THE COVENANT VISION

MINISTRY.

P.O. Box V192.
Mount Druitt Village.
N.S.W. 2770. AUSTRALIA.
Phone: 02-9833-3925. Fax: 02-9833-4397.

E-Mail: fdowsett@idx.com.au

Senior Pastor and Co-Founder:

FRANK W. DOWSETT. J.P.

The Heritage
of
Israel.

By Frank W. Dowsett.

Part Three.

The Glory. Part One.

“I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.”

To date, we have studied the subject of Israel’s Adoption. So we now move on to the second “heritage” promised to God’s People, that of “The Glory”. So many people today, even amongst Israel Identity folk, just don’t seem to have a full appreciation of what it really means to belong to God’s People; to actually be an Israelite.
There seems to be a constant habit of spiritualising the subject. As soon as someone accepts the Lord Jesus Christ they are told that they are now a member of “God’s People” and they are automatically referred to as ‘spiritual Israelites’. But this is not that of which Paul was speaking. He was referring to his ‘brethren according to the flesh’. This was not something “spiri-tual”. Those to whom he was writing were his own flesh and blood, people of the same racial origin. We’ll see more of this as we go into further aspects of this chapter.
The fact that so many Christians don’t realise our situation and our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ as Jehovah, also precludes a full understanding, in my opinion, of what the full implications of what God’s Word is telling us. We’ve mentioned this so often in other writings, I know. And I repeat these facts because we need to be reminded of them. I don’t care who we are, or how advanced we are, (or think we are), in our knowledge of the Word of God, we have to continually remind ourselves of the fundamentals of our faith, which in turn teaches us what we’re doing here on this earth. God never put us here just to be supernumeraries or something of our own making, and to rove around at our own convenience doing whatever suited our particular fancies, and indulging our every whim. And this applies more so on the national level.
He put us here, both as a nation, and as individuals within the nation, to do a very, very specific job. The problem is that all too few people in the world today, as we’re well aware, have any consciousness of the fact that we’ve been given this job to do. You only have to look at any of the media sources these days to realise that we are now living in a very dirty and evil world. The enemies of Christ and His anointed people are resorting to every kind of blasphemy and insult to denigrate the Christian Faith. And their venom is directed especially at any person, or group, who has the temerity to reveal their plans. These people accuse us of ‘racial hatred’, yet what they say about Christians, and especially those who believe in our Israel Identity, evidences more hatred than you or I could ever imagine. The tragedy is that so many otherwise well meaning Christians go along with this anti-Christ enemy, having absolutely no idea regarding the glorious heritage which belongs to God’s true Israel people. They have no idea of our “adoption”, nor of our national position as “Sons of God”, nor of “The Glory” which the Lord God of Israel has determined for us as His people.
So we will now turn to the subject of “The Glory” promised to Israel. The very idea will possibly deter some from further study on the subject, on the grounds that all glory belongs to God alone. But to adopt this attitude is to shut one’s mind from the clear truth of God’s Word. Our verse with which we opened this study clearly refers to the “Glory” which is part of the heritage of Israel. It does not in any way replace, or detract from, the Glory of God. Rather does it enhance His Glory by revealing His great faithfulness in performing all that He promised to us. Never lose sight of the fact that Israel is His Bride, and as such, shares in her Husband’s glory just as much as our earthly wives share in whatever status God allocates to their husbands.
In order to endeavour to bring some form of order to our study, I have divided this subject into four sections. It is a subject of which we all must know. I say that we ‘must’ know quite seriously, because it is an area of knowledge where we cannot afford to adopt the attitude of “take it or leave it” as so many do with what to them are the unwanted sections of God’s Word. If we’re going to talk to other people sensibly about God’s Word, we must have a reasonable, basic knowledge of the Gospel of the Kingdom, and just who and why and what we are. We need to know the part we are to play in God’s plans, and we certainly need to know the part which God intends to play in these same plans.

1. Firstly, the glory is primarily the presence of God in Israel.

In Ezekiel 1 and verse 28, we read;

“As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness around about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it I fell upon my face.”

This glory was the presence of the Lord in Israel, and here we are told quite clearly by the prophet Ezekiel that this appearance was so great that he fell upon his face. Now I think that it is high time that we started asking this question. Where, within the Israel people today, do we find our religious leaders - let alone the people - falling upon their faces before God? They’re not falling on their face before God simply because the glory of God is not here any more! If it was here, we would be on our collective faces before the Lord, and I mean this quite literally. Ezekiel wasn’t talking spiritually or figuratively. He fell flat on his face on the floor before God because of the presence of His Glory. And this was not an isolated instance of this happening. Several of the prophets record exactly the same thing. Ezekiel 3 and verse 23 records another such incident;

“Then I arose, and went forth into the plain: and, behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river of Chebar: and I fell on my face.”

So we find that the presence of God in Israel was the manner in which God manifests Himself to His people. There was no argument when God manifested Himself in his glory amongst His people. There was absolutely no argument whatsoever that He was there. When God was there with them, they knew He was there. But today we don’t even know that He’s not here. Look around you. The people simply don’t know that God is not with us any more. Some of you will remember the old saying; “If you find God is not as close to you today as He was previously, then guess who moved.” And this is all too true. The nation has moved away from God. And because of that God has become separated from the nation.
Let us turn now to Exodus 16:9 and 10;

“And Moses spake unto Aaron, saying, unto all the con-gregation of the children of Israel, Come near before the Lord: for He hath heard your murmurings.
And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole con-gregation of the children of Israel, that they looked to-wards the wilderness. And, behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the clouds.”

Shouldn’t we ask ourselves just why it was that the people had to look towards the wilderness to see the glory of God. I believe the answer is stated in the first of the above verses.

“Come near before the Lord: for He has heard your murmurings.”

In the wilderness, Moses had erected, at the Lord’s instructions, the Tabernacle. It was within the Holy of Holies within this Tabernacle that the presence of the Lord was manifest to His people in the form of His Glory. The problem was that the people continually turned against the Lord in disobedience. And we don’t have to worry about what they were doing wrong, or in what manner they were being disobedient, because we’re doing exactly the same thing today. Nothing has changed.
During my speaking tours of Canada and the U.S.A. a few years ago, I used to tell the folk, ‘please don’t waste time either before or after the meetings asking me what things are like in Australia. I said, look around you, and whatever you see happening in your country, we have the same thing happening in Australia’. And that’s exactly what the situation is. The situation is the same in every branch of the Israel nations today. We are all in the same boat as it were. Every Israel nation in the world today is suffering from the same problems and attacks, and might I add, for the very same reason. And our political leaders, and sadly many of our religious leaders, try to tell us that there’s no conspiracy going on. That this is all just accidental and merely coincidental. These things don’t happen by coincidence or by accident. They are designed to happen this way, in order to remove and to destroy the presence of God within His people.
And the only way that you can do that is not by simply targeting the glory of God, but by the introduction of gross disobedience, thus destroying the people so that God will no longer have a people through whom He can be glorified. It happened then, and it’s happening all over again now. So because of their murmurings, they had to look to the wilderness in order to see the glory of God. We, as with our forebears, have to look towards where the Glory of God is manifest - in the Most Holy Place.
In I Samuel, 4 and 21, we find the account of a certain lady who had just given birth to a child, and the account records;

“And she named the child Ichabod, saying, the glory is departed from Israel: because the ark of God was taken, and because of her father in law and her husband.”

In reading the context of the passage, we find that they had both been slain. As a matter of fact, Eli the High Priest, the father-in-law of this lady, had also just died from a fall in which his neck was broken. It was he to whom Samuel spoke as a child. The meaning of the word Ichabod is, ‘the glory has departed’. Thus God pre-figured, as it were, what was happening to Israel. The child, Ichabod, became a living illustration of the fact that God had departed from Israel. You know, if it happened that long ago, where’s the national revival been since then that has brought Him back again to His people?
The prophet Ezekiel adds further information regarding the moving of God’s Glory from Israel. In Ezek. 10:4 we read;

“Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the bright-ness of the Lord’s glory.”

Prior to this, God’s Glory had alighted upon the cherub. But it had now moved from the cherub, to the threshold. It was moving. Then when you go to verse 18, it says;

“And the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubims.”

It had moved back again. The glory of the Lord had started to move from the cherub to the threshold, and then back to the cherubims. Then in verse 19 we read;

“And the cherubims lifted up their wings, and mounted up from the earth in my sight: when they went out, the wheels also were beside them, and every one stood at the door of the east gate of the LORD'S house; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above.”

The Glory is now found over the east gate. But it doesn’t stay there. In Ezek. 11:21-23 we read;

“But as for them whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord God. Then did the cherubims lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountains which is on the east side of the city.”

Now surely it is time we began to ask as to why this was happening? Why was the Lord doing this? Why was the glory of the Lord continually being moved?
It was moving because the children of Israel were still partaking of their detestable things!
God certainly gave them enough warnings. There should not have been any need for Him to continually shift His glory from one place to another. Surely, one would think, someone would have woken up to the fact of what was happening, and more importantly, why it was happening. But amazingly, no one seemed to ask any questions. Neither the nation as such, nor the people in it, seemed to take too much notice of what was happening. Neither did they show any concern when it shifted from there altogether, and was transferred to the mountain. And so gradually the presence of God, manifest in the glory of God, just disappeared from view. And it all happened without a whimper from the people. Their interest in, and devotion to, all their detestable things had completely taken their interest in God away from them. They no longer even thought of Him, let alone sought to obey Him. God had become an unnecessary nuisance.

Does this sound familiar? Well, it should. “That which has been, is certainly that which will be”, as Solomon so wisely said so long ago. Nothing has changed, other than to become much worse.

What have we done? Psalm 106:20 tells us;

“Thus they have changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.”

Can you believe that? We have exchanged the glory we had, the Glory of God Himself, into the similitude of an ox that eats grass. Absolutely unbelievable!

But let me read the next verse;

“They forgot God their saviour, which had done great things in Egypt.”

Isn’t it amazing how many times we are continually referred back to the great things God did in delivering His people out of Egypt? But ask yourself. How many times are we told about that today? You can go to just about any church you can name today and I’ll guarantee that 99.9% will talk about little else than the message of personal salvation and deliverance. Now I’ve got nothing against that message whatsoever, but I certainly do get concerned when they’ve missed the whole secret of God’s national deliverance altogether, and deliberately restrict their teaching and understanding to the mere individual level. One could surely be excused for thinking that God no longer had any interest in the national level of events. And this, in spite of the fact that every one of Jehovah’s Feast Days clearly teach us, and remind us of, God’s mighty deliverance of His people from Egypt. We are told without any room for doubt or argument, that when our children ask us what all these celebrations are about, we are to tell them that we are celebrating our deliverance from Egypt under the hand of God. But just as God has said, we have forgotten God as our deliverer and saviour, which had done such great things in Egypt. And is it any wonder, when we consider that our people are being deliberately cheated of the knowledge of their identity and birthright. Is it any wonder that they take no notice of these events when they are taught that they have nothing to do with us, and only apply to a people who show all the marks of being anti-Christ rather then the marks of being God’s people Israel. We have become totally unaware that just as our forbears were delivered from their captivity in Egypt, so we are going to be delivered again from our present captivity, not only from Egypt, in its prophetic sense, but also from the whole system of Babylon which has now totally enslaved us.

People just don’t know that we’re about to be delivered from this evil system referred to under the prophetic name of Egypt. All they’re interested in is buying into the share market, or winning the lottery, or their favourite sport, or amusing themselves in every conceivable manner. Immorality is no longer an option. It has almost become a necessity. Not too long ago, taking part in many practices was illegal. Nowadays, it is practi-cally illegal not to take part in them. We love our debaucheries more than life itself. No one knows anything about the plagues or diseases of Egypt, despite the fact that they are all with us again today. So how can we expect our people to know any-thing about being saved out of these troubles when they don’t know that we are suffering from them in the first place?

The prophet Jeremiah records in his chapter 2, verses 10 to 12, a most frightening situation;

“For pass over the isles of Chittim, and see; and send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be such a thing. Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet not gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord.”

In these verses, God is simply asking us if we can find just one other solitary nation on the face of the earth who have ever changed their god?

Just think of it for a moment. Have you ever heard of the Buddhists changing their god Buddha and getting someone else? Not likely. They get more media coverage, especially on T.V. than the Christian Faith. They regularly interview various religious leaders from such countries as Tibet, complete with all the sob stories of how badly these heathens are being treated in as far as their religion goes. And the growing number of movie stars who are embracing this religion, and who never cease to publicly espouse their religious cause, doesn’t do this religion any harm either. These programmes are constantly telling us what they’re doing in Australia, and how they’re turning Australians into Buddhists, all with the help of the Media, and shockingly, with the shattering silence from most of our Christian (?) pulpits. We are becoming a nation of polyglot believers in anything we like. And God said, ‘have you ever seen another nation do this?’

Do you reckon the Muslims are going to change from being Muslims because we tell them to? Do we think that those who follow Judaism will give up their religion just to suit us? No one other than God’s people ever thinks of changing their gods. These other people have their own gods, and they hang onto them irrespective of what happens. They devote themselves to their gods with a passion that is absolutely fanatical, and they’ll willingly die for them without a second thought. We, on the other hand, treat our God just as though He were someone handy to have around in case of emergencies. Have you ever noticed that whenever the name of a god is used in blasphemy in the media, it is always the name of the Christian God. They never hit their thumb with a hammer and curse Buddha or Mohammed. It’s always the Christian’s God that gets abused. And what do we do about it? Nothing. Such things have just become a normal way of life. And thus we have lost the presence of God in our midst. Is it any wonder?

We will, God willing, continue with this area of study in our next issue, but despite all that we have done to our Heavenly Father, which has resulted in the loss of the Glory which He has ordained as our eternal inheritance, He has made us an unconditional promise. It is found in Isa. 42:8;

“I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another,
neither my praise to graven images.”

Contrary to what some may teach, I believe that when the disciples had that experience on the day of Pentecost, that was the beginning of the return of the spirit of God to His people. What was manifest? The tongues of fire that sat upon them. Here I believe, was just the first manifestation, as it were, of the return of the presence of the Glory of the Lord to His people. If we would only wake up to that fact and realised it’s full significance, I’m sure we would get much more out of that situation than what is normally recognised today.

(To be continued).

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