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The filet mignon of the word, part 3, From Judges to Monarchy

The ideal government of the Kingdom of God is a monarchy. This is seen clearly in the political progression of Israel in Scripture. Israel moved from the time of judges to the monarchy, based on the promise of God and Jacob’s blessing upon Judah in Genesis 49:10.

The underlying problem with monarchy in general is that prior to the coming of His Majesty, King Jesus, the kings remained imperfect and corruptible. We know that Saul was corrupt, having rejected the word of the Lord (1 Samuel 15:23). He was a type of the second church under the anointing of Pentecost, and so we see from plain church history how the church largely rejected the law of the Lord, usurped authority to make its own laws, and failed to function as a steward of the throne.

The Failure of Pentecost

In fact, the church became so corrupt by the early tenth century with open prostitution and orgies that subsequent church (Catholic) historians refer to that era as “the golden age of pornocracy.” Every Jubilee cycle of church history, beginning in 33 A.D., was forecasted by a year in the reign of King Saul. Hence, the 18^th year of Saul’s reign, where he was disqualified to rule, established the pattern for the church’s 18^th Jubilee (866-915 A.D.).

The 18^th year of Saul was 414 years after God’s curse upon Amalek for attacking Israel as they were leaving Egypt (Exodus 17:14-16). The biblical meaning of the number 18 is oppression or bondage. See my book, The Biblical Meaning of Numbers from One to Forty. The number 414 is the factor of Cursed Time, which is a grace period that God gives to those under such judgment before the judgment actually takes effect.

Just as Saul disqualified himself in his 18^th year, so also the church under Pentecost disqualified itself by 915 A.D. Just as Saul had rejected the word of the Lord, so also did the church reject the word of the Lord. This did not mean that the reign of either Saul or the church ended at that time. Indeed, Saul had been given 40 years, so he still had another 22 years in which to rule Israel. So also the church continued to dominate Europe for another 22 Jubilee cycles.

Nonetheless, this rejection of the word brought about the divine sentence that prohibited Saul from an enduring dynasty, and it also brought about the divine sentence that the Roman church would also be replaced by the overcomers (“David”).

Pentecost itself is a leavened feast, for its first fruits offering was wheat baked with leaven (Leviticus 23:17). Leaven was prohibited in any offering to God (Leviticus 2:11), and the only reason this Pentecostal offering was acceptable to God was because it was baked in the fire. This is why the fire came down upon the heads of those first Pentecostals in Acts 2:3. The purpose of the baptism of fire was meant to purify them to make them acceptable sacrifices (Romans 12:1).

The problem is that the church soon lost its baptism of the Holy Spirit. Even today there persists the view that the baptism and all of the gifts of the Spirit ended with the death of John in 100 A.D. Such views are the result of centuries of church rejection of the word of the Lord, especially its rejection and refusal to study the laws of God. In my view, the crescendo of sin by 915 A.D. was caused by church lawlessness.

Pentecost has proven to be inadequate to bring righteousness into the earth. God’s sentence can no longer be reversed. The only solution is to move beyond Pentecost into Tabernacles, which is the feast that characterizes the overcomers. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that only genuine Pentecostals who receive the baptism of fire are eligible to move forward into the feast of Tabernacles. These are the ones who allow the “fiery law” (Deuteronomy 33:2 KJV) to burn the chaff in their lives, as John the Baptist described (Matthew 3:11, 12).

The True Monarchy of the Kingdom

Saul’s kingdom was an imperfect monarchy that was established before the time of David. In fact, David was not even born until Saul had reigned ten years. We know this because Saul died in his 40^th year, and then David was crowned at the age of 30 in Hebron over the tribe of Judah (2 Samuel 5:4).

Saul’s kingdom may be viewed as an interim kingdom, one that man desires but which is meant to fail. Saul failed as a king because even though he was anointed by God to be Israel’s king, he was not truly called. Saul was of Benjamin, not Judah. The lesson here is that there are layers of calling. Saul’s calling was genuine on one level, but not in an ultimate sense. Likewise, the church during the Pentecostal Age had a genuine calling, but not in an ultimate sense.

The established church has long claimed for itself Jesus’ promise in Matthew 16:18,

¹⁸ I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

No doubt King Saul himself also believed that his genuine anointing meant that he and his descendants would rule Israel in perpetuity. But he was deceived, as was the Pentecostal church that he represented. Jesus did not say that the Pentecostal church would prevail. He only spoke generally of “My church.” But as I have shown, there are three churches, and only the third church, ruled by Christ directly, can prevail over “the gates of Hades.”

David was a type of the Tabernacles church of the overcomers. David too was imperfect, but he was also repentant. For this reason the prophet Samuel told Saul in 1 Samuel 13:14, “But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart.” David was that man. He was also a type of Christ, the difference being that Christ came “without sin” (Hebrews 9:28 KJV).

These patterns also teach us that the church under Pentecost is not the full measure of the Kingdom of God. It is only an interim kingdom. There is yet a greater Kingdom that will be established in the age to come. This phase of the Kingdom is said to last 1000 years (Revelation 20:4-6). It is the great Sabbath Millennium, the seventh “day,” where a day is as a thousand years (Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8). This was commonly taught among the rabbis as well, and John did not dispute it.

The American Form of Government

When our founding fathers wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776, they placed the Creator as the originator of all rights. The text boldly states:

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men…”

Governments were instituted, not to grant rights but to “secure these Rights.” In other words, governments must defend the rights that God has granted men equally. America has long abandoned this basic principle, for when it rejected God in favor of secular government, it assumed the role of granting rights.

Nonetheless, our founders looked to the Scriptures to discover the ideal form of government. From the example of the corrupt European monarchies, they decided that a monarchy ruled by imperfect men needed checks and balances. So they set up three main branches of government: the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary. It was “a more perfect union,” as the Declaration of Independence had stated, but it was not actually perfect. It was merely the best form of government among men that they could devise prior to the coming of Christ.

So the founders modeled the American government after the time of the judges in Israel. The president acted largely as a judge—that is, a military commander as seen in the history of Israel. This meant that the president was primarily tasked with defending the rights granted to them by the Creator. But not all men were happy with this arrangement.

The popes at the time were greatly incensed at this idea. The Catholic church supported the monarchies of Europe, believing that this was the proper biblical model. Indeed, if the popes and kings had been Christlike, their argument would have been impeccable. But everyone knew that the kings and popes were grossly imperfect and immoral, and this fact alone argued against that position.

The point is that the American form of government, as originally intended, was not meant to be the ideal. It was, therefore, a temporary fix on an old problem. Even so, some preachers, such as Timothy Dwight, believed that America was literally the fifth kingdom of Daniel 2 and 7. In other words, this was the “stone” kingdom of Daniel 2:35. It was the nation that would arise after the “little horn” had completed its desolation of the overcomers (Daniel 7:20-22).

Most certainly, America was the reestablishment of Israel after a period of “seven times” (7 x 360 years). The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776, which was 2,520 years after the Assyrians began conquering and deporting the tribes of Israel on the east side of the Jordan in 745 B.C. Likewise, our nation’s capital, Washington, was completed in 1800, which was 2,520 years after Samaria, Israel’s capital, was destroyed in 721 B.C.

Hence, the timing of history alone proves the importance of America and links it to the tribes of Israel. It would be another century or more before history would focus upon the nation of Judah after 2,520 years (604 B.C. to 1917 A.D.). That, in turn, was complicated by the rise of Zionism, which competed with the true nation of Judah described in Romans 2:28, 29.

The final reunification of Israel and Judah has yet to occur in our time, but we will have to give a longer account of it in a later study.

The main point for us to know now is that we have nearly reached the end of America’s experiment with a form of government that was modeled after the time of Israel’s judges. While I fully agree with our founders that men’s governments ought to have checks and balances, I also believe that we are soon to enter a time of Christ’s monarchy. Hence, we ought to be flexible and willing to accept the new and perfect form of Kingdom government that fits the age to come.