In the past 6,000 years God has been training a new priesthood for the coming Davidic Kingdom.
From Moses to Christ, Israel was given Kingdom authority to bring righteousness to the earth. They failed to do so, because they had only a Passover anointing during a Passover Age.
Then on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) God poured out a greater anointing of the Spirit upon those who followed Jesus Christ. During the past 2,000 years the Church under Pentecost possessed Kingdom authority to bring righteous-ness to the earth. As we have shown in books and many articles, this Pentecostal Kingdom was patterned after the reign of King Saul—the king who was crowned on the day of Pentecost (“wheat harvest”), as we read in 1 Sam. 12:17. The Church under Pentecost failed, even as Israel failed, in their allotted times.
Thus, after 40 Jubilees under the authority of Pentecost, the “Saul” Church died in 1993, and we entered into the transition from the House of Saul to the House of David. That transition lasted 7 years and 6 months (2 Sam. 5:5) to November 30, 2000. On that day the overcomers (the House of David) were given this Kingdom authority and responsibility to bring righteousness to the earth.
They will not fail, for God will give them the greatest anointing of all—that of the feast of Tabernacles—to complete the work of the restoration of all things. Yet even now that work has already begun. The Spirit of God has already been leading them to speak certain decrees and judgments and declarations into the earth as mouthpieces of God. This is not a new thing in itself, of course, for even the Old Testament prophets did the same, and it continued throughout the Pentecostal Age with greater force.
But now we are living in the beginning days of a new administration. Dan. 7:18 says (Concordant Version):
18 Yet the saints of the supremacies shall receive the kingdom and they will safeguard the kingdom unto the eon, even unto the eon of the eons.
Later in verse 27 it says,
27 And the kingdom and the jurisdiction and the majesty of the kingdom under the entire heavens will be granted to the people of the saints of the supremacies. Their kingdom is an eonian kingdom, and all other authorities shall serve and hearken to them.
I believe that by Nov. 30, 2000 this jurisdiction was granted to the overcomers. It will only be a matter of time before this jurisdiction will be recognized by “all other authorities.” The overcomers will not force their authority by violence or force of arms. They will simply manifest the power of Christ in the earth to do good, even as Jesus did while He walked the earth. They will speak truth in love and will win mankind’s respect, love, and trust not by force of arms but by the character of Christ.
Timing: Lord, How Long?
The question before us now is this: How do we get there from here?
First of all, there is nothing that you or I or anyone can do to make it happen. There is an appointed time, and no force on earth can make it happen sooner or delay it for a single day. The appointed time is prophesied in the Autumn feast days (September-October) and will happen in some year during those feast days. It is up to us to be watchful, wait patiently, and be led by the Spirit in our daily walk with Him.
The Feast of Trumpets
Even as Jesus fulfilled the Spring feasts at His first coming, so also will He fulfill the Autumn feasts.
This is the resurrection day of the overcomers who have lived in the past and who died not having received the promise. They were unable to receive it apart from us—that is, generations of overcomers who were yet to be born. Hebrews 11:39, 40 says,
39 And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
God’s motive was twofold. First, the Kingdom promises in the Old Testament were often couched in terms of a tiny strip of land in the Middle East. God had something better in mind—the whole world and all of His creation.
Secondly, God was thinking not only about each individual overcomer, but also a corporate body. God works with each of us as individual temples of God (1 Cor. 3:16). But God is also working in a corporate temple built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles (Eph. 2:20-22). As individuals, we are each “living stones” of that corporate temple (1 Pet. 2:5).
Some teachers focus upon the individual work that God is doing in each of our temples, saying that Christ has already come at Pentecost. Some think that this is the only way that Christ’s second coming is fulfilled.
It is certainly true that Christ came and now indwells us, for this is the mystery that Paul mentioned in Col. 1:27, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” However, this is not the whole picture, for God will also inhabit His corporate temple. He cannot do this until every living stone has been quarried in the earth and shaped to fit in its place. This requires many generations in time, and this is why Christ must yet come at the appointed time (Tabernacles).
And so the timing of events leading to Christ’s coming to inhabit His corporate temple will be manifested at the resurrection. The purpose of this day is to unite the dead overcomers with those who are alive in the last days. They must be one body on earth so that this temple is completely finished. Only when it is finished can it be inhabited by the fullness of the Spirit of Christ.
This is why the overcomers of the past could not receive this better promise. They were only half a temple. Furthermore, Paul says in 1 Thess. 4:15 says,
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, and remain until the coming of the Lord, shall not precede those who have fallen asleep.
In other words, we who are alive at the beginning of the Tabernacles Age cannot precede the overcomers who have died in past years. We must enter in together at the same time as one body and one temple.
This was the pattern of Caleb and Joshua in the days of Moses. They were overcomers who wanted to enter the Kingdom, but the rest of Israel refused to do so. Caleb and Joshua had to wait for the rest of the body to enter Canaan and could not enter in by themselves as individuals. Yet they were given the promise that they would be alive to enter the land.
So it is with the overcomers who have died in the past. The Church under Pentecost also was disqualified from entering the Tabernacles Kingdom. Thus, even as “the Church in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38) had to remain in the wilderness for 40 years, so also the Pentecostal Church had to remain in its own wilderness for 40 Jubilees (1,960 years). And the overcomers were forced to wait for the appointed time at the beginning of the Tabernacles Age.
Ten “Days of Awe”
When the trumpet sounds and the dead are raised (1 Cor. 15:52), they will not immediately spring into heaven with the “raptured” saints at their heels. Instead, they will walk the streets and teach in churches. Many Christians will, of course, be terrified by this event, because they will think that they somehow missed the “rapture.” They will think that they must now go through the Great Tribulation and face the Antichrist with his execution squads.
The resurrected saints will have a lot of teaching to do in these “Days of Awe.” That is the term used by Jews for thousands of years. I believe it is prophetic of the “awe” that will come upon the Church during the days following the resurrection. They will have to repent (change their minds and belief systems) to conform to the new realities brought on by the Feast of Trumpets. Many will frantically try to learn more truth or receive more of the Holy Spirit in order to qualify as overcomers. But essentially, at that point it will be too late..
Jesus told a parable about this time period in Matt. 25:1-13. It is about 10 virgins, five of which were wise, and five of which were foolish. They were all virgins, which indicates that they were all Christian believers. But five had oil, while five did not. The five did not have time to buy oil before the Bridegroom came and the door shut.
This is not a parable about the saved vs. the unsaved. It is a parable about the overcomers vs. other believers. They were all “virgins.” And even the foolish virgins succeeded in purchasing oil (25:10). The problem was that they did not have time to qualify as overcomers.
The Day of Atonement and Jubilee
The 10 Days of Awe culminate with the Day of Atonement, which is a formal day of repentance, like a national day of prayer. This day commemorates the day the 12 spies gave their report in Numbers 13, 14. In those days it was the 50th Jubilee from Adam, and they were supposed to blow the trumpet of the Jubilee in preparation of returning to their inheritance (Canaan). However, their refusal to enter the inheritance turned the day from a Jubilee to a Day of Atonement.
The great repentance day that is yet coming will see the Church repent for its refusal to enter the Kingdom—that is, for its refusal to believe the Gospel of the Kingdom as taught by the overcomers in past ages. Even as Saul persecuted David, so also has the Church of Pentecost persecuted the overcomers. They will repent of this when the resurrected dead open their eyes to the truth.
This day will also mark the Jubilee for the overcomers. It will be the day that God officially declares them to be overcomers and gives them a new name. The pattern for this is in the story of Jacob’s name being changed to Israel. (See The Laws of the Second Coming, chapter 4.)
The Feast of Tabernacles
The feast of Tabernacles is eight days long in order to fulfill the law of the eighth day in Ex. 22:29, 30,
29 You shall not delay the offering from your harvest and your vintage. The first-born of your sons you shall give to Me. 30 You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep. It shall be with its mother seven days; on the eighth day you shall give it to Me.
This is the law by which the first-born sons of God are to presented to Him on the eighth day of Tabernacles. The law said that the son (or animal) was to remain with its mother for a full seven days and then be presented to God on the eighth day. That was the appointed time. To present the son on the seventh day was unlawful. To present the son on the ninth day was also unlawful. It had to be done on the eighth day.
Thus, the sons of God will be presented to God on the eighth day. But this means that they will be BORN on the first day of Tabernacles and (heart) circumcised on the eighth day. The meaning of this is made clearer when we see other laws that this day fulfills.
Immortality Given: As mortals, we are “touching a dead body.” In Gen. 2:17, God said that “in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die.” According to the law, we are unclean for seven days. Num. 19:11 says,
11 The one who touches the corpse of any person shall be unclean for seven days.
For this reason, Mary Magdalene could not touch Jesus on the morning of His resurrection, for she was mortal. If she had touched Him before He ascended to present Himself as the First-born Son of God in the Temple, He would have been rendered unclean for another seven days. See Haggai 2:13, 14, which says,
13 Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean?” And the priests answered and said, “It will become unclean.” 14 Then Haggai answered and said, “So is this people. And so is this nation before Me, declares the Lord, and so is every work of their hands and what they offer there is unclean.”
Haggai says that the whole nation was unclean as if they had touched a dead corpse. The application of this law extended beyond merely touching a dead man’s body. It was a spiritual condition. We call it mortality.
For most, this law is fulfilled in 7,000 years leading to the Great White Throne Judgment, where all are raised. But for the overcomers, it is fulfilled earlier in the feast of Tabernacles. They are made immortal on the first day of Tabernacles, but not until the eighth day can they lawfully be pronounced “clean” and appear before God in His Temple in heaven.
Thus, they must be made immortal on the first day of Tabernacles in order to be qualified to enter the Temple on the eighth day.
Priesthood Sanctified: It took eight days to sanctify a priest. In the Old Testament the priesthood was of Levi. Today it is of Melchizedek. But the principle still holds in the law found in Lev. 8:33,
33 And you shall not go outside the doorway of the tent of meeting for seven days, until the day that the period of your ordination is fulfilled; for he will ordain you through seven days.
It took seven days to consecrate (ordain) the priests. Then on the eighth day the glory of the Lord manifested to the people in Leviticus 9. This prophesied of the day that the Melchizedek priesthood would enter the temple in heaven to receive their full ordination and then return to the people on earth to manifest the glory of God to them.
23 And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting. When they came out and blessed the people, the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. 24 Then fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the portions of fat on the altar; and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.
This is the day of the manifestation (revealing, or unveiling) of the sons of God that Paul wrote about in Romans 8:19-22,
19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. . . 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
All creation is awaiting the eighth day of Tabernacles when the sons of God are cleansed from immortality, circumcised in their hearts, and ordained to the new Melchizedek priesthood. Creation (all people) will rejoice at this day, because it will be the day that they begin to enter into the “freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). A Sabbath will be declared in the earth, and creation will be set free to enter into rest from its labor under Babylon. That Sabbath day will be 1,000 years long, as we read in 2 Peter 3:8 (quoted from Psalm 90:4).
The Law of Priesthood
In Lev. 21:17-20 says,
17 Speak to Aaron saying, “No man of your offspring throughout their generations who has a defect shall approach to offer the bread of his God. 18 For no one who has a defect shall approach: a blind man, or a lame man, or he who has a disfigured face, or any deformed limb, 19 or a man who has a broken foot or a broken hand, 20 or a hunchback or a dwarf, or one who has a defect in his eye or eczema or scabs or crushed testicles.
In the Levitical priesthood, these disqualifications were physical. In the Melchizedek priesthood, they are spiritual, yet they are also physical in the sense that the overcomers will be healed of all mortality and its physical and mental defects on the first day of Tabernacles.
This, however, merely fulfills it on an individual level. Since we are focusing primarily on the corporate temple and the corporate body of overcomers, we must view the law in that light to get the bigger picture.
God is bringing forth a corporate priest of whom Jesus Christ is the Head, and the sons of God are His body. The body is not complete without the overcomers of past ages, and that is why they must be raised from the dead first. They must be united with the living overcomers, or else the body is defective and incomplete.
The living overcomers, however, cannot be united with the resurrected ones until the first day of Tabernacles when they come into immortality. Thus, it will be a full two weeks before the two groups of overcomers have the same quality of spiritual “flesh” that can be united as one.
Even so, they are incomplete at that point, because they lack a Head. This is why Jesus Christ must come to earth. It is to join the Head to the Body, making this Priest without defect.
The pattern for the timing of Christ’s coming is found in John 7, which is the only recorded place where Jesus kept the feast of Tabernacles. John 7:2 says,
2 Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths [Tabernacles], was at hand.
Jesus then appeared in the Temple in the middle of the feast, as we read in verse 14,
14 But when it was now the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach.
We see this principle illustrated also in John 6, where Jesus came to the disciples in the midst of the sea of Galilee (John 6:19). If we compare John’s account with Matt. 14:22-34, we see that Peter went out to meet the Lord in the middle of the lake. He was illustrating what Paul said in 1 Thess. 4:17,
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.
The coming of Christ and the catching up will occur in the middle of Tabernacles of some year. This event is timed to occur prior to the eighth day of Tabernacles, because the Head must join the Body first in order to remove all defects from this corporate Melchizedek Priest. Once the Head and Body have been joined, creating the New Man who is to rule all nations, then that New Man is fully qualified to be presented faultless and blameless before God, as we read in Jude 24,
24 Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy.
This is the manner in which Christ will fulfill His law. This is the law of priesthood prophesying of His coming.
