The Coming Reset and Opportunity

Collapse of Western Culture

I believe that, according to Scripture, the eventual collapse of Western Civilization is inevitable. This collapse will mark the beginning of the final epoch, culminating in the Lord’s return. With partial success, Western cultures have blended Christian ethics with hedonistic economics, human supremacy through science and technology, and social salvation through Statism. Scripture refers to this unholy mixture—of Christian ethics with humanism—as “Babylon.” Like nuclear fusion, Western culture forces together contrary elements until it explodes in unimaginable destruction.

Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of believers are presently feeling the ripples of tectonic shifts. These tremors are manifesting in school board uprisings, dizzying political swings, vaccine fears, increasing political power grabs and other social disruptions that make all sorts of conspiracy theories seem increasingly less crazy.

Christians have tolerated this progressively hostile culture only because the antagonism has been so subtle until now. They’ve been duped by the mystery of it, gobbling up the mantras about science and progress as mere secular changes without spiritual significance. So they have failed to see the end result of how, by simply following along with the predominant trends, the basis of all their convictions, values, families, and lifestyles would be dismantled. To this point, they have failed to consider why Scripture calls the confused mixture not just “Babylon” but “Mystery Babylon.” But as they are confronted with the undeniable consequences of these creeping changes, the mystery will disappear. Then, an exodus will ensue. So, in spite of all the turmoil and hardship of the time, we see the prospect of something extraordinarily exciting to anticipate.

Until the last few years, this collapse of which I speak, has been staved off by the United States perhaps more than by any other corporate entity on earth. But today we see the pillars of even that society beginning to crumble. You may be able to knock out one of the pillars of a large building without bringing the whole edifice down. You might even knock out two or three and, despite the inevitable shakings you will feel, convince yourself that nothing has changed. Yet, like a Jenga tower, there comes a tipping point where one more loss brings down the whole structure.

I would submit that Christian familial values served as one essential pillar in our society. That pillar has now fallen. I would submit that “truth”—not your truth or my truth, but absolute, objective truth—was another such pillar in our society. And that pillar is now also gone, at least from the most essential influential institutions in our society, such as media and education. It has been replaced by relativism. I would even go so far as to say that one of the main pillars that Western culture has now knocked out was not only a mere vestigial belief in God, but, specifically, belief in God as the Creator. This has been replaced by an all-encompassing belief that human beings can be their own creators and define themselves in any way that they desire. And as crucial as all of these fallen pillars have been, perhaps the pillar that has carried more structural weight than any other has been the uniquely American view of justice and an independent judiciary. I submit that the building will not survive the collapse of this particular buttress of our society. “Justice” is primarily a quest for truth, resulting in the fair distribution of penalties, power, and consequences. Once that is gone, turmoil and the rule of arbitrary power become the norm.

No one calls for justice; no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil. They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched. Their cobwebs are useless for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood.

They pursue evil schemes; acts of violence mark their ways. The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks along them will know peace.

So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like people without eyes. At midday, we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead. — Isaiah 59:4-10

Troubling Harbingers

If people are writing histories in a hundred years, I wager they will identify 2016 and 2020 as irreversible pivots in the inexorable breakdown of our society. It’s admittedly difficult to contemplate these shifts without being sucked into the narrative of either the Left or the Right. But I believe an accurate picture sees the shift as the responsibility of both sides.

From a Christian, allegorical perspective, it might be helpful to contemplate the two parties in America, Left and Right, kind of like Judah and Samaria. In the Biblical narrative, we see that while both of these factions had good and bad qualities, Samaria generally stayed ahead of Judah in its rush toward compromise, apostasy, and self-destruction. I see the Left and Right of our nation as somewhat analogous to this. The Left adopted the idolatry of human salvation and messianic Statism long ago. While the Right has been much slower to embrace this idolatry, it is now following the same trajectory.

Historically, conservative Americans tended not to look for messianic political solutions or leaders. They saw voluntary society as the ideal context for pursuing and realizing the good of life—loving, helping, and improving lives. Conversely, they saw the State as fulfilling an almost entirely negative function: punishing criminals, protecting borders, and repelling aggressive nations. In contrast, for over a century, the Left has posited their hopes for society’s improvement in the State. They have believed that good government—through educating their young, healing their sick, feeding their poor, clothing their naked, and other programs—would create the beautiful society humanity dreamed of. So it was not surprising when they got "chills down their legs” while listening to Obama or hyperventilated with ecstasy during the speeches of radical Statists like Mario Cuomo and his ilk. But now, a change has occurred on the Right, and we must not deceive ourselves by ignoring it. We are witnessing, from so-called conservatives, the same, might I say, cult-like emotional adulation toward Donald Trump. He is not merely a politician; he is an icon who stirs the fervor—not of voters, but of followers.

This may seem to be only a superficial change, but it is a seminal shift, signaling the rise of the kind of political idolatry on the Right that has always marked the Left. “Judah” has a new god—populist nationalism.

A dispassionate look at the Right’s newest hero raises some unavoidable questions: he was a Democrat until 2009, contributed massively to Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign, was pro-abortion until running for office, exhibits brash, brazen bully tactics,  was married to his third wife, is a known philanderer and is a billionaire from Manhattan who calls his own autobiography “the second best book ever written after the Bible.” No dispassionate observer among Christian conservatives could have been induced to call this man a “conservative” before his run in 2016. He is anything but. Despite his many personal and character flaws, he is viewed as a winner by many on the Right, and that is enough. It seems that his unscrupulous tenacity for ego domination is somehow connected to his success, which is why his barbarities are often overlooked when they align with the Right’s political agenda.

We can find pertinent lessons for our times from the stories of Sodom, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Nineveh, and Herod. We discover that judgment and chaos were released when these people and nations crossed some critical line of brazen pride in the face of God. None of these entities belonged to God’s covenant people. None of them were categorically sanctioned of Yahweh. Yet all of them enjoyed at least inaction from angelic judgment until they crossed some pivotal line of hubris in the face of their Maker. In the same manner, it would seem as though Christian Nationalism may have crossed a similar line in recent years. And I’m not convinced that it’s prudent to view the calamity of COVID and its triggered government overreach as entirely detached from the collective pivot in attitude and values and politics at that time. I’m suggesting that the changes erupting around us, from COVID to wars to government overreach, unscrupulous indoctrination of children, and so on, might be seen as a kind of judgment when considered through a Biblical lens.

Regardless, “injustice” has become the cry of our times.  The Left clamors against the Right’s perceived injustice against minorities and underclasses. The Right boils in rage against the politically driven prosecutions and persecutions of their champion. In contrast, just 50 years ago, Richard Nixon resigned with dignity when his proximity to scandal cost him the support of the entirety of even his own party in Congress. Why? Why would he back out of the fray? Why would he put the country first? Because, as a society, Americans at that time subscribed to a standard of justice that transcended their politics. This is no longer the case. We are entrenched, not in a political row, but in a religious jihad where morality—right and wrong—are in the balance, and constituencies seem willing to follow their “heroes” into the very abyss.

A Troubling Dream

In 2016, a series of dreams and warnings came to various church members in our congregation, seeming to indicate that America was at a pivot point in her history and that our nation was going to cross some Rubicon from which we could never return. Before President Trump was even nominated, I had a dream that I briefly shared with the church. I have had many dreams, some inconsequential and some from God. This dream felt like one of the latter.

In my dream, I witnessed a large crowd of people standing at the rim of a massive crater. They were looking with dreadful awe into the crater, onto a scene that resembled a World War II battlefield. The onlookers cupped their hands over their mouths or slumped to the ground, grabbing themselves by their knees, doubled over in a state of total shock. Mangled steel and parts of buildings littered the crater, and smoke filled the air; it was a shambles of devastation. Although it was unclear what had happened in the dream, I suspected a bomb had caused this destruction. Despite the situation’s severity, I felt frustrated at the people's reaction. These were good, respectable Christians gaping in astonishment, dumbfounded by the event. In my dream, I felt that they should have known better and that their shock was misplaced. Did this trouble in the scene predict a specific occurrence, or was it allegorical of an approaching societal upheaval and collapse? I can’t say. God didn’t show me if the scenes in the dream were literal or figurative.

In my dream, I walked along the crater’s edge to where I was looking up into the downturned faces of the onlookers, and I was rebuking them. “You should have prayed against this man,” I said to them, as if to reproach their foolish astonishment at what seemed inevitable. That was the whole dream. No one said who the man was, but it felt understood. As a local body, we responded to this dream with earnest prayer, as we should have. Still, I'm not 100% sure that the dream was merely intended to get this local congregation to pray. Instead, I'm afraid it was an insight into coming events, which could've only been avoided by a degree of spiritual vision and awareness that was tragically and  dismally lacking in the modern church.

Conservatives look back at the FBI and Justice Department’s mobilization against a  then-sitting president in pursuit of now-disproven allegations spawned from his political opponent. They see how Hillary Clinton went scot-free for her actual violations, which James Comey of the FBI later admitted. They contrast the handling of Hillary’s scandal to the three and a half years of nonstop investigation that resulted in President Trump being completely exonerated in the Russia collusion hoax. And Conservatives are incredulous to see how the pillar of justice is cracking under our society. You may say, “It’s not cracking!” But if people believe and perceive that it’s cracking, then in actuality it’s cracking. Now, on the heels of these historic overreaches against a president, subsequently renounced as baseless and persecutorial, the same president now has over ninety felony charges from the Justice Department, a DA in Georgia, and a DA in Manhattan.

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, a career Democrat and Clinton donor, widely discredited these prosecutors. Left and Right condemn Alvin Bragg’s Manhattan prosecution as ludicrous and  certain to fail in appeal. Still, none in their right mind can expect a Manhattan jury to separate their political feelings from the defendant before them and issue a fair verdict for the man ninety percent of New Yorkers voted against.

The District Attorney in Atlanta, Georgia, has charged 19 of Trump’s top administration officials with crimes ranging from conspiracy to fraud and sedition. Again, pundits on both sides claim that such charges will be tough to prove and have no historical basis. Conservatives understandably believe that the justice system is no longer independent but has become the most deadly tool in the political arena.

Simultaneous to these regional charges, the U.S. Justice Department has charged the former president with incitement, sedition, and other high-level felonies. Additionally, they have charged him with scores of crimes related to his handling of classified documents. In none of these cases is the former president being accused of a crime that the average population can readily relate to, such as murder, burglary, battery, and the like. It appears to people like another political witch-hunt. It looks like the Justice Department is weaponized by the political Left to prosecute the mishandling of papers after having ignored Clinton’s violations, such as destroying hard drives with hammers in a garage and wiping evidence from hard drives with “BleachBit.” To at least half the nation, the blindfold has been torn from the eyes of Lady Justice, and her sword is stabbing one side on behalf of the other.

Folks, we’ve never been here before, not even close. Our boat as a nation has slipped its moorings, and we are adrift in uncharted waters. And we would be blind, naive fools to, in the words of Jesus, fail to read the signs of the times (Luke 12:56).

A New Power Dynamic

So, I return to my first idea: Western Civilization will collapse. And the current political upheaval in America signals the fracturing of its most essential pillar: justice.

And when it does collapse, what happens then? Some may imagine that anarchy will be released and pandemonium will take over what is now the United States. There will doubtless be places and seasons in which such conditions do prevail as the nation and much of the world transition to a new era. But make no mistake: human power has never been greater than now. Technologies created by human intelligence have never been so thorough and ubiquitous. The specter of collapse, while bringing dread to the hearts of many, titillates the imagination of our society's most ambitious power brokers. This is articulated in the vision for what has been termed by the World Economic Forum as “The Great Reset.” Messianic states are salivating at the thought of an end to this current model that we call Western Civilization. They see it as their best chance to remake the world as it should be, according to their own utopian, salvific ideals.

Some imagine that we are already living in a post-Christian society. And while that is a valid depiction of institutions such as  media and academia, we underestimate the extent to which Christian values still influence our culture. We cannot even conceive of a brand new model actually divorced from the ethics that informed  and still inform this nation. The Constitution is a document codified 250 years ago, and, like it or not, it was established when people had a completely different view of family, church, human origins, science, sexuality, Statism, and personal liberty. Scores of sources were referenced by the Founding Fathers in the  Constitutional Convention, from John Knox to various philosophers; they even referenced the French Revolution (although entirely negatively). But if you were to find the second most quoted source, the Bible was cited thirty times more than its closest runner-up.

We should not underestimate the totality of differences between the Christian-influenced culture of today—compromised as it may be—and future  societies, which will be grounded and established free of every Christian value and ethic, and maybe not just free of them, but in antagonism to them.

The concept of democracy that truly limits power and diversifies authority may no longer endure. The American political system is built on the presupposition of human imperfection and, therefore, the need to limit inevitably flawed human power. However, a new hierarchy of governance has long since emerged and is now increasingly uncontested in predominant sectors of Western culture over the last 250 years. I’m speaking of the supremacy of scientific expertise. Doctors don’t gain their position by winning elections, nor do scientists, such as Doctor Fauci. They are not seen as practitioners of subjective, personal worldviews but of scientific reality, a reality which is ostensibly deemed to be objectively, transparently true. Thus, science stands outside of democracy, not subject to Left or Right or majority opinion. So, the incredible power increasingly handed to the scientific elite is based on the universal acceptance of their truth claims—something unprecedented in the realm of political governance—until now. As artificial intelligence gains trust and becomes perceived as essentially accurate (and increasingly infallible) it will inevitably and decisively replace the antiquated need for democracy. In short, the future's AI systems will bring the uncontested expertise of science into the political sphere, ending the need for debate and dissent.

We have wanted our powers diversified across many bodies of government. Even though this is inefficient, we have wanted this because humans are imperfect; they make bad decisions. But once we can overcome the fallibility of human decision making and trust a computer system that is the collective expression of billions of human thoughts, we will no longer need the inefficiency of democracy. So we will move increasingly toward a computer-controlled form of governance.

A Smithsonian writer depicts a futuristic view of AI-governed society:

Civil rights drones fly over police pods as they race to the scene of a crime—one AI watching over another AI, for the protection of humankind. Each police station in Lagos or Kuala Lumpur has its own lie-detector AI that is completely infallible, making crooked cops a thing of the past. Hovering over the bridges in Kuala Lumpur are “psych drones” that watch for suicidal jumpers.

I believe the day will come when artificial intelligence will educate both our children and adults, diagnose our diseases, monitor and control our trade and economy, adjudicate our crimes, and essentially govern our society.

Artificial intelligence is the ultimate culmination of mankind's ambition and the corporate project which was first attempted with the Tower of Babel. It is an amalgamation of our collective intelligence and effort to attain the status of God. Consider this: if you could encounter an entity that possessed in totality the intelligence, wisdom and knowledge of every human being but without any of their imperfections, would you not be face-to-face with God? This is the One whose image we were created to reflect. AI, on the other hand, is a counterfeit deity—the incarnation of humankind's accumulated wisdom and ideas, manifesting as a mighty tree of knowledge. Artificial intelligence is the modern-day god, an avatar through which to worship human knowledge incarnate in technology.

So, the collapse of Western culture is a terrifying prospect for many and will present a grand opportunity for those who have chafed against Christianity’s influence on society until now. And yet, this opportunity will be two-fold. A large contingent of Christians who, like the proverbial frogs, have been soaking in the gradually warming cauldron of Babylon‘s mixed culture, placidly unaware of the devil’s insidious intentions, will finally jump out. There will be a great exodus. I believe this with all my heart.

Scripture reveals that only a remnant of Christians will survive the onslaught of the coming age. If John the Revelator marveled at Babylon, will not the remnant barely preserve its faith? Only those with the deepest level of commitment, whose lives and actions prove their faith as a present, ongoing reality, will even stand a chance in the coming days. But that remnant may be a lot bigger than many of us imagine. The collapse of the mixed culture will present the most significant opportunity for the bona fide culture of Christ to finally emerge on the face of the earth. Like the scoffers in Peter’s day, some may be tempted to mock at such a notion, pointing to the fact that such a culture has never materialized.  But that time will most certainly come.

“The Restoration of All Things”

When the apostle Peter stood before the  temple in the book of Acts, he spoke about how Jesus would remain in heaven until, in his words, the time of “the restoration of all things” spoken of by the prophets. This means that the restoration Peter spoke of has yet to come to pass so long as Jesus remains in heaven. The book of Acts sets the standard for believers to aspire to in terms of truth and power. However, Peter anticipated a yet-future restoration and revelation that would be required to usher in the Lord’s return, something surpassing the church even of his day. This Christian society will emerge in stark contrast and conflict to man’s Tower of Babel project, which, by that time, will have become the universal “Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots.”

Scripture tells us that this restored church will be a kingdom. It says that “the mountain of Yahweh’s house will be exalted above all other mountains” (Isa. 2:2), referring to nations allegorically as “mountains.” The prophets that Peter referred to said that the kings of the earth would see the success of the Lord’s kingdom and stream to her from the four corners of the earth, asking that Zion teach them her ways (Isa. 2:3). Jesus showed no interest when offered all the kingdoms of the world and their glory (Matt. 4:8), and He insisted to Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). John further declared that all worldly kingdoms lie under the evil one’s control (1 John 5:19). Thus, any world rulers asking to be taught by Zion will be abandoning their worldly thrones and political powers of death to become true sons of Zion, the city of peace, Jerusalem descending from above. Biblical prophecy depicts the Messianic stone that will come down and strike the feet of the great man-made god, fashioned as an image in man’s likeness. Scripture says this stone would bring down that gargantuan image of deified man (Dan. 2:5).

I said at the onset of COVID— “We must remember that what is good for the church is not always good for the world, and what is good for the world is not always good for the church.”

The church is too comfortable in Babylon. If Babylon were to remain a safe, palatable place for Christianity, the church would never be driven out like the children of Israel from Egypt. Zion would never find the wherewithal to cross the Red Sea, head into the wilderness, and seek a homeland beyond the confines of Egypt. And the church will never become what God has called her to be until she has been exiled from the world’s cultures. But when the host cultures become too hot to endure, Zion will hear a voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, My people” (Rev. 18:4).

I ask you to expand your thinking and try to imagine what it would look like for a kingdom to even come close to fulfilling the grand promises of the prophets. Could anyone honestly conclude that this restored “kingdom” amounts to no more than widespread recitation of the sinner's prayer, or even multitudes of individual believers lost and intermingled in Babylon? I find it patently absurd to think such individualism could even remotely fulfill Peter’s anticipation.

Let’s begin with the problem: why do the present-day churches fall so far short of fulfilling the great prophecies for Zion? While Christianity already boasts the numbers, she has never realized what the citizens of this world have long known—that unity is the prerequisite for power. We look at Christian groups around the world and see the old denominations crumbling and on the verge of extinction. The Amish church is now larger than the Lutheran church in America. For the most part, these stodgy mausoleums of past glory have no vision, no sense of commitment or community, but simply served as adjuncts and chaplains to the broader society. They’re as good as dead and will likely be gone within a generation.

So what does that leave of Christianity? Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing religion in the history of the world, with 30,000 added each day. The Pentecostal movement has power, passion, fervor, and a mission. And yet they fail to see the need for their beliefs to shape their way of life —to incorporate economy, education, and the wholeness of an entire way of life, that is, to shape a unique culture distinct from the surrounding societies. They content themselves with powerful spiritual experiences and Bible-based creeds. Then there are the Evangelicals, who largely represent a less-sleepy version of their older mainline denominational cousins. They prize doctrine, education, and success but relegate soteriology—salvation—to something entirely metaphysical, internal to the human experience and not a lived reality or visible culture among people. Thus, they can never fulfill the corporate Messianic  prophecies.

What about the Anabaptists? In contrast to all the rest, they do believe that one’s faith should affect the entirety of one’s life. They are lifestyle Christians whose belief shapes every sphere of their existence. However, they lack a unified authority due to their rejection of the ongoing and direct working of the Holy Spirit. They choose their ministers by casting lots, a practice that appeared to cease in the church of Acts once the Holy Spirit had been poured out. As a result, they are defined by disunity more than any other group.  They will divide over the color of their buggy tops, the rubber on their wheels, or the shape of their suspenders. This is unfortunate because they could be the most potent, effective instrument of Christianity in civilization if they were unified. Because they have come to reject the anointing of the Holy Spirit, they have ceased to avail themselves of the only force capable of unifying them and thus become buried in their carnal-minded independence.

Some have the Holy Spirit but reject the lifestyle. Others have the lifestyle but reject the Holy Spirit. But none have the unity of the faith in the bonds of peace. They have not discovered the beauty of worshiping the Father in Spirit and in truth. These groups do, however, contain valuable knowledge and strength that will be crucial in the emergence of the Messianic nation, once we lay aside all our labels and differences and come into the full measure that belongs to the full stature of Christ.

The apostle Paul promises that only in the dispensation of the fullness of times, in the end, will God gather together all things that are in Christ under one head, things in heaven, and things on earth (Eph. 1:10). This suggests that a great unification is going to occur among Christian groups. This further implies that Christ’s lordship will oversee not only our heavenly notions and belief systems but also “things on earth”—the practical spheres and necessities of human life and existence.

You say, “How is unity ever going to be possible in the church?” Well, one means is that those who refuse unity are going to go extinct, like the denominations are already proving. The church cannot find unity because it is not truly submitted to the Holy Spirit. Only after all of the counterfeits fail her and Western Civilization collapses, when no hope remains in Babylon and Egypt—it will be only then that the church will begin to accept a level of submission and unity capable of forming her into the influence and witness God intended her to be from the beginning. But before that time, God will raise up Joseph and Moses ministries to prepare patterns and fill storehouses, to see ahead, and to serve as forerunners.

“I will turn your religious festivals into mourning and all your singing into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD, “when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.”— Amos 8:10-12

Smaller congregations throughout the world will carry out this Joseph/Moses mission—those given a vision by God for what the larger aggregate is destined to face in the years to come. You have the privilege of being part of just such a Joseph congregation. Why are we here? Why have we been able to find the level of unity which we presently enjoy? We are here because we are a collection of individuals whose faith in man (especially ourselves) has been utterly pulverized by the world, sin, and the harsh realities of life. In short, the present-day Joseph ministries comprise those who have spent time in the pit, in persecution, in prison, in hardship, and in personal tribulations. Bruised, disabused of all phony salvation systems, these have come together under the headship of Jesus, and their fruit is undeniable. But they are merely forerunners, preparing the way for the larger groups yet to go through the tribulations.

The Messianic Kingdom—God’s Finger in the Face of Tyranny

In recent conferences and seminars, the question of what constitutes God’s kingdom has often been asked. Essentially, God’s kingdom is a society that is eradicating the spiritual control of the devil now prevalent on the earth. It is a collective environment where the “ruler of this world” is cast out and no longer reigns. In the book of Romans, it is stated that “the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). This entails that righteousness, peace, and joy are not the products of Roman law or coercive force, but only of the Holy Spirit.

In Luke 10, Jesus is seen casting out devils, a practice which upsets the Pharisees greatly. They accused Him of using satan’s power to perform such miracles. But Jesus refuted their claim, saying it’s not in the devil’s interest to cast himself out because “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” He added that if He casts out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon them.

This is a huge statement! What is the kingdom of God? Jesus says, “If I cast out demons by God’s finger, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” When you pray, “Our Father who art in heaven, Your kingdom come,” you’re saying, “God, cast out the spiritual power of the devil by Your mighty finger.” This means that wherever the Holy Spirit is at work to break demonic oppression, there the kingdom of God has become real. There is no kingdom of God in a cessationist church or environment. You have to have the movement and power of the Holy Spirit to even conceive of this kingdom.

Do you know where the phrase “the finger of God” comes from? In Exodus, Moses was sent to the courts of Pharaoh armed with two expressions of God’s authority—His mighty Name, Yahweh, and an outstretched staff. As Moses began performing miracles, Pharaoh called for the Egyptian magicians to do the same, as if to say, “Yahweh is no greater than these demons that we worship in Egypt.”However, Aaron’s staff turned into a serpent and swallowed up all the serpents of Egypt. Later, when Moses released an attack on the Egyptian empire in the form of a miraculous sign (a plague of gnats), the Egyptians were unable to match his spiritual power. “The magicians said to Pharaoh, ‘This is none other than the finger of God’” (Exod. 7:12; 8:19). This statement demonstrated the power of Yahweh invading the kingdom of the devil as incarnated through a political nation. So Jesus was tacitly referencing Moses’ struggle against the gods of Egypt, as if to say, “I’m threatening you brood of vipers just like Moses did the snakes of Egypt and the gods that were judged in the Exodus.”

Of course, there's another place where the finger of God appears in response to a political nation attempting to take the place of God. This happens when Belshazzar takes the temple artifacts that his father, Nebuchadnezzar, had previously stolen and uses them for a drunken feast. Suddenly, the hand of a man appears, and the finger of God begins to write on the wall: “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.” This means, “You have been weighed in the scales and found wanting,” as recorded in the book of Daniel chapter 5.

Throughout history, it seems that God’s casting-out finger appears when He intervenes to challenge the earthly embodiment of satan’s dominion in the form of tyrants, Egyptian wisdom, pharisaical human religiosity, or anything else that threatens the reign of the Holy Spirit. According to Jesus, when God’s finger is casting out satan, His kingdom has come—the kingdom we are called to seek and embody, thus serving as extensions of God’s pointing finger when facing up to oppressors like Pharaoh, Babylon, or the Pharisees.

Millenarian Perspective

The question about the kingdom’s nature has become extremely controversial, but a scripturally consistent perspective is possible. Today, there are several conflicting kingdom models, namely the Premillennial, Postmillennial, and Amillennial views. Understanding these varied perspectives might help us frame and explore the kingdom’s emergence. These terms all refer to the Lord’s return and the time of the millennial kingdom, when Scripture indicates that God’s people will reign with Him on the earth. Focus for a minute as I try to explain these in very short, simple phrasing that you can grasp and hopefully hold on to.

1: Premillennialism contends that Jesus will return before the millennial kingdom is established on earth. Most Premillennialists, though not all, believe that there will be a rapture of the church prior to the time of tribulation. During this tribulation, when the church is with Jesus in heaven, masses of Jewish people will supposedly become believers. At the end of the tribulation, Jesus will return to the earth with his glorified saints and will, at that time, descend to enact a natural and earthly kingdom. He will rule on the earth from Jerusalem, and the whole world will  see the wisdom of Christ manifested on the earth through a sublunary kingdom under the rule of Jesus and His church, with the nation of Israel being the center of the kingdoms on the earth. At the end of that thousand-year period, satan will be released to lead a rebellion of the nations against Christ’s kingdom, and satan and all those who follow him will be destroyed. That is when the eternal realm of the new heavens and new earth will appear. Advocates of this view fail to reckon with the many New Testament scriptures which show that the Lord’s return marks the end of that realm of history and the initiation of the new heavens and new earth (2 Peter 3; 2 Thessalonians 1 with Romans 8; 1 Corinthians 15). This is what Peter was referring to when, in Acts 3, he said that the Lord would remain in heaven until the restoration of all things spoken by the prophets of old.

2: Postmillennialism teaches that the Lord will return after the millennial kingdom, but that this kingdom is to be understood as a sublunary kingdom in this world. Advocates of this view expect that most people on the earth will be saved in this natural kingdom. Increasing gospel success will gradually produce a time before Christ's return in which faith, righteousness, peace, and prosperity will prevail in the affairs of men and nations—all of this representing and fulfilling the kingdom promises. They maintain that the ethics of the kingdom should be implemented now, and the State is the means through which to achieve this objective. This particular ideology is favored by “Reformed” Christians and believers intimately involved in political causes like Right to Life and so on. Their vision is to establish a natural kingdom on the earth, and they see the State as one of the chief means through which to accomplish this goal. If they could force others to adopt their beliefs, they would not hesitate. While they effectively demonstrate that the kingdom of God is indeed for this present age, they overlook that God’s people can never reign through forceful means. They ignore the seminal biblical reality of two distinct powers at play in this world: those of Caesar and those of Christ. Furthermore, they fail to grasp the significance of Christ’s statement to Pilate that His “kingdom is not of this world” and thus operates as a wholly different alternative to the world’s kingdoms founded on coercion and ruled by violence.

3: Amillennialism, like Postmillennialism, holds the belief that the millennial kingdom will take place during the current age and will be followed by Christ’s return. Both views acknowledge that Christ’s return will bring about the final judgment, during which He will establish the “new heaven and new earth” for permanent reign. Amillennialists correctly perceive that Christ’s reign is essentially spiritual—not of this world. But they erroneously infer that the kingdom will thus only manifest itself in ethereal, invisible realms, with no tangible expression on earth other than the presence of individual believers in Jesus.

4: Realized Millennialism, which I might add is the correct view, holds that Jesus will come back at the end of the current age to establish the new heavens and new earth, bringing about the eternal realm. They are in agreement with Postmillennialism that the millennial kingdom is happening in the present, and with Amillennialists that Christ’s millennial rule is essentially spiritual in nature. However, they differ from both  Postmillennialists and Amillennialists, who respectively believe that God’s people reign through the world’s institutions or only in a non-visceral invisible realm. Realized Millennialism holds that the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit will become visible and complete, manifesting as an alternative culture as the saints reign on earth through their devotion and obedience to God’s anointed ecclesial design. By being transformed into the image of Christ, God’s people can rule over the power of  the evil one in their lives, both individually and corporately. In this way, the church presently functions as an alternative to the kingdoms of the world, with every aspect of human life brought under God’s dominion. Realized Millennialists believe that the wisdom of Christ, not Caesar and Statism, will be seen throughout the world through the church’s voluntary, alternative culture. The Lord's return and the initiation of the eternal realm will occur once all that is truly life—as opposed to the power of death—is brought under subjection to Christ's feet in this present age. Spiritual Zion will have finally attained the final corporate witness of the full measure of the stature of Christ. So Realized Millennialists believe that the kingdom is spiritual, but that it is for today. Just as Jesus said, if the power of the devil is being cast out by the power of God, then the kingdom is real; it has come. That’s how the Millennium is real today. When the power of the evil one is being brought under subjection to Christ’s power, the church, both individually and corporately,  this is the kingdom of God.

We contend that the kingdom’s power is spiritual and manifested through practical means, as Paul said, in heaven and earth. Jesus  Himself proclaimed, “Truly, I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power” (Matthew 16:28). It is clear that Pentecost marks the seminal power event that launched the kingdom on earth. But what happened after Pentecost? Was there no practical, visceral, visible expression of this kingdom's birth? Did the believers simply return to their “normal lives” after receiving such power from on high? No, immediately after speaking in tongues, there were practical and tangible changes in their corporate society. The book of Acts tells us, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer” (Acts 2:44-45). This shows how the spiritual Pentecostal experience produced real-world implications in their daily lives, even redefining them as a group (Acts 4:32-35). Spiritual power and authority did not, in short, equate to ethereal, invisible realities but quite the opposite. This demonstrates the principle of Christ’s prayer—“Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Deeply intimate, numinous experiences were intended to manifest as real-world changes and realities that we would call the kingdom.

But what became of that first kingdom? It sprang up, but, before it could attain the full stature of Yahweh's house being exalted above all other mountains, it became polluted by the world’s kingdoms.

In the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.” —Isaiah 2:2-3

But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.—Hebrews 12:22-24

So, if, as this last scripture makes clear, the “church” is present-day “Zion,” what do we have to look forward to? Part of our dilemma is our usage of a somewhat antiquated word: kingdom. If we translated this into modern vernacular, we would most likely use the word “state” or “government.” Yet if Christians were to go around speaking about the “state” or  “government” of Jesus, people would freak out. This gives us an insight as to why the Romans were so afraid of Christianity! They did not see it as a private belief, but as a kingdom, an existential threat to the Roman Empire.

Christianity is supposed to be a Messianic nation. Jesus didn’t even try to avoid the similarity. He drew a stark contrast to Caesar’s kind of power but still chose to re-purpose the very word “gospel” from the most powerful politician of His day who had coined that term—gospel—to proclaim the coming of a total State, the gospel of Rome. If we were to translate into modern language Christ’s use of “gospel”—a term linguists link to “revolution” and “political campaigns”—it would be similar to saying, “the uprising of our new country.”

The Kingdom Imagined

Dream with me for a moment: imagine a nation without boundaries, sewn into pockets of every political sphere of the earth, so coordinated with the headship of the Spirit, with no rebellion or conflicts, that it would function as one man. Picture not just a few campuses throughout the United States in places like Texas but innumerable locations spread across the globe, where individuals could finally discover in Christ all that they previously sought in academia, economy, and nationalism.

Can you envision it? What is it like? Would these be like reservations among nations, where we would enjoy semi-autonomous liberties or self-government, where we would use none of the power of the State but create environments where the ethics and economy and education and life of Christ could flourish? Would it be a church, a movement? Or would it be a nation? I submit to you that it would be a nation. That's not my word: Peter would say, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession” (1 Pet. 2:9). He’s speaking of the church in the way God formerly spoke of Israel. Paul says, “You were once alienated from the commonwealth of Israel,” but he tells the believers of his day, “Now you’re not alienated from the commonwealth of Israel” (that is like saying the state, as in the commonwealth of Virginia). Instead, “Now you’re part of this nation, this predestined people, with a predestined purpose on the earth.” Peter combines spiritual and political terminology—a priesthood and a nation—in this stupendous statement. This isn’t the politics of deception or the politics of coercion—it’s the reign of God upon the earth. The Lord isn’t going to come back for a congregation or two in a building or two: He will return to a holy nation of hundreds of thousands, if not millions. How must we expand our minds, change our gears, and rethink our strategies to prepare for what's coming?

Babylon is shaking, but hidden in that tremendous confused system are countless Daniels, Shadrachs, Meshachs, and Abednegos. There's a remnant, and they're hearing the grinding of tectonic plates as the cultural tremors begin (Isa. 6:11-13; Isa. 17:6).

He has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth, but heaven as well.” The words “Once more” signify the removal of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that the unshakable may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us be filled with gratitude, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. —Hebrews 12:26-28

I ask that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know the hope of His calling, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and the surpassing greatness of His power to us who believe —Ephesians 1:18-19

So now through the church the multifaceted wisdom of God [in all its countless aspects] might now be made known [revealing the mystery] to the [angelic] rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. —Ephesians 3:10

Lord, where can we find the embodiment of Your divine Presence, Your kingdom of righteousness, and Your Holy mountain towering above all others? It’s not a physical location but a nation spread throughout the world, where leaders and officials from every corner of the globe come to seek guidance and say, “Teach us your ways! Can we learn from you?”

We don’t know what this kingdom will look like. We don’t know what exact form or configuration it may assume, but if you bear a little folly, I can almost imagine having conversations with world leaders in the future where we would ask them to give us a reservation, a land, sizable tracts, maybe hundreds of thousands of acres, where we can live unto the Lord as He wills. We will explain to these host nations the jobs that will come to their areas, the education, the tourism, the prosperity, the peace. Then we would basically ask them, “Can you form some alliance with us, some agreement where we have semi-autonomous control over this realm? We would pay you a flat tax or do something that would benefit the host nation, some kind of contractural agreement.” And no, I don’t anticipate that this is going to be an abiding, permanent solution. In the end, the two witnesses will lie dead in the streets. But I believe some great revelation of Zion is going to emerge before that time of final trouble and persecution.

The Kingdom’s Response to Today’s Troubling Events

As I mentioned in the beginning, Peter says, “The heavens will receive Jesus until the time of the restoration of all things spoken of by the prophets” (Acts 3:21).

What have the prophets foretold?

Isaiah lived in a day of wickedness and apostasy. He protested the transgression of Israel, describing his contemporaries as more ignorant than beasts of burden. “For the ox knows his master, the donkey its owner’s manger, but Israel does not know; My people do not understand. Alas, O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children of depravity! They have forsaken the LORD; they have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on Him” (Isa. 1:3-4).

Isaiah likens rebellious Israel to a harlot, flirting as an exhibitionist, bedecked with the merchandise of trade (Isa. 3:16-26). He says Zion will become desolate (the very word Jesus later used) (Matt. 23:38; Luke 13:35). “Your land is desolate; your cities are burned with fire. Foreigners devour your fields before you—a desolation demolished by strangers. And the Daughter of Zion is abandoned like a shelter in a vineyard, like a shack in a cucumber field, like a city besieged. Unless the LORD of Hosts had left us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom; we would have resembled Gomorrah” (Isa. 1:7-9; see also: Rom. 9:29)

Isaiah prophesied that Zion would fail when her mighty men, judges, seers, councilors, craftsmen, and learned were exiled from her midst and carried away captive (Isa. 3:1-3). And this is spiritually symbolic and indicative of what will happen to spiritual Zion, which is the church. The prophet begged the Lord to tell him how long he was to proclaim Zion’s impending doom, and the Lord responded, “Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord had removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land” (Isa. 6:11-12).

But God kept speaking to this Messianic prophet that He would reserve a remnant, “And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste. But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump in the land” (Isa. 6:13).

This seed refers to the promise made to Abraham, unto Isaac, the child of promise. This is the seed whom Christ was, and this  is the seed that is the church, as Paul tells the Galatians. This seed is the destined people, the corporate elected people of God that Isaiah is referring to. The majority are going to reject the truth; the majority are going to fall away. But even a tenth is a sufficient remnant to keep the seed alive in the ground and bring forth what God has promised.

“In that day, the glory of Jacob will fade; the fat of his body will waste away. It will be as when reapers harvest the standing grain, gathering the grain in their arms—as when someone gleans heads of grain in the Valley of Rephaim. Yet some gleanings will remain, as when an olive tree is beaten, leaving two or three olives on the topmost branches, four or five on the fruitful boughs,” declares the Lord, the God of Israel. In that day, people will look to their Maker and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel. —Isaiah 17:4-6

So Isaiah is saying that God is going to allow Israel’s apostasy to release judgment on her that wipes the harvest out, that ends the harvest. But although he says that an enemy is going to take almost all of the olives, yet two or three, or maybe even four or five, olives are going to be left in the very tips of the tree.  This indicates that the extremity, the extreme expressions on the outer tree of Christianity, is where there will be a remnant. So, the Lord showed through Isaiah that a remnant, like “four or five” olives on the top of a bare tree, would remain because most would be carried away “with a mighty captivity into exile” (Isa. 22:17). But all this warning of doom, which spoke both to natural Israel and spiritual Israel, sets the stage for God’s great restoration of His spiritual nation. He describes a time when those “gleanings from the field” and those few “olives in the top of the tree” will rise and grow to become the fullest expression of Zion, His covenant people, which the world has ever seen.

Isaiah 49

Thus says the LORD, “In a favorable time I have answered You, and in a day of salvation I have helped You; and I will keep You and give you for a covenant of the people, to restore the land, to make them inherit the desolate heritages; saying to those who are bound, ‘Go forth,’ to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’

“Along the roads they will feed, and their pasture will be on all bare heights. They will not hunger or thirst, nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them down; for He who has compassion on them will lead them and will guide them to springs of water.

These are the springs that Jesus spoke of to the woman at the well in John 4, and that He spoke of again in John 7, when He said to anyone who thirsts, let him come and drink. He was speaking of the Holy Spirit. He said the famine for the word of God, when those who are hungry wander from north to south and from east to west, will be broken in Zion.

So there’s hope! This devastated Christianity is going to come back with greater joy and glory than ever imagined, all from the gleanings, from the few olives at the tops of the trees.

“I will make all My mountains a road, and My highways will be raised up. Behold, these will come from afar; And lo, these will come from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Sinim.”

Shout for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people And will have compassion on His afflicted.

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.”

“Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me. Your builders hurry; your destroyers and devastators will depart from you. Lift up your eyes and look around; all of them gather together, they come to you. As I live,” declares the LORD, “You will surely put on all of them as jewels and bind them on as a bride.

“For your waste and desolate places and your destroyed land—surely now you will be too cramped for the inhabitants, and those who swallowed you will be far away. The children of whom you were bereaved will yet say in your ears, ‘The place is too cramped for me; make room for me that I may live here.’ Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has begotten these for me, since I have been bereaved of my children and am barren, an exile and a wanderer? And who has reared these? Behold, I was left alone; from where did these come?’”

Thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I will lift up My hand to the nations and set up My standard to the peoples; and they will bring your sons in their bosom, and your daughters will be carried on their shoulders. Kings will be your guardians, and their princesses your nurses. They will bow down to you with their faces to the earth and lick the dust of your feet; and you will know that I am the LORD; those who hopefully wait for Me will not be put to shame.” —Isaiah 49:8-23

Isaiah 51

“Listen to Me, all who hope for deliverance—all who seek the LORD! Consider the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which you were mined. Yes, think about Abraham, your ancestor, and Sarah, who gave birth to your nation. Abraham was only one man when I called him. But when I blessed him, he became a great nation.” The LORD will comfort Israel again and have pity on her ruins. Her desert will blossom like Eden, her barren wilderness like the garden of the LORD. Joy and gladness will be found there. Songs of thanksgiving will fill the air.

“Listen to Me, My people. Hear Me, Israel, for My law will be proclaimed, and My justice will become a light to the nations. My mercy and justice are coming soon. My salvation is on the way. My strong arm will bring justice to the nations. All distant lands will look to Me and wait in hope for My powerful arm. Look up to the skies above, and gaze down on the earth below. For the skies will disappear like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a piece of clothing. The people of the earth will die like flies, but My salvation lasts forever. My righteous rule will never end!

“Listen to Me, you who know right from wrong, you who cherish My law in your hearts. Do not be afraid of people’s scorn, nor fear their insults. For the moth will devour them as it devours clothing. The worm will eat at them as it eats wool. But My righteousness will last forever. My salvation will continue from generation to generation.”

Wake up, wake up, O LORD! Clothe yourself with strength! Flex your mighty right arm!

Rouse Yourself as in the days of old when You slew Egypt, the dragon of the Nile. Are You not the same today, the One who dried up the sea, making a path of escape through the depths so that Your people could cross over? Those who have been ransomed by the LORD will return. They will enter Jerusalem singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and they will be filled with joy and gladness.

“I, yes I, am the one who comforts you. So why are you afraid of mere humans, who wither like the grass and disappear?” —Isaiah 51:1-12

The Lord is speaking through Isaiah to His people, but then  He is speaking to Himself, to the God who called the children of Israel out of Egypt.

Isaiah 54—The Future Glory of Zion, The Church, God’s Bride

“Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child; burst into song, shout for joy, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband,” says the LORD.

“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.

“Do not be afraid; you will not be put to shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband—the LORD Almighty is His name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth. The LORD will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit—a wife who married young, only to be rejected,” says your God.

“For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. [ This describes the church losing her covenant relationship, her sanctity with God. Her lack of sanctification broke off the marriage. Just as when man was divorced from God in the Garden of Eden, so the church was divorced when she married the State in the Constantinian Synthesis. But this describes the reunion.] In a surge of anger I hid My face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer. [He hid His presence, the power of His Spirit, from them. That is what His face represents.]

“To Me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. [He’s saying that this separation, this church without the face and presence of God, will never occur again in history once the restoration comes about. Jesus predicted this separation when He said, “You will not see My face until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name and authority of God.’” But once God’s people are restored from that place of separation from the presence of God, the Lord vows this will never happen again, just as He swore that the floodwaters will never again cover the earth.] So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet My unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor My covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you. “Afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will rebuild you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with lapis lazuli.

“I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones. [We know what these precious stones are, don’t we? For Peter said, “We all as lively stones are being built together.”] All your children will be taught by the LORD, and great will be their peace. In righteousness you will be established: Tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear. Terror will be far removed; it will not come near you. If anyone does attack you, it will not be my doing; whoever attacks you will surrender to you.

“See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to wreak havoc; no weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from Me,” declares the LORD. —Isaiah 54:1-17

The apostle Paul shows us that these promises belong to and are fulfilled by the New Covenant Church, whom he refers to as “Jerusalem from above.”

But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother. For to her it is written,

“REJOICE, BARREN WOMAN WHO DOES NOT BEAR; BREAK FORTH AND SHOUT, YOU WHO ARE NOT IN LABOR; FOR MORE NUMEROUS ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE DESOLATE THAN OF THE ONE WHO HAS A HUSBAND.”

And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. —Galatians 4:26-29

The apostle Paul shows us unequivocally that these Isaiah prophecies were intended for Zion. But Zion is the church. He shows us that the church is the seed still in the ground. That’s why he says, “You are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.” That word “descendants” is “seed.”

This is the same Jerusalem Hebrews speaks of: “You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to myriads of angels, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Heb. 12:22).

Isaiah says: “Now it will come about that in the last days that the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it” (Isa. 2:2). This refers to nationalities, the multi-ethnic plurality of expression that will be evidenced in Zion. Evidently, Peter didn’t feel that this had happened in its full expression yet, but that when it did, the foundation stone would become the capstone, and the Lord would return. This allusion to the restoration or the return of Jesus is tied to Paul when he said: “Then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to our God and Father when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet” (1 Cor. 15:24-25), and He tells us that the last enemy is death. The church is Christ’s feet, the one Body of Christ, and rule, power, authority, and dominion denote wrestling with an imperfect flesh and an imperfect church as orders of authority help us to keep our commitment to bring everything into subjection to Christ. The head, being Jesus, is in heaven, and His feet are planted upon the earth, forming that elevator shaft, Jacob’s ladder, that connects the realm of heaven with the realm of earth. The church has been given the power to reign until He comes, the power of the Holy Spirit. So the Lord is going to return, and He’s going to put an end to rule, power, authority, and dominion when the church brings all the enemies of truth, all the weapons of the devil, under dominion to Christ’s feet, which is His humanity expressed here on earth. So when we find victory over all the schemes and mechanisms of a wiley devil, that’s when the capstone is going to return with shouts of, “God bless it!”

When we bring everything into subjection to Christ and the last enemy is vanquished, there will be no need for rule, power, authority, or dominion. Men and women will not submit one to another; disciples and elders will not submit one to another. We will all be the children of God. These expressions of authority and submission are necessary in a fallen world with fallen people as we bring all things into subjection to Christ. But when He returns, all that will be gone, and it’s going to be like the Garden of Eden again. Every time we gain a corporate victory over a cultural sin, another enemy is put under Christ’s feet, and the return of the Lord gets closer.

When the spiritual conquest of the church over the powers of the evil one is complete, then a building project that began with a precious cornerstone will culminate with a crowning capstone as Jesus returns amid shouts of “God bless it! Grace to it; grace to it!” (Zech. 4:7).

Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground will become smooth, and the rugged land a plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all humanity together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken. —Isaiah 40:4-6

In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul says, “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete” (2 Cor. 10:5-6). This idea again is that of the church reigning over the power of the enemy, bringing even arguments and thoughts captive under the feet of the church, which is the body of Christ, so that the Lord may return. God will not punish the sinful until the righteous have been separated through sanctification from them. This is similar to the story of Lot being called out of Sodom so that the judgment could be released. Once the righteous are completely sanctified and separated, the evil will receive the punishment it deserves.

God has promised “to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:9-10). We are involved in a cosmic struggle, and every kingdom of this world, every state, is an embodiment, an incarnation, of the corporate revelation of the power of satan. But the church is God’s one project; it is His one corporate answer—not to individuals, but to principalities and powers. The church is supposed to be the place where love triumphs over brute force, where all the things attempted by the institutions and states of man are achieved, but without the compulsion, the fear, the manipulation, the evil, of the evil one. So it’s God’s big answer to all the kingdoms of this world that lie under the control of the evil one. He doesn’t say that this wisdom will be demonstrated in a forgotten street corner; it will be demonstrated to principalities and powers—the spiritual forces warring against Yahweh, as seen in Daniel. And the final act will come when the church corporately brings to naught all the power of the enemy through its corporate expression.

This has not yet happened on the level that the apostles described, for the writer of Hebrews says, “Yet all things are not presently subjected to him” (Heb. 2:8). That's our duty: to bring everything—education, essentials of life, our relationships, our marriages, our families, even addictions, vices and temptations—under the dominion of Christ. This won’t be done by compulsion; that’s Statism; this will be accomplished by the power of the Spirit and love; that’s the church.

“In the dispensation of the fullness of times, He will bring under one head all things that are in Christ…” Is that where He ends the sentence? No, he goes on, “Things in heaven and things on Earth” (Eph. 1:10). It's all-encompassing—it’s everything. Some Christians are willing to contemplate a kingdom that is of strictly heavenly minded things. But Paul says  the kingdom will be things in heaven and things on earth.

The Call of Joseph

So, what I’m saying is that the church will not exit Babylon so long as she is comfortable and at peace there. The collapse of Western Civilization will prove the catalyst for the church’s exodus and final restoration. When she is driven out of Egypt, then she will accept the authority of the Spirit and begin to discover these epic promises predicting Zion’s final revelation and worldwide maturity. However, God sends a remnant of the remnant ahead—a small group here and there like Joseph and Moses—to do the work of filling storehouses, rediscovering God’s patterns and providing a spiritual sanctuary, building a spiritual ark for the approaching storms.

He called for a famine upon the land; He broke the whole staff of bread. He sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave. They afflicted his feet with fetters, he himself was laid in irons; until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him.

The king sent and released him, the ruler of peoples, and set him free. He made him lord of his house and ruler over all his possessions, to imprison his princes at will, that he might teach his elders wisdom. Israel also came into Egypt; thus Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. And He caused His people to be very fruitful, and made them stronger than their adversaries. —Psalm 105:16-24

Before God allowed the great collapse to come upon His people, the famine of that day, Joseph was going through some personal things and preparing the way.

I vividly remember when my mother, Brother Tsafrir, Brother Abraham, and I visited Brother TW Barnes, a highly respected prophet of the United Pentecostal organization, back in 2003. During our visit, Brother Barnes shared with us about his calling to the ministry. He recounted a time when he was just sixteen years old, sitting on a grassy hill in Minden, Louisiana. He had a vision of a large, gift-wrapped box descending from the sky. The Lord said to him, “I have called you and given you the gift of prophecy, to be a mouthpiece for My people.”

“That’s what I’ve been—I’ve been a prophet,” he said. “But Brother Adams is an apostle. God called him with the call of Joseph to be a blessing to his brothers.” The UPC doesn’t use terms like “apostle,” and Brother Barnes had never heard of the prophecy given over my father nearly  thirty years before in Phoenix, Arizona. But that prophecy in Phoenix gave the mission not only to my dad but to this whole movement that he spearheaded. We were given the mandate of a Joseph ministry, called to the wilderness and waste places, but ultimately, to fill storehouses with lost truths—truths and patterns that would help our brothers survive the tribulations approaching.

Joseph was rejected. He looked like he had lost his way; it looked like evil had triumphed over good and killed the dream inside. He was lied about and hated, but he served as a type of Jesus, wearing the coat of many nations—of many colors. Mistreated in Egypt, he was thrown in prison, and it took a famine to get him out of that dungeon and into the courts of Pharaoh. Then he married a gentile bride and, together, they brought salvation and food in a time of hunger—not just for his brothers but for the whole world. This is a type of what we as Christians are called to be—to build storehouses, as the prophecies have said.

Those seven years of plenty can be more discouraging than the seven years of famine because you start asking yourself, “Why am I doing this? What's this all about?” The Lord says there is something coming that you can't even get your mind around at the present time. Stay faithful!

The difference between who we were  fifty years ago and who we are right now is no smaller than the difference between what we are now and what I'm describing in the future. People get ready! You may say, “We can’t do that,” but that’s the exciting part! God is going to do it through us and in spite of us. Don’t you want to be a part of that?

When COVID shut the world down, I said, “Famines have a way of ejecting Josephs from the prisons where they’ve been hiding. The troubles that are coming on the earth are going to bring the body of Christ out of the dungeon hall.” The pharaoh of Joseph’s day is an example of one of the kings of the earth turning to Zion and saying, “Teach us your ways.”

It's crucial that we pray and stay informed about the current political climate. It's evident that the very foundations of Babylon are crumbling around us. Nonetheless, we're not alone as Christians; there are many others who remain devoted to Yahweh and refuse to bend their knees to Baal. As we speak, these worshippers are taking a stand at school meetings, objecting to the propaganda that's being fed to their children. Soon, they’re going to hear a voice saying, “Come out of her, my people.” There are hundreds of thousands of Mennonites and Amish wondering why they don't experience the power of God like their Anabaptist forefathers once did, and yet there are some already hearing the voice of the Lord in places like Wisconsin.

Let the Voice go forth to the ends of the earth!

“Well, Joseph,” you will say, “you're too small; you're just one man.” But God will save by many or by few.  “Joseph, you're too weak.” But God says, “I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept  My word and have not denied My name. I will open, and none can shut; I will shut, and none will open!” “But Joseph, you don't have enough time.” But the Lord will do a quick work; for Him, “a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8).

In Revelation, the church of the last day is described as the “sons of fresh anointing,” spoken of by Zechariah (Zech. 4:14). These “two witnesses” “stand upon the earth,” representing the gentile and Jewish—cultivated and wild—olive branches of the faith. The ministry of these witnesses comes in two phases: first, they will operate in unparalleled power, glory and witness. Second, they will suffer persecution and the great tribulation to reveal that love is stronger than death and that the church has overcome the fear of death, by which the devil holds all humanity subject and in bondage (Rev. 11:3-12; Heb. 2:14). Before the great tribulation, the church, as these two witnesses, will experience unprecedented restoration and miraculous power. This glory of Zion will trigger satan’s wrath because the devil himself realizes that his time is short. Why does he think his time is short? Because the church’s witness in that final restoration reason will prove so effective as to guarantee satan’s total defeat across the entire earth if Zion were permitted to continue (Rev. 12:12). That’s what we’ve got to be anticipating. Until the church as restored body, a holy nation on the face of the earth, until that reality is making the devil scared and making him believe that his time is running out, we haven’t yet seen the restoration as it’s been promised.

In short, we will see a great reunion that precipitates a great outpouring of spiritual power. Just as on the day of Pentecost, when the church becomes of one mind and one accord, great power will fall from heaven. There will be no more denominations, sects, or divisions. The Holy Spirit will sovereignly “bring together all things that are in Christ under one head.” We will witness tears of reconciliation and sweet embraces as long-lost brothers reconnect. The networking of Christ’s Body will surpass all imagination. Those we once considered enemies will prove to be our friends. God’s restoration of Zion will be more brilliant than rubies and more magnificent than the courts of Solomon, an awe-inspiring display for the world to see.

Nations will see [Zion’s] righteousness, and all kings your glory. You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will bestow. You will be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, a royal diadem in the palm of your God. No longer will you be called Forsaken, nor your land named Desolate; but you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the LORD will take delight in you, and your land will be His bride. —Isaiah 62:1-5

As the trouble shakes you up and makes you nervous at night, just remember: as darkness increases, the light is going to shine forth all the brighter. “At evening time, there will be light, and on that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem” (Zech. 14:7-8). These are the same living waters that Ezekiel is speaking of in the final temple. “Those who dwell in the valley of the shadow of death, upon them a light has dawned” (Isa. 9:2; Matt. 4:16). So the darkness is scary, but it predicts the emergence of a bright beacon that is going to become a city on a hill that cannot be hidden.

As the church mourns in Babylon, we, the pioneers, are filled with anticipation for the approaching exodus towards Judea. Hailing from Europe, we are the forerunners who have set our sights on the west lands of Palestine, where we tirelessly work to drain swamps, build roads, plant crops and trees. Our gaze returns again and again to the horizon, waiting and watching for the remnant's return. Our efforts are met with mockery and marginalization by those who still cling to life in Europe such as it was before World War II, and in Babylon today. To them, our aspirations seem foolish and naive, but we continue to toil away in our Zionist camps, driven by a dream that we cannot ignore or escape. The dreamer still lives, even though He may be in the dungeon or in the swamps of Palestine.

In 1948, after enduring immense tribulation, those who once could not submit or find even the slightest hope of unity looked to the shores of a better country and the promise of their own culture and land. The rebirth of natural Israel predicts the rebirth of spiritual Israel. In like manner, spiritual Zion will once again consume the hearts and minds of God’s people. It will be a dream they cannot awake from. Seekers will come from east and west, driven by the terror of Babylon’s collapse. They will bless the names and memories of those who gave their lives to rebirth a nation from a desert before the world turned against the church. We are those people. These seekers will come to dwell in houses they did not build. Let us build those houses. They will feast on vineyards they did not plant. Let us be busy planting those vineyards. They will drink from wells they did not dig. Let us continue digging those wells. And we, the Halutzim (meaning the Aliyah Pioneers), will be there, or at least our children and grandchildren will be there, to welcome them to the shores of God’s country, a spiritual place, a holy nation, not a geographical region.

Ours is the task of pilgrimage, pioneering a way through the wilderness, forging a walkable course of obedience back to the patterns of Yahweh and of life. Blessed are those who believe but who have not seen. Blessed are those who leave Babylon before the new Pharaoh ascends, before the bricks and whips and plagues and deaths of the firstborn. Blessed are those who prepare the way of the Lord. We, as at the beginning fifty years ago, are the voice of those shouting in the wilderness: “Prepare the way for the LORD in the wilderness; make a straight highway for our God in the desert” (Isa. 40:3).

But it won’t be a desert forever.

Isaiah 35

The wilderness and the desert will be glad, [That’s how Palestine felt when the first Aliyah pioneers started coming over] and the Arabah will rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it will blossom profusely and rejoice with rejoicing and shouts of joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God.

Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, “Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; the recompense of God will come, but He will save you.”

Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. For waters will break forth in the wilderness and streams in the Arabah. The scorched land will become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, its resting place, grass becomes reeds and rushes.

A highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean will not travel on it, but it will be for him who walks that way, and fools will not wander on it. No lion will be there, nor will any vicious beast go up on it; these will not be found there. But the redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the LORD will return and come with joyful shouting to Zion, with everlasting joy upon their heads. They will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. —Isaiah 35:1-10

God help us; help us to fix our eyes on these eternal promises, promises hidden in Christ’s wisdom and God’s plan for ages immemorial, but that are now beginning to be revealed in our time.