provisions

Jacob divided the birthright into three main parts, giving Judah the scepter (Genesis 49:10), Levi the priesthood (Leviticus 8:6, 7), and the right of sonship to Joseph (1 Chronicles 5:1, 2). God’s purpose was to reunite these three provisions in Christ Himself. The scepter and the priesthood were reunited in Christ at His first coming, as we see from the book of Hebrews.

Sonship—that is, the manifestation of the sons of God—was not to be reunited until Christ’s second coming. At the second coming of Christ, the Head will come upon the overcoming body of Christ, in order that they may be presented to the Father on the eighth day of Tabernacles. These glorified saints will then be presented to the world. This is an event that all creation is eagerly and anxiously awaiting (Romans 8:19).

The Judges, Saul, and David

When the Israelites entered the land of Canaan and received their tribal and family inheritances, the nation was a loose confederation of tribes. Ideally, they should have influenced the Canaanites to become believers, but instead, the Israelites were influenced by the Canaanites to adopt their false gods. For this reason God “sold them” (as in Judges 3:8) into the hands of various foreign nations.

When the people repented, God raised up judges—military commanders—to restore their freedom and independence (as in Judges 3:9). However, each time of repentance proved to be temporary, and so God repeatedly brought them into bondage according to the judgment of the law (Exodus 22:3).

This is how Israel functioned politically during the time of the judges. The people finally tired of these captivities. Instead of seeing that captivity was due to their own violation of their covenant with God, they blamed their problem on the form of government under the judges. So they came to Samuel, their last judge (and prophet), demanding that he anoint for them a king. God gave them Saul, who was the best man among them who was qualified to be their king.

Saul started out good, but he soon fell into rebellion against God and disqualified himself and his descendants from continuing a royal dynasty. After 40 years of rule, he died and David was anointed king over Israel. David was of the tribe of Judah, the tribe that had been given the scepter in Genesis 49:10.

Judah’s Delay

Why did God give Saul the throne before David? Saul, after all, was of the tribe of Benjamin, to whom the scepter was not given. The answer lies in the story of Judah himself in Genesis 38. Judah had unwittingly had intercourse with his daughter-in-law, Tamar, who had dressed up as a harlot (Genesis 38:15). She conceived twins from that incident (Genesis 38:29, 30). Yet these were born out of wedlock in an unlawful manner. Deuteronomy 23:2 says,

² No one of illegitimate birth shall enter the assembly of the Lord; none of his descendants, even to the tenth generation, shall enter the assembly of the Lord.

David was the tenth generation from Judah: Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and David. (See Ruth 4:17-22.)

The Israelites had demanded a king a generation too soon, so God gave them a king from the tribe of Benjamin instead. Saul, then, was never meant to be more than a temporary king. Even so, his rejection of the word of the Lord disqualified him in a practical sense (1 Samuel 15:23).

Saul the Pentecostal King

Saul was a transitional king between the judges and King David. Saul was also a type of the Pentecostal church, for he was crowned on the day of wheat harvest (1 Samuel 12:17). This was the Feast of Weeks, the day when the priest was to offer up an offering of wheat (Exodus 34:22; Leviticus 23:16).

It was unlawful to eat of the new crop until the first fruits had been offered to God. We see this particularly in the first of the first fruits, which was of barley shortly after Passover (Leviticus 23:14). The first fruits offering was the signal that the people could then harvest their ripe barley and eat of the new crop. The same principle held true with the wheat harvest seven weeks later.

When Samuel told Saul that God had chosen him to be Israel’s king, the prophet gave him three signs to confirm the word of the Lord. All three are Pentecostal signs, but the third is the most obvious. 1 Samuel 10:6 says,

⁶ Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man.

This sign, along with his coronation on the day later called Pentecost, show that he was a type and shadow of the church in the Pentecostal Age—the second church. But because Saul was never meant to establish a permanent dynasty, it is clear that this second church was also temporary. It was to be replaced by the overcomers, represented by David.

There are many who believe that the Kingdom of God was established on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1. That is only a half-truth. It was the start of a kingdom, comparable to Saul, but it was not David’s Kingdom. We see from this that the Kingdom was to come in two steps—three, if you include the time of the judges.

If we are to understand the word of God properly and discern it as did the 300 overcomers who formed Gideon’s army, we must know the pattern that was established in the Old Testament.