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 3

No New Pharaoh

In 2009 Michelle Obama broke protocol when she placed her hand on Queen Elizabeth’s royal back. That was a great gaffe. One was a queen and the other a queen wannabe. You just don’t start pawing the queen, you know.

Esther of the Bible, even though she was a queen, couldn’t even speak to her husband the king. She was the beautiful wife of King Ahasuerus, yet she couldn’t even approach him without being invited. If she so much as uttered a word to him, she was subject to the royal death penalty.

Think about that. She was the wife of the king, yet even she couldn’t get close to him. How rare it is to be close to a king!

Mordecai told Esther that Haman had ordered the killing of all the Jews in the empire. Esther knew that going to the king could cost her life. Nevertheless, she did it.

(Esther 4:16, 5:1)
Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish…

Now on the third day, Esther put on her royal clothing, and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, next to the king’s house. The king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, next to the entrance of the house. When the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she obtained favor in his sight; and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther came near, and touched the top of the scepter.

The king graciously gave his wife permission to come near him and so Esther lived. ‘Thanks, dear!’

No ordinary peon can get close to a king. Yet, after Yahweh rescued Israel from Pharaoh and took them out into the wilderness, their king was always right there close by them.

The compound names of Yahweh show what he is, and one of those names is Yahweh Shammah — Yahweh is There.

(Ezekiel 48:35)
It shall be eighteen thousand reeds around: and the name of the city from that day shall be, Yahweh is there (Yahweh Shammah).

And Yahweh was there for Israel, whenever they looked for him.

(Exodus 13:21-22)
Yahweh went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them on their way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light, that they might go by day and by night: the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, didn’t depart from before the people.

Each night when Israel camped, Yahweh their king was always just right over there, in the pillar of fire. Anytime they wanted, they could look up and see the presence of God.

(Psalms 68:7-13)
God, when you went forth before your people, when you marched through the wilderness… Selah. The earth trembled. The sky also poured down rain at the presence of the God of Sinai — at the presence of God, the God of Israel. You, God, sent a plentiful rain. You confirmed your inheritance, when it was weary. Your congregation lived therein. You, God, prepared your goodness for the poor. The Lord announced the word. The ones who proclaim it are a great company. “Kings of armies flee! They flee!” She who waits at home divides the spoil, while you sleep among the campfires, the wings of a dove sheathed with silver, her feathers with shining gold.

Yahweh slept among Israel’s campfires, like a dove with silver wings and golden feathers.

However, Israel was afraid of God and didn’t try to get closer to him. When He personally taught them the Ten Commandments, they asked him to be quiet!

(Exodus 20:18-21)
All the people perceived the thunderings, the lightnings, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled, and stayed at a distance. They said to Moses, “Speak with us yourself, and we will listen; but don’t let God speak with us, lest we die.”

Moses said to the people, “Don’t be afraid, for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, that you won’t sin.”

The people stayed at a distance, and Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.

Yahweh spoke the Ten Commandments with his own voice. Since he really is God, that was a really big noise. The big noise scared the little people away from the big God.

However, Moses heard the same big noise, saw the same fire on the mountain, and felt the same earthquake, but he was not scared away. Moses was closer to Yahweh than anyone on earth at that time, yet unlike Israel, Moses wanted to get still closer.

(Exodus 3:9-23)
When Moses entered into the Tent, the pillar of cloud descended, stood at the door of the Tent, and spoke with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud stand at the door of the Tent, and all the people rose up and worshiped, everyone at their tent door.

Yahweh spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. He turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, didn’t depart from the Tent.

Moses said to Yahweh, Behold, you tell me, ‘Bring up this people:’ and you haven’t let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you, so that I may find favor in your sight: and consider that this nation is your people.

He said, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.

He said to him, If your presence doesn’t go with me, don’t carry us up from here. For how would people know that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Isn’t it in that you go with us, so that we are separated, I and your people, from all the people who are on the surface of the earth?

Yahweh said to Moses, I will do this thing also that you have spoken; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.

He said, Please show me your glory.

He said, I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim Yahweh’s name before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. He said, You cannot see my face, for man may not see me and live.

Yahweh also said, Behold, there is a place by me, and you shall stand on the rock. It will happen, while my glory passes by, that I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back; but my face shall not be seen.

A famous hymn recalls that rock cleft.

He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock
That shadows a dry, thirsty land;
He hideth my life with the depths of His love,
And covers me there with His hand,
And covers me there with His hand.

The closer Moses got to God, the closer he wanted to get. Israel was not like Moses, though. They never wanted to get that close to their king.

And Yahweh himself was their king, the one they personally answered to.

(Psalm 29:10)
Yahweh sat enthroned at the Flood. Yes, Yahweh sits as King forever.

Yahweh was the king, and the people could get closer to him, if they wanted to.

Kicking Out the Kings of Canaan

After they escaped from Pharaoh, and after forty years of wandering in the wilderness, Israel finally made it into the Promised Land.

What did they do there?

They got rid of all the Canaanite kings.

Here is a long list of those kings.

(Joshua 12:1-24)
(1) Now these are the kings of the land, whom the children of Israel struck, and possessed their land beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon, and all the Arabah eastward:
(2) Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and ruled from Aroer, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, and the middle of the valley, and half Gilead, even to the river Jabbok, the border of the children of Ammon;
(3) and the Arabah to the sea of Chinneroth, eastward, and to the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, eastward, the way to Beth Jeshimoth; and on the south, under the slopes of Pisgah:
(4) and the border of Og king of Bashan, of the remnant of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth and at Edrei,
(5) and ruled in Mount Hermon, and in Salecah, and in all Bashan, to the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and half Gilead, the border of Sihon king of Heshbon.
(6) Moses the servant of Yahweh and the children of Israel struck them. Moses the servant of Yahweh gave it for a possession to the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
(7) These are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the children of Israel struck beyond the Jordan westward, from Baal Gad in the valley of Lebanon even to Mount Halak, that goes up to Seir. Joshua gave it to the tribes of Israel for a possession according to their divisions;
(8) in the hill country, and in the lowland, and in the Arabah, and in the slopes, and in the wilderness, and in the South; the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite:
(9) the king of Jericho, one; the king of Ai, which is beside Bethel, one;
(10) the king of Jerusalem, one; the king of Hebron, one;
(11) the king of Jarmuth, one; the king of Lachish, one;
(12) the king of Eglon, one; the king of Gezer, one;
(13) the king of Debir, one; the king of Geder, one;
(14) the king of Hormah, one; the king of Arad, one;
(15) the king of Libnah, one; the king of Adullam, one;
(16) the king of Makkedah, one; the king of Bethel, one;
(17) the king of Tappuah, one; the king of Hepher, one;
(18) the king of Aphek, one; the king of Lassharon, one;
(19) the king of Madon, one; the king of Hazor, one;
(20) the king of Shimron Meron, one; the king of Achshaph, one;
(21) the king of Taanach, one; the king of Megiddo, one;
(22) the king of Kedesh, one; the king of Jokneam in Carmel, one;
(23) the king of Dor in the height of Dor, one; the king of Goiim in Gilgal, one;
(24) the king of Tirzah, one: all the kings thirty-one.

That’s a long list, thirty-one kings in seven nations. You don’t have to focus on each name, though.

Why not?

Because Yahweh kicked them all out!

They’re not kings any more. King Yahweh got rid of them all, in a thirty-one king kick-out.

Once those Canaanite kings were dethroned, what did Yahweh do?

What would you expect him to do? Maybe put in an Israelite king?

Once those Canaanite kings were dethroned, what did God do in Israel?

He did not give his people a new king.

Repetition is said to be the strongest form of emphasis. Allow me.

When Yahweh brought Israel out of Pharaoh’s Egypt, and then kicked out the thirty-one kings of Canaan, HE DID NOT GIVE THEM A NEW KING. (All caps is also a form of emphasis.)

Nothing could be clearer.

Yahweh did not want his people to have a human king, between him and them.

He did not give them the same type of government they had just escaped in Egypt. He had just rescued them from one Pharaoh and he did not give them another Pharaoh. He did not redo what he had just undone. He did not give them a Cain or a Nimrod. He did not give them the same government that already existed in all the other nations, with a king, or a pharaoh, or a chief, or a sheik, or a fuehrer. God did not give Israel a bureaucratic, bungling, burdensome, imperfect, human royalty.

He just gave them him.

Almost everyone is familiar with Psalm 23, yet most don’t realize just how familiar this love song should make us with God. Bullinger’s Companion Bible shows how this Psalm parallels seven of the compound names of Yahweh, the names that define the name Yahweh and show what he is to his people.

(Psalm 23:1-6)
Yahweh is my shepherd: (Yahweh Roi, Shepherd).
I shall lack nothing. (Yahweh Yireh, Provider)
He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. (Yahweh Shalom, Peace).
He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. (Yahweh Tsidkenu, Righteousness)
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. (Yahweh Shammah, Presence). Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. (Yahweh Nissi, Banner)
You anoint my head with oil. (Yahweh Mekaddishkem, Sanctifier).
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and loving kindness shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in Yahweh’s house forever.

People who have a king who is everything they need do not need another king. That’s why God got rid of all the kings of Canaan in the first place and that’s why he did not give Israel another king to take their place.

Or more accurately, to take his place.

This shows the mind of God about go-between kings. Yahweh did not give Israel the same type of government that Egypt had.

Why not?

Because he did not want them to have the same kind of government that Egypt had!

He wants his people to look directly to him. His flock should gather right under his wings.

(Deuteronomy 32:1-4)
Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak.
Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
My doctrine shall drop as the rain.
My speech shall condense as the dew,
as the small rain on the tender grass,
as the showers on the herb.
For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh.
Ascribe greatness to our God!
The Rock, his work is perfect,
for all his ways are justice:
a God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
just and right is he.

(Verses 7–11)
Remember the days of old.
Consider the years of many generations.
Ask your father, and he will show you;
your elders, and they will tell you.
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he separated the children of men,
he set the bounds of the peoples
according to the number of the children of Israel.
For Yahweh’s portion is his people.
Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
He found him in a desert land,
in the waste howling wilderness.
He surrounded him.
He cared for him.
He kept him as the apple of his eye.
As an eagle that stirs up her nest,
that flutters over her young,
he spread abroad his wings, he took them,
he bore them on his feathers.

Those wings are still there.

(Psalm 17:6-8)
I have called on you, for you will answer me, God.
Turn your ear to me.
Hear my speech.
Show your marvelous loving kindness,
you who save those who take refuge by your right hand from their enemies.
Keep me as the apple of your eye.
Hide me under the shadow of your wings, …

When the Moabite woman Ruth left her people to go with Naomi to the Holy Land, she sought refuge under the wings of the God of Israel.

(Ruth 2:11-12)
Boaz answered her, It has fully been shown me, all that you have done to your mother-in-law since the death of your husband; and how you have left your father and your mother, and the land of your birth, and have come to a people that you didn’t know before. May Yahweh repay your work, and a full reward be given you from Yahweh, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.

When David fled from Saul, he winged it.

A poem by David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave.
(Psalm 57:1 )
Be merciful to me, God, be merciful to me,
for my soul takes refuge in you.
Yes, in the shadow of your wings, I will take refuge,
until disaster has passed.

A Psalm by David, when he was in the desert of Judah.
(Psalm 63:1-7)
God, you are my God.
I will earnestly seek you.
My soul thirsts for you.
My flesh longs for you,
in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.
So I have seen you in the sanctuary,
watching your power and your glory.
Because your loving kindness is better than life,
my lips shall praise you.
So I will bless you while I live.
I will lift up my hands in your name.
My soul shall be satisfied as with the richest food.
My mouth shall praise you with joyful lips,
when I remember you on my bed,
and think about you in the night watches.
For you have been my help.
I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings.

Anyone can choose to be covered with those faithful feathers.

(Psalm 91:1-7)
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of Yahweh, He is my refuge and my fortress;
my God, in whom I trust.
For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler,
and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his feathers.
Under his wings you will take refuge.
His faithfulness is your shield and rampart.
You shall not be afraid of the terror by night,
nor of the arrow that flies by day;
nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness,
nor of the destruction that wastes at noonday.
A thousand may fall at your side,
and ten thousand at your right hand;
but it will not come near you.

Anyone can choose not to.

(Matt 23:37)
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!

No wonder Yahweh kicked out the 31 kings of Canaan. Those kings didn’t have wings!
This is the most important thing to understand about why God does not give his people a go-between government. You don’t need one.

Yahweh himself was Israel’s king. He was their Shepherd, Provider, Peace-giver, Righteousness, Presence, Banner, and Sanctifier. And he was always just right over there, for those who would look up and see.

When you follow another government between you and God —

You then have something between you and God.

And it’s harder to huddle under his wings when there’s something else always getting in the way.