Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” (Matt. 21:42-44).
Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, “Behold, your King.” They therefore cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify you King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” (John 19:14-15)
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In the last post on our Treasure in clay vessels, the fundamental dilemma facing humanity since Adam and Eve stood in the garden of Eden facing a covering cherub, who with the venom of a serpent poisoned the human tree and replicated his nature which was cast out of heaven, presented itself to us in a form that is very relevant in today’s world: God or Mammon.
Jesus recast this dilemma and placed a solution before the Pharisees, [ Heb. perushim = separated ones ] when they attempted to trap him with a query.
Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?”They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Matt. 22:17-21)
Aside from the obvious hidden irony we know from Psalm 24:1, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, and they that dwell therein,” exhibiting as ever the subtle humor of Christ Jesus, there is a straight side to his response, in identifying the known kingdom of the time with the “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), for Caesar was known as ‘god’ and ‘savior,’ terms which became dominant in Roman imperial theology. It is not a far stretch to understand that ‘Caesar’ is a figure for the ruler of this world, and his state apparatus, the administration of darkness in the abyss.
This fractal expression of the adversary, Tiberius Caesar, was the “divine” sovereign over the kingdom of the known world, though his regency did not extend to many parts of the world, including North and South America, and much of the far east. Nonetheless, from the perspective of Palestine, the Levant, the islands of the West, and the other territories to the north and east under his rulership, he was the emperor. And that fractal has replicated itself down through many mighty civilizations as the Kaiser [German], the Tsar [French], and the Czar [Russian]. No matter what linguistic form it assumes, this epithet is a metonym for the person endowed with absolute authority in a semi-divine nature. Remember: all authority in this world is derived from the adversary.
If one looks at the Roman empire as a maquette for the expanded world empire under the adversary today, and soon to be consolidated by the false prophet and the son of perdition, one can hear the echoes of the words of the Logos, saying to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s, the only problem being, Christendom renders unto Caesar what is God’s with the Sabbath being a prime example. To benefit from the pax Romana or in our case, the pax Americana, believers have felt it is alright to make peace with the world — though that is enmity with God — and have mixed the profane with the sacred, rendering Christianity into a pagan religion. Now all is Caesar’s. Pagan holidays, prayers to saints, the Queen of Heaven exalted as in the days of Jeremiah and before, and total abnegation of the holiness code, so that now each man does what is right in his own eyes.
It would appear that Christendom has become Paul’s worst nightmare, the use of Christ as an excuse for loose conduct; a proliferation of sin on account of grace. His spirit speaks through the words he wrote to the Romans, an ironic and fitting place for his mild polemic, an empire proud of its law and justice.
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. (Romans 6:15-19, emphasis added)
Slaves of Rome, the people cried out, “We have no king but Caesar.” And in the vassal state of America, with a capitol built on a small 10 mile square section of land, a place that was in the 17th century named Rome, the people imagine themselves free, while presenting themselves as slaves to sin.
There is freedom — only in Christ. Freedom from sin is the gift of abiding in Christ Jesus. But in most of Europe and America, regions long considered to be Christian, people present themselves as obedient slaves to sin, a fact that is painfully true every Sabbath as soccer games, shopping, family outings, and nights in the clubs, leave the Lord of the Sabbath presiding over a mostly absent congregation. “We have no king but Caesar.”
Obedience to the state, the new god form, has eclipsed obedience to the Lord, and will continue to do so into the period of the Affliction, the first 1260 days of tribulation. And rather than humble themselves and turn back to the Lord, Christians mainly continue to engage in self-glorification, exalting themselves and their works in Satanic pride, expecting the true God to confirm their assessment of themselves.
The Judeans who shouted “Crucify Him,” are a chiral image of the inner spiritual reality of an end time Church that has crucified the Lord of Glory in their own hearts, choosing Bar-Abbas rather then Ben Abba. How tragic that the prophetic dimension of that scene in Jerusalem will see fractals of the chief priests sacrificing fractals of Christ in the time of persecution that arrives with the opening of the 5th seal.
What are we dealing with in this ancient scroll where John understood the reality of Jews that were not Jews. For he used ‘Jews’ as a technical term to describe those “whited sepulchres” who exhibited a form of godliness on the outside but were rotten and dead on the inside. Today these forces are combining from different religious traditions to coalesce a synthetic, synchretic religion, an abomination leading to desolation, thus forming together a ‘sanhedrin,’ a synagogue of Satan. Members of this synagogue of Satan do not really belong to any religious tradition, though they may claim Judaism, Christianity, Islam, paganism, or any of the rest. They are united by their allegiance to the powers of the host of heaven. They worship the creation rather than the Creator. Thus, let not “those who say they are Jews, and yet they are not” co-opt the spiritual reality of such a synagogue and claim that this is some kind of anti-Semitic campaign, and that therefore they should be free to persecute those who speak of such a thing. There is a remnant of the physically circumcised Israel that is “reserved” to the Lord of all, and He will deliver them from sin.
The inescapable conclusion for Christendom: they have no king but Caesar. They are ruled by the god of this world, and are quite happy with that, presenting themselves as slaves to the adversary, and violating what is precious and holy, what God has ordained, in order to maintain their place in the order of the world.
So, fruits of the kingdom are not borne, and there can be no inheriting the kingdom. As Jesus announced to the false shepherd who took away the key of knowledge and prevented the little ones from entering in (Luke 11:52), the kingdom of God is being taken away from you and given to people who will bear its fruit. Which fruit? The fruit of the kingdom of heaven.
Hebraic roots people shriek and cry out against replacement theology. But that simply ignores the history of Israel. Man for man Israel was replaced in the wilderness by another generation that entered into the promised land. As a chiral image of the church in the end days, this illuminates how the kingdom will be taken away from those who simply “name it and claim it,” but do not exhibit the love of Christ, walking in His ways.
When the Passover Lamb begins to open the 7 seals on the scroll at the Second Passover, and the two witnesses commence to prophesying to the church, there will be a great purification, a sweeping away of iniquity that will take the kingdom of God away from the hypocrites, the fat sheep that are devouring the lean sheep. Those who crucify Jesus anew by aligning their kingdom with the world, by embodying the fact that they have no king but Caesar will inherit just that, the world of Caesar that is passing away. Better they render unto Caesar only the things of this world, and reserve their heart for the King of kings, rendering unto God the life He has given.
When the Lord returns, He wants to find His people awake, and waiting for Him, willing to fight for His kingdom, not to bow down to the king of this world. He is calling us to blow a horn in Zion so that people will awaken to know that His day is near. As He called His son out of Egypt, He is calling His people out of Babylon.
Will you, Christian people, live like Gentiles, presenting yourselves as slaves to sin, showing that your kingdom is of this world? Or will you remember that you have a King, who is the Most High King over all the kings of the earth, and is calling you to present yourselves as slaves to righteousness, refusing to bow to Caesar? The priests of the world have sealed their deal with the United Nations, the United Religions Initiative, Parliament of the World Religions. It is ordained. There will be an unholy religion forged in the fires of the Adversary’s pit and it will be laid before the people of the world so the people can worship the World Teacher, ‘the Light Bearer,’ Lucifer. But they can only inherit the passing world and its desires. Do not stand with them saying we have no king but Caesar.
The stone that falls upon the kingdom of this world will crush it and it will become like chaff blown in the wind (Daniel 2, cf. Matt. 21:44). Do not be caught crushed by that stone for proclaiming this kingdom of Caesar. Do not betray the Son of Man for the god of this world. To do so is to crucify Him again.
Proclaim instead, we have a King of Glory, the Lord of Hosts, and His kingdom will reign forever. He comes quickly and His reward is with Him.