In the last installment, we left off by remembering that barley is the grain which can thrive and grow to maturity in drought and in famine conditions. Let us consider barley in this condition in allegorical or symbolic terms. In Amos 8, we see the prophet explaining famine in a non-literal sense.
Amos 8: 11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD [Yahweh], that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Yahweh.
12 And they shall wander from sea to sea, [I am going to suggest a thought by adding a word to that last phrase: “from sea to shining sea,”] and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD [Yahweh], and shall not find it.
So it is in America today. There is a great famine for hearing the unadulterated, unpolluted, untarnished truth of Yahweh’s Word. People search, some perhaps, for most of their lives. They don’t quite feel right, not quite getting it all in the church that their mom and dad had them grow up in.
They begin wandering to and fro; they go to this church, they go to that denomination, looking for something more, but they are starving spiritually. They are experiencing this famine and many of them don’t find it in their life time.
Nevertheless, Yahweh has a little flock, a company of some of His people, the Barley Company. It is the Barley Company who are able to thrive spiritually, who are able to grow and to mature in their understanding of God’s Word despite the spiritual famine that pervades our nation.
I believe that this Barley Company is to be found primarily among the people who know that the people descended from the Anglo-Saxon, Keltic, Scandinavian, Germanic and many other related peoples are the true Israelites of the Bible.
We have many dear and wonderful friends on our mailing lists who are not of Caucasian ancestry. They are not excluded from eligibility in the Barley Overcomer Company. I phrase it that way because only the Father knows who is and who is not in that number. I do not claim it; only that I strive to be in that number. I/we are overcomer candidates. We are potential overcomers.
Being genetically descended from the ancient Israelites is no guarantee of anything, and the door is always open to those whom the Bible calls “strangers.” (Technically, only certain “strangers,” for that English word is used to translate about four different Hebrew words. But that is a study in itself which we shall save for another time.)
Think about it: How in the world can anyone thrive spiritually and grow and mature in their understanding of the Bible if they cannot even identify who the major players are in the Bible today?
This is not to toot our own horn here, because I have seen many individuals who know who they are. That is, they understand their identity as a true, physical descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-Israel, and yet when you look at their lives, by their fruit they give evidence of being spiritual babies.
They have not gone beyond just the point of saying “Oh, I know we’re Israel; boy, isn’t that just hunky-dory!” But their manner of life, their witness stinks, their fruit is rotten.
These persons who know their true biblical identity and don’t yield any spiritual fruit are like the type of people that Mark Twain must have known when he commented “If Jesus Christ were here today, I know there is one thing he wouldn’t be—a Christian.”
Do you think Mark Twain was blasphemous? I don’t. He was telling the truth based on the stinking witness of the so-called Christians around him. Obviously, he was seeing perverted Christianity.
“Milk” in Many Forms and Flavors
The 300,000 or so ministers of Judeo-Christianity have had a large responsibility for the perversion of God’s word. One thing they all have in common is milk. Most of them teach only the milk of the Word. (Cf. Hebrews 5: 11-14) But brother, it is tasty, yummy milk! It comes in many forms and flavors.
I have identified some of these many forms and flavors already, but let me extend the list. The evangelicals and fundamentalists and “full Gospel” preachers provide “whole milk.” In other words, they at least try to provide the Bible truth on most of the basic doctrines of Christianity: baptism, the virgin birth, the deity of Christ and the state of eternal rewards, etc.
It is whole milk; but it is homogenized and it is pasteurized with Jewish fables like the secret pre-tribulation rapture of the saints, the doctrine of the everlasting barbecue pit, if you don’t come down to the altar and get saved.
Now I am not denying or denigrating the importance or need for personal salvation. It is absolutely vital, and we all need to do it, but a person doesn’t need to march down some minister’s aisle down to his altar in order to “get saved.” (Again, I am using general terms here, and will leave aside explaining why that term itself is not quite accurate.)
Then there are those that are called Pentecostals. And I am not denigrating the gifts of the Holy Spirit here. I believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and His gifts. But I am poking fun, if you will, or being sarcastic about those who love and serve up the sugar sweetness of this kind of milk.
In other words, this milk is served up as ice cream. They add the Holy Ghost to the milk, you see. Then, they get all excited, and they shake up and down and fall down on the floor in their services; with various flavors added, they have “milkshakes.”
Then there are the Episcopalians. They are the creme de la creme, the cream at the top of the milk. For example, I think George Bush (Sr.) claims to be an Episcopalian. In these type of Christian denominations is where you find all the “hoity-toities.” The analogy here is that the presentation of the milky gospel in these type denominations is very smooth and sophisticated and so very culturally elite, etc.
It appeals to those who are highly educated (or who think they are!). You can probably recall one of these ministers on television who can wax eloquent about the wonderful, positive mental attitudes-type of teaching. As he teaches through the tube, he looks so high class and so sophisticated in his flowing black robe.
Thus, his type of ministry appeals to the sophisticated and cultured in our society. Hence, this highly-cultured milk becomes Bible yogurt. Very appealing and tasty, but still just a fancy form of the milk of the Word.
One could draw out this analogy with the Mormons, the Catholics, or anyone of the rest of the rest of the 700 or so “brands” of Christianity (whom I have not succeeded in offending yet in this essay…wink, chuckle, grin), but let us continue...
With the Mormons, one must add the Book of Mormon. The milk will sour. With the Catholics, one must add the idea of the supremacy and infallibility of the papacy and many other pollutants to the Bible. (For new readers, I know whereof I speak because I was raised in Catholicism and for about five years was in Catholic seminary.) That is like adding booze to the baby’s milk. Not only does it sour; it narcotizes, it drugs the babe in Christ and they never get beyond being babes in Christ. They are often captured for life.
The antichrist Karl Marx was absolutely correct when he said “religion is the opiate of the masses.” Religion, this milky religion, acts like a drug. It keeps the people satisfied and they don’t want to go beyond that. Most of them just want to remain in a comfortable environment. But there are a few whom God calls out of these churches.
Then, too, we must not forget that many churches are serving up mountains of cheese. Cheese is made by fermenting milk or, if you will, by putting a little leaven in the milk. Leaven is symbolic of false doctrine. Of course, most of the 300,000+ so-called Christian churches flavor the ice cream, and the milk, and the yogurt, and the milkshakes to any and all flavors to make the milk palatable to anyone who will even darken the church door.
However, God gave His Word to one man’s family, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob and his descendants, that they were to be a specially-selected, a chosen people who were not to be lording it over everyone else—but who were chosen to be God’s servants in the earth.
Knowing the Identities of the Players Provides the Key to Deeper Truths
One of the most fundamental things that one must take into account from reading any book is to be able to clearly identify the major players in the story. If you cannot identify correctly who the Israelites are in the world today, you will be a milk-fed, anemic, spiritually-stunted babe in Christ.
Follow me in this word picture which further illustrates the current situation. Picture Christians in a nice comfortable room with an enormous purple curtain, the kind that is on the stage at the Metropolitan Opera House or a venue like that—an enormous velvet curtain, and it feels kind of comfortable in there, but it is not claustrophobic. Then somebody asks what is behind the curtain?
The Judeo-Christian ministers answer authoritatively: “Don’t go behind that curtain, it’s false doctrine, it’s false doctrine, don’t go behind there!” But the called-out Christian finds that his curiosity gets the best of him because God has put it in his mind and heart to do that.
And so you take a peek behind the curtain and you see a vault. You are momentarily surprised to see that there is no lock on the vault door, but it appears to be extremely heavy. Nevertheless, you are convinced that if you simply ask, you will receive. And if you knock, the vault door will be opened for you. If you are seeking truth, He will show it to you.
“But don’t go behind there! The devil’s gonna get you! That’s false doctrine over there; you stay right here in my church!,” scream the self-serving and/or ignorant ministers. You ignore them and you walk inside the vault. There you see the most cavernous library that you have ever seen or even imagined. There are books on shelves as far and as high as you can see.
It is so enormous it makes the Library of Congress look like a bookmobile. The most stupendous repository of knowledge and truth that you have ever seen. You begin to look just at a single volume and you see it is titled Genesis 48:19: Jacob’s blessings to Ephraim and Manasseh.
It’s a whole book and yet you realize with a glance down the shelf that there are an untold number of books, just on that one verse! Genesis 48: 19—where the patriarch Jacob is on his deathbed and Joseph has his two sons (grown sons, not little boys as is commonly portrayed), Ephraim and Manasseh.
Joseph brings them to Jacob for the blessings. And Jacob stretches forth his arms to give the blessings, and Jacob, who is almost totally blind, crosses his arms so that the youngest would receive the greatest blessing. But Joseph complains and says “No, my father, you have it all wrong. You are supposed to give the greater blessing to the older son.”
Genesis 48:19 And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he (Manasseh) also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly his younger brother (Ephraim) shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations.
Yes, in just that one verse, there is book after book after book showing the fulfillment of that prophecy. Here is Symbols of our Celto-Saxon Heritage by Mr. W. H. Bennett, which in beautiful, multi-colored photos shows the symbols of the twelve tribes of Israel and how these symbols are today found on the national standards and royal banners and coats-of-arms, etc. of the various nations of Europe and of course, in American heraldry as well.
So we gazed upon that volume and we keep walking down the rows of books and come to a majestic rotunda where high up in this cupola of the rotunda is inscribed this verse, such as you would see inscribed in a capitol building. This verse speaks directly to you because you responded to the call to come out, to mine deeper in the Scriptures for deeper truth; you want more than milk. And God rewards you because He said in:
Matthew 13:11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
“ ... to them it is not given.” That doesn’t mean those people will not be saved; it just means that …to you it was given to know more, to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. Oh how wondrous are His ways!
Do you ever feel that way? …when you get a little illumination on one tiny verse of scripture and you think, My God! what a tremendous insight! How much more must there be?! Ten, twelve, and infinite levels down inside that one verse!
I heard Dr. James Dobson, the Christian psychologist, on his Focus on the Family radio program one time many decades ago. This particular program dealt with a very common problem among adolescents today, the lack of self-esteem and their grappling with the big question, the same one I grappled with in my teen years: Who am I?
The good Dr. Dobson gave some suggestions on improving self-esteem, but in my opinion, he didn’t really have the answer. I am not faulting him for not giving the answer I would have given. Dr. Dobson has some excellent materials and I am sure he is doing the very best he can with the knowledge that he has been given, and surely God has used him in some marvelous ways and in many areas.
But on this particular question, he could not inform (because he himself apparently does not know) the majority of teens concerning who they really are, even though that answer is in the Bible. I just couldn’t help but think that if teens could only be taught when they are just little tykes, as soon as they can understand…
If they were trained, if they were educated about who they are, that they are Israelites, and that we can look (as it says in Isaiah 51: 1, 2), "to the rock whence we are hewn, to Abraham our father and to Sarah our mother who bore us;" then we would not have probably the majority of adolescents and young adults today floundering through their teens and early twenties, wondering who they are and wandering off into illicit sex, drugs and so-called “music,” and into witchcraft and black magic and all those other sundry satanic illusions.
Again, a gentle disclaimer: Merely understanding one’s Israelite ancestry does not get one “saved.” That comes only by faith in Jesus Christ. But that understanding does give one an amazing key to opening the Scriptures on a much greater level.
(To be continued.)
~END~
