The End Time Church: from the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2016 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 2
King Cain and the Floating Pharaoh

Adam and Cain

Why didn’t God make Adam king?

That seems like a very logical move for God to make. Adam was everybody’s father, grandfather, great-grandfather, or great-great-etc. Even Eve came from Adam. If Adam had been king, couldn’t he have kept those pre-Flood perverts a bit more in line – for their own good? Wouldn’t a strong king with firm control over the people have prevented them from falling prey to their own evil natures?

The pre-flood people really got out of control. Couldn’t a strong king have controlled them? If God had made Adam king, wouldn’t that have protected the flock?

Strangely enough, though, the Bible never states that God made Adam king.

Who was made a king?

(Genesis 4:11-17)
Now you are cursed because of the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. From now on, when you till the ground, it won’t yield its strength to you. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth.”

Cain said to Yahweh, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me out this day from the surface of the ground. I will be hidden from your face, and I will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth. It will happen that whoever finds me will kill me.”
Yahweh said to him, “Therefore whoever slays Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.”

Yahweh appointed a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should strike him. Cain went out from Yahweh’s presence, and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife. She conceived, and gave birth to Enoch. He built a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

When Cain murdered Abel, Cain was told that he would be a wanderer in the earth. Apparently Cain didn’t want to wander, so he built a city and he named it after his son.

Cain built the city. Cain named the city. Therefore Cain was the ruler, or king, of that city. God didn’t make Cain king. Cain did.

King Cain.

Noah and Nimrod

After the great deluge, why didn’t God anoint Noah as king of the earth?

Again, he was the logical human choice. Noah was everybody’s patriarch, except for his wife and his sons’ wives. If Noah had been king of the world, fighting sin and eradicating evil, wouldn’t the dried out planet have been a much better place? Wouldn’t a strong king like Noah have protected the post-flood people from repeating the pre-flood mistakes?

Even though they knew about the great flood, the post-flood people soon got out of control. Didn’t they need a controlling king to control them? Wouldn’t King Noah have protected the flock?

But the Bible does not state that God made Noah king. It does state that Noah was a vintner, who made a potent vintage.

(Genesis 9:20-21)
Noah began to be a farmer, and planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and got drunk.

Noah was not a king. He was just a farmer.

Who was made king after the Flood?

(Genesis 10:8-12)
Cush became the father of Nimrod. He began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before Yahweh. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before Yahweh.” The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land he went forth into Assyria, and built Nineveh, Rehoboth Ir, Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah (the same is the great city).

Nimrod built not just one city, as Cain did, but he built Babel, Erech, Accad, Calneh, and that was just the beginning of his kingdom. Then he expanded further and built Nineveh, Rehoboth, Calah and Resen. Nimrod was not just king of a city. He was an emperor, like Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, or Charlemagne.

Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible describes this guy Nimrod.

His name Nimrod comes from marad, he rebelled; and the Targum, on 1Ch 1:10, says: Nimrod began to be a mighty man in sin, a murderer of innocent men, and a rebel before the Lord.

The Jerusalem Targum says: He was mighty in hunting (or in prey) and in sin before God, for he was a hunter of the children of men in their languages; and he said unto them, Depart from the religion of Shem, and cleave to the institutes of Nimrod.

The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel says: From the foundation of the world none was ever found like Nimrod, powerful in hunting, and in rebellions against the Lord.

The Syriac calls him a warlike giant.

The word tsayid, which we render hunter, signifies prey; and is applied in the Scriptures to the hunting of men by persecution, oppression, and tyranny. Hence it is likely that Nimrod, having acquired power, used it in tyranny and oppression; and by rapine and violence founded that domination which was the first distinguished by the name of a kingdom on the face of the earth. How many kingdoms have been founded in the same way, in various ages and nations from that time to the present! From the Nimrods of the earth, God deliver the world!

Notice Clarke’s emphatic statement: From the Nimrods of the earth, God deliver the world!

That hasn’t happened yet.

Nimrod was Noah’s great-grandson, and little Nimmy ruled over a far reaching empire, eight of the biggest cities in the world, including Babel. Therefore King Nimrod controlled a lot of people’s lives, successfully keeping them in line.

His line.

That strong king controlled the people by killing the ones who got out of control.

Noah, the righteous man, ruled over only eight or ten acres of grapes, more or less, while Nimrod ruled over eight great cities. Noah was a good guy; Nimrod was a bad guy. But, just as with Adam and Cain, the good guy was not a human king and the bad guy was.

We see, then, right at the very beginning of the Bible, two very different types of government –

One from Yahweh, the God of Adam and Noah;

And one from Satan, the god of Cain and Nimrod.

The worldly kings were not appointed by Yahweh. They were allowed by him, but they were not appointed by him. And those worldly kings popped up —

All over the world.

For example, the plain of Sodom, the area around the Dead Sea before it became desolate, was filled with little human dictators.

(Genesis 14:1-2)
It happened in the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, Arioch, king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Goiim, that they made war with Bera, king of Sodom, and with Birsha, king of Gomorrah, Shinab, king of Admah, and Shemeber, king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar).

That’s a lot of kings just in the small area around Sodom and Gomorrah. Even though God didn’t appoint them, human kings — or pharaohs or emperors or caesars or fuehrer or chiefs or sheiks or whatever you want to call someone who controls someone else’s life — appeared all over the world.

Practically everybody in the world had some king besides God running his life.

Abraham the Wanderer

Yahweh called Abraham out of Ur, a prominent city known for its worship of the moon goddess.

(Genesis 12:1-3)
Now Yahweh said to Abram, “Get out of your country, and from your relatives, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. In you will all of the families of the earth be blessed.”

Yahweh told Abraham to go to the Promised Land. Abraham went, but when he got there, God did not make him a king. Actually, Abe lived his life as a foreigner in the very land that was promised to him.

(Hebrews 11:8-9)
By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out to the place which he was to receive for an inheritance. He went out, not knowing where he went. By faith, he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.

Instead of Abraham becoming a king when he got to the Promised Land, his descendants later became slaves of a king – the pharaoh of Egypt. Abraham also had some personal experience with a pharaoh.

(Genesis 12:10-13)
There was a famine in the land. Abram went down into Egypt to live as a foreigner there, for the famine was severe in the land. It happened, when he had come near to enter Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, “See now, I know that you are a beautiful woman to look at. It will happen, when the Egyptians will see you, that they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ They will kill me, but they will save you alive. Please say that you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that my soul may live because of you.”

Pharaoh, the king, had the power of life and death over his people. He could choose to kill people; he could choose to let them live. That is how kings get and keep power. If you don’t bow your head to the king, he’ll break your neck.

When a king has the power of life and death, that puts him in the place of God himself. Furthermore, these rulers — of whatever type — get between you and God.

The Ten Commandments, The Prince of Egypt, and Exodus: Gods and Kings
All Missed the Point

After Israel was enslaved by Pharaoh, Moses led them out of Egypt. The old movie about that event, The Ten Commandments, contained a fundamental error. The more modern animation The Prince of Egypt and the special effects showcase Exodus: Gods and Kings repeated the same error.

This was a monumental error reflecting human understanding of God.

Or rather – human misunderstanding of God.

The error was that these movies pictured the battle in Egypt as being between Pharaoh and Moses. The battle was actually between the two kings – Pharaoh and Yahweh.

Yahweh explained that to Moses, at the burning bush.

Reading from Exodus 3:11-20 —

Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

Moses was right. Who was he to go to the king of Egypt?

He [God] said, “Certainly I will be with you. This will be the token to you, that I have sent you: when you have brought forth the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

Moses said to God, “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you;’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ What should I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’

Moses was not the king. He was merely the one sent by the king.

“God said moreover to Moses, “You shall tell the children of Israel this, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations. Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and tell them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt; and I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey.” ‘

They will listen to your voice, and you shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and you shall tell him, ‘Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to Yahweh, our God.’ I know that the king of Egypt won’t give you permission to go, no, not by a mighty hand. I will put forth my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders which I will do in its midst, and after that he will let you go.

The king of Egypt said Israel could not leave. The King of Creation said Israel could leave.

The battle was on.

Moses was used to lead Israel out of Egypt and out of Pharaoh’s control, but, again, Moses was not the king. Moses was a judge and a prophet.

(Exodus 18:13-16)
It happened on the next day, that Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from the morning to the evening. When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he did to the people, he said, “What is this thing that you do for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning to evening?” Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a matter, they come to me, and I judge between a man and his neighbor, and I make them know the statutes of God, and his laws.”

Moses judged cases according to God’s laws, and taught Israel those laws. A king makes the law. It was God who made the law, not Moses. Moses and his brother Aaron were emissaries of the king, two ambassadors who stood before the king of Egypt and delivered messages from the King of Creation.

The real battle in Egypt, then, was not between Moses and Pharaoh, but between Pharaoh and Yahweh. Those two kings — the substitute king and the real king — battled to see who would rule over Israel.

Actually, there were ten battles in that war, which were the ten plagues on Egypt. After each plague, Pharaoh hardened his heart and again rose up against Yahweh.

However –

After the tenth plague when his firstborn son died, Pharaoh let Israel go. Once more he changed his mind and pursued Israel into the sea, where he and his army were flushed down the royal toilet, as the old movie The Ten Commandments so graphically pictured.

So, even though God didn’t appoint them, the earth was filled with nasty Nimrods, kinky little kings, and puffed up pharaohs, all getting between people and their Creator. The exodus from Egypt was an epoch battle between the two greatest kings of the time, Pharaoh and Yahweh –

And Yahweh won.

(Psalms 24:1-10)
The earth is Yahweh’s, with its fullness;
the world, and those who dwell therein.
For he has founded it on the seas,
and established it on the floods.

Who may ascend to Yahweh’s hill?
Who may stand in his holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart;
who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood,
and has not sworn deceitfully.

He shall receive a blessing from Yahweh,
righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This is the generation of those who seek Him,
who seek your face–even Jacob. Selah.

Lift up your heads, you gates!
Be lifted up, you everlasting doors,
and the King of glory will come in.
Who is the King of glory?

Yahweh strong and mighty,
Yahweh mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, you gates;
yes, lift them up, you everlasting doors,
and the King of glory will come in.

Who is this King of glory?
Yahweh of Armies is the King of glory! Selah.

Who is the king of glory?

Yahweh. Not Pharaoh and not any other king. Yahweh personally led his people out of Egypt. He was their direct ruler, without any other in-between king getting in the way.