The System vs. The System
HOME       NEWS       WRITINGS       HEALTH       Email lists
     Where rights concur, the more ancient shall be preferred.

So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

      And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. (Genesis 1:27, 31 & 2:1)

.       And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Ge. 2:15,17)

Man was unsatisfied with this Godly System and he defied God. When God called to man he blamed God and the woman God had given him for his own transgression of the Law of God.

      And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest [to be] with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. (Genesis 3:12)

      So the Godly System made for Man was supplanted by the act of man. Man had chosen another way that was not the way of the Lord. This act against God's will as well as man's lack of repentance changed the position of man in the System of God, as well as changing those things that man had been given dominion over.

      So man found himself discontented with his own way and sought a way to make his lot better. These new ways led to maliciousness and murder when it did not include turning to God in repentance and humility.

      And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city194, after the name of his son, Enoch. (Genesis 4:17)

      These cities were civil groups which devised many cunning ways to bind the loyalty of its members for the protection of its members. The clever and charismatic leaders that could seize and maintain control of the public195 were served by those subject to their authority. They became the rulers of the people and their way became law. The benefits and powers of the offices these rulers granted, enticed greedy, proud and coveting men. They aspired to the protection, profit and prestige such offices bestowed.

      And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. (Genesis 6:12)

The flood came and went but men that were willing to give up God's way for their own way multiplied upon the earth. Men continued to create civil systems to achieve their ambitions and fulfill the hopes of their own imagination. Many looked to these binding organizations of man's ingenuity to protect themselves from the acts of their sinful brothers as well as the God that plagued their errant lives. They trusted in their own devises and institutions to ward off threats of flood and famine, poverty and privation, catastrophe and cataclysm.

      He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the hunter before the LORD. (Genesis 10:9)

      In Genesis 10:9 the word hunter is from the Hebrew word tsayid196 which is more often translated provision, food, food-supply, or victuals. The word paniym is translated before in the sense of face or in the face of, before or in front of.197 So, it could be said that Nimrod was a mighty provider before the LORD or in front of the LORD.

      And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top [may reach] unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the LORD said, Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. (Genesis 11:4, 6)

      To reap the benefits of belonging to a city or city state or civil authority a person had to support it, serve it, succor it.

      Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give [us] seed, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate. And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh's. And as for the people, he removed them to cities from [one] end of the borders of Egypt even to the [other] end thereof. (Genesis 47:19 21)

      Did he move them to towns and cities? No, they only moved to a civil status of subjection and service. They still tilled the soil and planted the seeds. They did not own their land or labor but had settled for a mere legal title. (see LAW vs. LEGAL )

      Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, [here is] seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. (Genesis 47:23)

There was a difference, a change, a conversion. They labored not just for themselves or for the service of God but also for the Pharaoh who now had the power to tax their labor, their increase, their income and take a part of their service for himself. It was sort of a civil tithing but only twenty percent.

      And it shall come to pass in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth [part] unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones. And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants. (Genesis 47:24, 25)

      Often men sold themselves to tyrants so that they might enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season or the treasures of the great cities or because they were fearing the wrath of the king. Some times the tyrants were there from the beginning some times they grew out of their well fed vanity. As man's faith in the works of his own hands grew so did his power and pomposity, his victuals and vanity, his cartel and contempt. He defied God's place as Ruler and preceded to create his own systems in the world to make a name for himself.

      Supple knees Feed arrogance and are the proud man's fees.198

Art thou less a slave because thy master loves and caresses thee? 199

And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that [were] round about them, [concerning] whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them. 2 Kings 17:15

      Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil! Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned [against] thy soul. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity! Behold, [is it] not of the LORD of hosts that the people shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity? (Habakkuk 2:9, 13)

People everywhere are looking everywhere but to God.

      Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways [from] the ancient paths, to walk in paths, [in] a way not cast up; (Jer 18:15)

      This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, (Eph 4:17)

      In March 1775 a young Lawyer rode into Culpeper, Virginia on a lean horse. At the whipping post he saw a man's shirt removed, his arms tied together and as he watched he saw him whipped with a leather and wire whip, until the bones of his rib cage showed. When the young lawyer asked what the man had done, he was told that he was a fundamentalist preacher who had refused to take a license. Even after they put him in jail with all of his friends he continued to say, "I will not take a license no matter what you do." The young lawyer who witnessed the lashing was so moved he wrote a speech, and a few days later he delivered it before the Virginia assembly. He said, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains of slavery? Forbid it Almighty God. I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."200

      The seventeenth century Americans came here looking for the religious and civil freedoms that were all but totally gone from Europe and the land of the Anglo-Saxon. They did not gain their freedom by the so called revolution but had earned it by perseverance, hard work and the grace of God.201

      The freedom, for which early pilgrims were willing to suffer deprivation, hardship and even death to obtain and maintain, has all but vanished in today's comfortable, complacent and civil society.

      God created a system consisting of a man and a woman and their children under God. He warned against covenants with strangers to His ways. He warned against kings. And He forbade us to put other gods, rulers and judges over us and before him. He told us that if we turned from Him, from His way and from His truths, that we would be delivered into bondage and the hands of tyrants.

      God is reason. "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."202

Whoso causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way, he shall fall himself into his own pit: but the upright shall have good [things] in possession. (Pr 28:10)

FOOT NOTES

Return 194 Strong's No. 5892 `iyr {eer} or (in the plural) `ar {awr}or `ayar (Judges 10:4) {aw-yar'} from 5782 a city (a place guarded by waking or a watch) in the widest sense ... 1) excitement, anguish 1a) of terror 2) city, town (a place of waking, guarded) 2a) city, town. Strong's No. 5782 `uwr {oor} a primitive root v 1) to rouse oneself, awake, awaken, incite
Return 195 Public (l. publicus--altered by association with)
Return 196 Strong's No.06718 tsayid {tsah'-yid}
Return 197 Strong's No. 06440 paniym {paw-neem'}
Return 198 Shakespear.
Return 199 Pascal.
Return 200 Speech by Patrick Henry.
Return 201 see REPUBLIC vs. DEMOCRACY, DEMOCRACY vs.DEMAGOGUE
Return 202 George Washington.
END OF FOOTNOTES

Please email your questions or comments to: ekklesia@presys.com
Phone: (541) 943-3208
Fax: (541) 943-3268
Or write us via, "snail mail" at:
The ekklesia News
attn. Gregory
Via Post Office Box 10
Summer Lake, Oregon [97640]

HOME       NEWS       WRITINGS       HEALTH       Email lists

FastCounter by bcentral