DIRKES WHAT'S IN A NAME: MANASSEH 2...

[ed. this is a reprint from Banner of Hope 9:2, August 2015]

Now there arose up a new king over Egypt which knew not Joseph (Ex. 1:8).

There is nothing specifically mentioned about the events that transpired in Egypt in the years after Jacob died but there can be no question that there existed a great disturbance in the land. The socio-political changes that were enacted under the administration of Joseph had made him a national political figure and his family moved among the elite of society. His promotions in the governmental system had indelibly left his legacy in the history of the land as almost everything that existed at that time was a result of the strategies God gave Joseph to enact during the time of crisis. The family of his wife, Asenath, was strong in the religious traditions and enterprises of the people who were given to follow after the god ‘On’ (own). This demi-god was believed to be the force behind Joseph and was attributed with the prosperity of the time; therefore he was worshipped and adored. The events that transpired coupled together with the beliefs of the people and the influences that this family had upon the entire region made Joseph and his immediate household very powerful and greatly renowned.

Yehovah God had ordained and brought to pass all things which He had ordained to be necessary for Joseph to make the Egyptian government extremely wealthy and with that wealth came much power. The people of the land bought the food from the store houses with their money, for “Joseph gathered corn as the sands of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number” (Gen. 42:49). When the money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us bread for why should we die in your presence?” (Gen 47:15). Joseph instructed them to bring their cattle and in exchange he gave them bread (Gen 47:17). When the second year of the great famine came hard upon the people, “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” (Gen 47:20). The programs that were established made Pharaoh the largest land owner and secured unto him more abundant herds of cattle than all the surrounding countries. Now since it was an abomination for the Egyptians to herd animals (Gen 46:34) and since the Sovereign God of the universe had set apart a people of herdsman unto this day, He put it in the heart of Pharaoh to place all the herds of cattle, horses, sheep, goats and asses under the care of the house of Jacob. This people, who at first dwelt in the land of Goshen, became so abundant that they spread throughout the land tending to the herds of Pharaoh. Here they were employed in the business of tending to Pharaoh’s stockyards of meat and the butcher shops which fed the land through the famine. But these transactions were not limited to just the immediate land of ‘Cops’ (Egypt) for as the famine spread over the whole region, the people of Canaan came from the north and many others from the south to Joseph to buy food. And so the entrepreneurial endeavours of this Hebrew slave became the economic windfall which prospered Egypt, empowered Pharaoh and delivered Israel.

When the famine grew worse in Canaan, where Jacob dwelt, there was no relief in the neighboring lands. The trade routes where his sons fed their sheep and met the Midianite traders would have been the place to exchange world news and gossip. Certainly men who traveled these routes from the northern countries through Canaan unto Egypt would have known where to obtain food during such a severe famine. However, the reports all confirmed that the effects of the famine were systemic throughout the region except in Egypt; therefore the world came to Joseph to buy food.

He exacted no lesser demand on the foreigners than he did of the indigenous inhabitants of the land and the hand of Yehovah God made him prosperous in all his endeavours. Thus the ‘savior of the land’ (Zaph-nath-pa-a-ne-ah, as Pharaoh named him) fulfilled his duties as the servant of the Most High God in bringing Egypt and Israel through the famine and into the ‘treasury of the glorious rest’. His brothers sold him into slavery, his father thought him dead, yet, as he told his most bewildered and amazed brothers, “God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance” (Gen. 45:7).

Adam lives in the ignorance and superstitions of his limited understanding. He cannot predict the weather accurately, his financial dealings are encumbered with speculations and his political policies are steeped in suppositions, accusations and paranoia. He cannot by worry add one inch to his appointed stature, he does not know his own heart for it is desperately wicked, he cannot control the events of the day and he has no command of the thoughts of his mind. The passions of his heart are hot and undisciplined, and his own tongue condemns him in his own speech, so it is completely inconceivable to intimate that natural man could have contrived and performed such an elaborate series of events. The precision of all the elements to function with such accuracy to the minutest of details, so that nothing was left undone, requires nothing less than the absolute sovereignty of the Almighty God. Nothing was left to ‘chance’, there were no options or contingencies left to the ‘free will’ of man. The Lord God Omnipotent needs nothing in return from the subjects of His creation to assist Him in the performance of His perfect will.

“Then Joseph said, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh. Here is seed for you and you shall sow the land. And it shall come to pass in the increase, that you shall give a fifth unto Pharaoh. Four parts shall be your own for the seed of the field and for your food and of them of your households and the food for your little ones” (Gen 47:24).

The testimony of this record would seem to indicate that Joseph was the first politician to enact an income tax upon the people living and working in Egypt. The same people, who had suffered privation during the famine, swore their allegiance to Pharaoh as his servants and as the land recovered from the tremendous dearth, they were required by law to return unto him a fifth part of all the increase in the land. Joseph was given of God to see the impending disaster through the dream which He gave to trouble Pharaoh. God lifted His child up in this foreign land and gave him favour in the esteem of the people and the powers which He had ordained for good. Joseph became the secretary of agriculture, commerce and trade. He was the secretary of housing and urban development, secretary of state and the head of the first internal revenue service. He was the Commandant of food rations, secretary of health and welfare and the chief procurement officer for all things necessary for national safety and prosperity. He was the chief and sole advisor to Pharaoh as he navigated the unknown course and guided this strange people of a foreign land through an economical, social and political disaster, the likes no one had ever seen before. He was blessed with wisdom and understanding, he was made fluent in the languages necessary to conduct the business at hand and was given the confidence of the nations of the world who came to him for relief. His boyhood arrogance was abated and his natural Adamic greed was channeled into fiscal responsibility, which orchestrated a long term program to ensure the financial and social stability for many years to come.

Joseph had no specialized training in the business of man, no degree in business management, psychology, construction or agriculture as God had completely outfitted this young man with all things necessary to accomplish all unto which he had been appointed. This is another prime example of how Yehovah God puts it in the hearts of men to fulfill His will and walk the path He has ordained. There is no coercion, duress or aggression on the part of the Master for He has equipped, empowered and enabled all things in the creation of heaven and earth to work together in the perfect harmony of His will. This is God’s way in all of His creation to both will and do His good pleasure as He rules sovereign over the universe. This is the edict from the throne as he sits in heaven and rules over the kingdoms of this world from generation to generation. This is the manner in which He prepared a place to deliver His chosen people and this was the setting where He made the nation of Israel fruitful and prosperous. He gave them virile seed and caused them to increase abundantly and multiply and wax exceedingly mighty and to fill the land of Egypt (Ex. 1:7). Now the time had come for the next chapter in the development of the sons and tribes of Jacob to prepare them to be a great and mighty nation.

The doctrines of Adam will forever teach the hands of man to continue to attempt to build the tower to the heavens to establish a name for the children of the dust. The pride of his heart shall never recant the blasphemous and abominable doctrine of his own self-motivated and self-controlled free will as he endeavours to prove himself before God. The wise and masterful Creator has ordered all things fast and sure from before the foundation of the world. He fashioned man from the dust of the ground having his seed in him. He appointed the time when the proper seed combination should come together to form each man in his order to occupy the assigned time of his habitation. He has given unto each person specific labours which are essential elements of His masterpiece so that all things work in complete harmony, one with the other. He has set at liberty the hearts and minds of these obedient servants to freely and skillfully do that which He has ordained necessary and good; “I will cry unto God Most high who performs all for me” (Ps. 57:2).

The freedom of the Adamic will is commensurate to the duties of life given to him. It is carnal and flawed by reason of limitations and inabilities and it is empowered or demented as decreed by God to make that individual the person he is appointed unto before time began. The Creator of the hands of man causes them to work in conjunction with the wisdom, the skill and ability He has put in their hearts. He granted the subjects of His creation the necessary attributes and expertise for their station in life; “and every wise-hearted, in whom Yehovah put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary, according to all that Yehovah had commanded...and everyone whose heart stirred him up to come unto the work to do it” (Ex. 36:1f).

“And He said unto Abram, Know of a surety that your seed shall be a stranger in a land not theirs and shall serve them and they shall afflict them four hundred years” (Gen. 15:13).

Yehovah God appeared unto Abram and promised him that he would make him the father of a great nation; “look now toward heaven and tell the stars, if you are able to number them: and He said unto him, so shall your seed be” (Gen. 15:5). As yet Abram had no heir but, by the power of God, Sarah conceived and bore him a son in his old age. This child of promise matured, married and had a child of promise called Jacob and when the twelve sons of one man were delivered from the great famine into Egypt, they numbered seventy souls (46:27). There they were given the land of Goshen by Pharaoh (47:6) where they were content to live, tending their flocks and the herds of the Egyptians. God, however, made the children of Israel so “fruitful and they increased abundantly and multiplied and waxed mighty and the land was full of them” (Ex. 1:7) just as he had promised Abraham those many years ago. “I Yehovah have spoken, it shall come to pass and I will do. I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent” (Ezek. 24:14).

This fruitfulness of procreation of the people caused them to become so abundant not only in the land of Goshen but also throughout the land of Egypt. Instead of being the herdsman and farmers of the land and taking the seed and sowing the fields for food, Israel had become like unto an infestation of Egypt. This intrusion into the Coptic society was reason enough for the new Pharaoh, whom God raised up, to give no acclaim or recognition to the name, accomplishments or legacy of Joseph. He did not recognize the achievements and he gave no honour to the programs as he instituted a social reform program in which to purge the scourge of Egypt. The superstitions of the divine theologies of the people became subservient to Pharaoh as the pride in his heart “lifted up yourself in height and he shot up his top among the thick boughs and his heart is lifted up in his height” (Ezek. 31:10). His Adamic nature made him insecure in his ways in which he was deceived; “clouds are they without water, carried about with winds; trees whose fruit withered without fruit twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of the sea foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 12f). These were the circumstances wherein God put fear in his heart against the children of Jacob and the paranoid suspicion of a presumed revolution. Therefore he said to his people; “Come let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply and it come to pass that when war occurs, they join also unto our enemies and fight against us and so they ascend up from the land” (Ex. 1:10).

There had been no provocation by the sons of Israel neither had there been any insurrection that would give any credence to these conclusions. The land had been good to the nation and Yehovah God had blessed His people through the fruitfulness of the land around them. The family of Joseph and Asenath had remained in the positions of authority, both religious and civil, and there is no indication that anything was amiss with this arrangement. However the time had come for the continuation of the promise of God to Abraham and so civil unrest, social animosities and racial biases were the ordained beginning of the years of captivity. Therefore the Lord gave this cunningly devised solution into the hearts and minds of Pharaoh to react to an alleged problem with national security and Pharaoh was given to convince the people of the existence of the new public enemy, the Hebrew menace.

The plan was quickly initiated to isolate, contain and control the Israelites in the land of Goshen and one can only imagine the living conditions where such an abundance of people were confined to such and small area. They were gathered from the country and became tribute to Pharaoh and Egypt thereby tapping into a vast resource of in-house labour. Pharaoh changed their ‘modus operandi’ from farmers and herdsman to conscripted construction labourers. He mandated the concentration of the Hebrew people into the labour camps as they built the mighty cities of Pharaoh, Pithom and Raamses, the ‘city of justice’ and the ‘city of the sun’ (Ex. 1:11). Joseph had instituted the first income tax system as the people gave a fifth of their increase back to Pharaoh and, after the death of Joseph, Pharaoh instituted forced conscription in the construction of the skyscrapers of the day according to a strict and peculiar building code in which the workers had to go “abroad throughout the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw” (Ex. 5:12). This was augmented by the introduction of a governmental population control program as the king of Egypt ordered the male children to be killed and the females spared (Ex. 1:16). Manasseh and Ephraim, with their families, were cast down with the rest of the house of Jacob and relocated into Goshen. The Egyptian racial cleansing program and cultural purification measures had begun in earnest and the nation of Israel was pressed into servitude for four hundred years.

Many have questioned why God would do this to a people He loved. As the labour camps began to flourish, there were some who died beneath the task masters whips who remembered the land of Goshen (‘to draw near’) as their salvation from the famine. As the years passed generations were born into servitude and died knowing no relief until the fullness of time, when God caused His people to sigh by reason of the bondage and He heard their cry. He brought them into the land of Goshen to save them. He subjected them in the land of Goshen to make them strong and to draw them unto Himself by the cords of man, though they knew it not and He delivered them from that bondage a mighty nation, six hundred thousand strong. The purpose of God was to destroy the ‘great house’ and deliver His people from the house of that man that was stronger then they. He raised up Pharaoh “that I might shew My power in you and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth” (Rom. 9:17). He proclaimed His name through this burdensome tribulation for the whole world to hear. He showed forth the power of His omnipotent hand to the praise and glory of that Name which is above every name for His ways are mysterious and beyond finding out. He asks counsel of no man for He is God and there is none other; He has spoken the intent of His heart and it has come to pass by the good pleasure of His will.

“And these are the names of the men that shall stand with you:...of the children of Joseph:...of the children of Manasseh; Gamaliel the son of Pedahzur” (Num. 1:10).

Joseph had not named his first-born, Manasseh, so that he might forget the unpleasant things of his life; he named him that because Yehovah God had made him forget “all my toil and all my father’s house” (Gen. 31:51). Manasseh stood unto Joseph as a reminder of the path he had walked wherein the word of God came unto him in his father’s house and he was despised. He also represents the power of God apart from his father’s life as this same path brought him forth to prominence and power without the blessing of Jacob or the assistance of his elder brothers.

Manasseh is the heir apparent to Joseph and all he owns in the land of Egypt but, when in the fullness of time God delivers Jacob into this prosperity, Manasseh is made the heir of his grandfather Jacob’s house and reassigned from first-born of Joseph to second heir of Israel. Joseph observes this breach of protocol but he is incapable of halting it or correcting the blessing given by his aged father (48:17). Unlike the confrontation between Jacob and Esau there is no indication that this realignment of the station of these two brothers resulted in any friction or animosity. Nevertheless, Manasseh, once the heir to the second most powerful man in all of Egypt was now made second heir to the father of the herdsmen living in Canaan and the house of a chosen nation. And thus, before Pharaoh was given his ‘Arian’ ideologies for social and religious cleansing in the land, God has already identified Manasseh with Israel.

Manasseh was also displaced out of his natural station in life when God put an irrational, unfounded paranoia into the heart and mind of the new King in Egypt. The house of Potipherah could not protect either Manasseh or Ephraim from the sweeping cultural revolution that was the direct result of the blessing of God upon Egypt. The people of the land ate the fruit of the fields and lived because Yehovah God had protected and preserved them, yet the people of the ‘land of fortifications’ and ‘double entrenchments’ worshipped the work of their hands. They were fed from the seed in the dirt of the field which grew by the power of the sun. Every year the river overflowed its banks and the land was made fertile by the silt that was left and the superstitions of the people of the land supported the worship of a deity for each of these occurrences. Therefore, as the myths and legends were rewritten and retold in the ‘authorized version’ of history, the prosperity and strength of the land did not come about because of someone ‘from beyond’ (Hebrew) and there was no great awakening or age of enlightenment unto the majesty of the King of Kings. Rather, there was a resurgence of self-esteem, civic and social pride and an, afore unknown, nationalism was discovered and exploited in Egypt. When “Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of his rivers, which has said in his heart; My river is mine own and I have made it for myself” (Ezek. 29:3) exalted himself to the status of deity the people were given to the praise of the creature rather than the Creator. And so, as the racial purification and social cleansing took place under the Pharaoh who was not given to recognize Joseph the history of the land, Manasseh was vanquished unto the land of Goshen where he and his family became slaves to the very people they once called friends. This is Gamaliel, the bountiful dealings of God, of those whom the ‘Rock has ransomed’, Pedahzur.

The blessing of Jacob upon the head of Manasseh was that “he also shall become a people and he shall be great” (Gen 48:19). This process took many years to come to pass and at the end of the four hundred years of captivity, the family of Manasseh, emerged from Egypt as one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Although he was dead and gone many years, yet his family crossed the Red Sea, witnessed the wondrous miracles of God in nature, complained about the bitter water and the lack of food and when they arrived at Mt. Sinai, they numbered 32,200 people around the tabernacle of God (Num. 2:20).

The captain or leader of this tribe was Gamaliel, ‘my bounty is God’. There is no record as to any feats of valour which he may have done either in the captivity or the exodus. He gave no great speeches nor championed any wonderful causes which may have endeared him unto the people because it was God who raised him up. There is no description of any physical attributes which may have ‘caught the eye’ of the brethren of the tribe or any other characteristics or qualities which promoted this one into his station of chief of the house of Manasseh.

No man comes into any position in life as a result of his deeds. The labours of man are as part and parcel to his station and walk of life as the growing of a branch, the producing of the fruit and timely pruning of the vine by the craftsman of the vineyard are intrinsic to the vine. Proper soil preparation is required for the specific root that is planted. Constant care and protection enables the life in the vine to grow and mature while the pruning of the branches enables the fruit to appear, abundant and healthy. All conditions and necessary ingredients are administered and any deterrents to the desired end of the husbandman are attended to and the resulting fruit is the reward of his labours. So it is in the perfect creation of God. He has prepared the ground, which is the lump of clay from which an earthen vessel outfitted for destruction is formed to receive the root of the wicked one. This brings forth wild grapes. He has also prepared, from the same lump of clay, an earthen vessel afore prepared unto glory, wherein is born from above, the incorruptible seed of the Anointing; this seed is the sons of God.

Unto the one, no amount of wonders, blessings or long-suffering could do anything to change the wild grapes that were produced for although the husbandman, “fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof and planted it with the choicest vine and built a tower in the midst of it and also made a wine-press therein and he looked that it should bring forth grapes and behold it brought forth wild grapes” (Is. 5:2). Had the chemistry of the nutrients somehow changed as they passed from the root up the stalk and into the vine so as to change the nature of the fruit from the root? God forbid! The root has the seed in it as it was created and therefore the fruit that comes forth is identical to the vine. Hence Jesus told the Pharisees, “You are of your father the Devil and the desires of your father you will do” (John 8:44).

The end result cannot deny the source; hence the seed of the serpent cannot bring forth righteousness and incorruptible seed born from above cannot fall short of the glory of God. Neither can either change his station in life which the Father has appointed for his good. The station for the house of Manasseh was to be pulled down from the lofty heights of Egypt and be lost in obscurity for those many years until the time when the ‘rock of redemption’ (Pedahzur) brought forth his son, ‘God is my bounty’ (Gamaliel). The foreign identity was erased in the slime pits as the hatred, suspicion and bigotry of the people of the land was replaced by the love of the family for the son of a foreign mother. This common experience and fellow companionship in tribulation not only made Israel into a strong people but it personified the fact that the children of a dead man, born in a strange land unto a foreign woman were of the same flock as the children of promise. This is the mystery of the gospel.

Joseph, the ‘next’ or ‘other son’, had no place in the camp around the Tabernacle or in the marching procession when the cloud commanded to move the Ark as one of the children of Israel. His children however stood on equal ground with the house of Jacob. Reuben was stripped of his first-born inheritance because he defiled the bed of his father (Gen. 35:22) Simeon and Levi were disqualified for their wickedness in dealing with the men of Shechem; “Simeon and Levi, brethren, instruments of cruelty are their habitations, O my soul come not into their secret, unto their assembly, mine honour do not be united for in their anger they slew men and in their self-will they digged down a wall. Cursed be their fierce anger and their cruel wrath: I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel” (Gen. 49:7). But when Joseph, the next to youngest child brought forth his two young children, Manasseh and Ephraim, being at least fifty years younger than Reuben, Jacob named them as his own sons. He appointed Ephraim, the younger, as the first born with all rights of inheritance and Manasseh as the second born (I Chron. 5:1).

“On the west side the standard of the camp of Ephraim...and by him Manasseh...then the tribe of Benjamin” (Num. 2:18-24).

The beauty of the mystery of the gospel, as seen in type, is that those who are not born of natural Israel are indeed all equal in the Israel of our God; “for he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is circumcision, which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew (of the house of praise) which is one inwardly and circumcision of the heart in the Spirit and not in the letter of the Law, whose praise is not of man but of God” (Rom. 2:28). The wild branch does not differ in any way from the one which is natural for they all have life in the vine and bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness, therefore, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). The tribe of ‘abundance’ (Ephraim) along with the tribe which reminded Joseph of the father’s house and the toils of the land (Manasseh) stood next to the ‘son of my right hand’, Benjamin. These three were assigned this location of their habitation between the tabernacle of God and the roarings of the darkness. The door of the Tabernacle faced to the east or the rising of the sun. The west, then, was the setting of the sun or the coming of darkness, which is the world and the deeds of natural man. The roarings of the proud and angry waves could not pass over these three tribes as they pitched the tents of their habitation towards the Tabernacle of God. These represent the protection in Messiah who is the fullness and abundance of all things, who has removed the sin of His people never to remember them again and is the Son of the right hand of the Father. The darkness, though close at hand, does not comprehend the Light of His glory and can never impede the light of the glory of the Tabernacle of God.

These three tribes also represent the children of hope who have been given all things necessary for life by the one who knows their needs and have eternal life in Him. They are also the ones who, during the time of their habitation, are reminded of their Father’s house which is not of this world. The trials and tribulations which work patience and prove the faith within, are the manifest tokens of the love of the Father who has removed their inability and rebellion in Adam and will never bring it into account against them. They are also sons of God and heirs of the Kingdom. They are children and heirs of God, joint heirs with the Anointed Salvation of Yehovah. They have overcome the wicked one, the darkness behind them, by the blood of the Lamb and they walk through this barren wilderness by the Light of His glory. There is no condemnation unto them for the accuser of the brethren is cast out and they have the testimony of the finished work in Messiah. The cloud by day and the enfolding fire by night gave a continual witness to the presence of God and the fact that he was manifesting that which was finished from the beginning.

“And Moses by the commandment of Yehovah sent out from the wilderness of Paran all those men heads of the children of Israel...of the tribe of Joseph, of the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the son of Susi” (Num. 13:11)

The fact that Manasseh was born to royalty and raised in a very strict religious family did not alter his Adamic nature one bit, nor did the years of servitude drive the earth from the earthen vessel of each subsequent generation of his children. When the fully integrated tribe of Manasseh, who represented the house of Joseph as his first-born, was called forth to go into the Promised Land and spy out the bounty, “My fortune” (Gaddi), son of “My horse” (Susi), was chosen for this auspicious assignment. The confidence of this man was in the ‘good fortune’ which had come to his family, as they traveled through the wilderness, and his strength was in the labouring animals. There is no indication of anything personal concerning the mindset or conduct this man or his father but when the spies returned from their explorations his report was the same as the others.

He saw the great bounty of the land as they came to Eshcol where the ‘clusters’ of grapes were so massive that “they bare it between two upon a staff and of the pomegranates and of the figs” (Num. 13:23). He testified to the word of God who proclaimed this a land of abundance and confirmed His word with tangible proof; “surely it flows with milk and honey and this is the fruit thereof” (Num 13:27). Yet the eyes of man also saw a great people which dwelt in walled cities and were the children of Anak. These people were ‘associated’ (Hebron) together as a family. They ‘accumulated’ their substance through farming (Talmai – furrowed) and shared the bounty as ‘the gift of my brother’ (Ahiman). They were also “a great people and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom you know and you have heard, who can stand before the children of Anak?” (Deut. 9:2). And so it was that the heart and mind of the chief of the people of Manasseh was in agreement with the evil report of the land which was announced before Israel saying; “The land, through which we have gone and searched is a land that is eat up with the inhabitants thereof and all the people we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw giants, the sons of Anak of the giants; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers and so we were in their sight” (Deut 13:32).

“There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man...” (I Cor. 10:13).

There is no special dispensation for one who is born of woman though their father be Ham, Shem or Japheth. The horse and the rider, which are the confidence of man, are cast into the sea at the commandment of Almighty God (Ex. 15:1) and no amount of self-confidence in any child of Adam can change the predestined course that God has set. He changes the hearts of the evil King and turns it as the rivers of waters. He puts it in the hearts of the inhabitants of this world to fulfill His will and give the kingdoms of the earth unto the evil beast. He commanded Moses to set apart those whom he had already ordained and prepared as the chief men of the tribes to go into the land and bring back the evil report. He afore prepared the ears, minds and hearts of the people to believe the evil report and once again demonstrate their rebellion against God, which is the inherent nature of Adam.

Manasseh was a well educated man when he lived in the courts of Pharaoh but that educational advantage was abated when he was cast into the slavery of his grandfather’s people. He had done nothing to deserve this oppression as he was made partaker of these trials and tribulations. Yet was he made subject in hope of the day of deliverance and at the end of four hundred years, when Yehovah God ripped His people out of Egypt as with the talons of an Eagle, there was no reform in the nature of man for he was still guilty before God as a stiff-necked and rebellious people. Only the ‘dog’ and the ‘salvation of Yehovah’ (Caleb and Joshua) returned with the profession of faith in their God but their testimony could not sway the hearts of the people for they were not given to believe.

The neo-evangelical ideologies of Adam purport that the preaching of a man of his experiences and what he knows of the scriptures is necessary for the advancement of the church and the salvation of sinners. The nation of the chosen people of God had heard the voice of God at Mount Sinai. They had seen His mighty hand and His salvation over the Egyptians as they walked across the dry river bed of the sea. They daily ate angels’ food from heaven (Ps. 78:25) and drank the water from the rock, and that Rock was anointed. They saw the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night as they camped in the wilderness and moved at His command. The had the stench of death always in their midst as the smoke from the sacrifices rose up daily with the morning and evening oblations, the sacrifices of the feast days and the daily offerings for sin and now the hands of their own delegates have brought forth such bounty that a man could not carry by himself. Surely this would be enough to bring about the salvation of the people and the furtherance of the gospel but many souls fell in the wilderness because; "for unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them; but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard” (Heb. 4:2).

When the neophytes and their revisionist attitude can top the hand of Almighty God who does all things for the glory of His great name then will it be manifested, again, that he that does not believe is condemned already, therefore he does not believe (John 3:18). When the charlatans and rogues of the religious society of this world can persuade one unto belief, wherein faith is generated apart from the presence of the Holy Spirit, then they will have ascended to the throne of God and indeed be greater than He. Manasseh represents the remnant of the world unto whom the same Spirit is imparted as a child of grace. He also represents the inhabitants of the world who are still dead in trespasses and sin before God and nothing can change that nature; “for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness” (I Cor. 1:18). Therefore they are given to believe what they see which is temporal and they fear that which they do not understand.

The gospel of the Anointed Salvation of Yehovah is the good news that He has finished the work which He was given to do. He stood as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, was manifested in the last days and is manifested in His beloved today. He made Himself of no reputation and humbled Himself to become obedient to death, even the death of the cross. He entered into that sanctuary, not made with hands, and poured out His precious blood on that altar which man has no right unto and cannot approach. He was raised again from the dead with power, according to the Spirit of Holiness in a manifold declaration that He is the Son of God. He presented Himself before the throne in declaration that all was finished as a change of raiment was given Him, a fair mitre was set upon His head and He was glorified with the same glory that he had in the Father before the world began. This is the good news and the only one, who can preach this properly, without the wisdom of words or the pollution of limitations of Adam, is the Messenger of God. He comes forth with the redeemed of God, having their Father’s name written in their foreheads and singing the new song of redemption, and He proclaims the eternal good news unto them that “dwell on the earth and to every nation, and kindred and tongue and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give glory unto Him, for the hour of judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of waters” (Rev. 14;6).

How blasphemous is the doctrine of man that he should presume to impose upon the performance of the Messenger of God, or think himself to be the messenger of God, and strive to usurp the authority, power and majesty of the King and His Word. Man does not know the ways of God nor has he the mind of God. God has sent forth His Word and He has accomplished all the will of the Father (Is. 55:11). His name is the name above every name because He has delivered His people from their sin and there remains no more sacrifice for sin. The blood has been struck upon the crown of the altar and poured out before the Mercy seat. There is none kept in reserve for ‘whosoever will come and be saved’ for the Lamb was slain in measure. The blood was commensurate to the sin of His people for “by this therefore, shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when He makes all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not stand up” (Is. 27:9).

The imaginations of man delight in contemplating the rebuilding of the temple in Palestine. They speculate about the furniture that will be therein as an earthly kingdom is established for a short day (thousand years) reign by Messiah. Many even suppose that there should be a resumption of animal sacrifices to show a complete picture of the types and foreshadows as set forth in the pattern in the mount. Yet the Lamb stands as He has been slain from the foundation of the world. In the end of time at the end of the world and in those days and at that time, the manifestation of the heavenly fulfillment was openly declared. There is no need for an earthly temple for His body is the Temple of Yehovah. There is no need for any types or foreshadows for that which is prefect has come and there can be no desecration of that precious blood for it has all been shed. Therefore there is no need for an altar, a fire to roast the sacrifice or any visual testimony. The hope of glory is not of this world and no flesh shall ever glory in His sight. The natural man looks at the things which are seen which are temporal; the children of the Israel of our God look upon that which is eternal, Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith.

“These are the families of Manasseh and those that were numbered of them, fifty-two thousand and seven hundred” (Num. 26:34).

There are many would-be scholars who have speculated that the beginning of the Jewish religion was founded in the basic principles of Egyptian customs, traditions and beliefs. Some have alleged that the monotheistic tendencies of the scriptures came from Egyptian culture learned by Joseph and passed down through the generations. These are ‘ever learning’ but never coming to the knowledge of the truth. It is not given to man to know the ways of God which are not revealed through the historical renderings of civilizations and revised by conquering kingdoms. Those who search diligently for a natural explanation of the scriptures and a chronological succession of the events of time are ignorant to the fact that God revealed Himself to His people long before Joseph was ever delivered into Egypt. Emanuel, God with us, reveals His indwelling in His people at the time which He has appointed to be agreeable to His purpose. Even though the actual tablets of stone had not yet been handed down in the pattern given in the mount, God’s eternal Law stands true and His promise was well established before the hiatus of Jacob into Egypt; yea from before the foundation of the world. The promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob came from the mouth of God to His servants long before Joseph was sold into slavery. These were preceded by the promise of the preservation, protection and deliverance of God’s people in the examples of Noah and even to Adam and Eve in the garden.

God is immutable, therefore all his works, which are “honourable and glorious” (Ps. 111:3) are equally immutable. His Word is consistent with the fullness of His nature and comes to pass by the power of His will. He leads His people through their experience in this life “taking them by the arms, but they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with the cords of a man, with bands of love and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them” (Hos. 11:3f). The lessons learned and the assimilations of the customs and practices of the people of the land of Egypt did not develop into the basic principles of the doctrines and teachings of the ‘Hebrew way’ but they were all necessary, as decreed of Yehovah, in the development of the nation of Israel. They show forth the weakness of the mind of man, the stubbornness of his nature and the gullibility of his logic. God brought the house into the land as twelve sons of one man but He led them out as a mighty nation and He brought these things to pass in the most perfect way with all things included. Thee speculations of the educated pendants of the world are a result of the imaginations of man which God has given him to deceive him and leave him in the darkness of this world.

There are many practices evident in the conduct of the children of Israel that are very ‘Egyptian’ but not because of Jacob dwelling in the land or his children being an intricate part of this prosperous society. The ways of the sons of Shem, Ham and Japheth all proceeded from one father, Noah, and he came from Adam. Instinctive conduct is the result of the created elements in Adam, the father of the inhabitants of this world. No one born of Adam can conduct themselves contrary to their natural tendencies as they are drawn away after the lusts and desires of the flesh act according to that nature.

The children of Jacob came into the land and became well established in the politics, economy and government by the express will of God but nothing of this world can have any effect upon that nature which is born from above. The descendants of Manasseh carried with them those of the practices of the people of the land because God had deemed it essential that he and his brother be born of a foreign mother, in a foreign land and raised in a culture completely different from the rest of the house of Jacob. These natural elements of their make-up are seen in their actions and attitudes as a further demonstration of the number of man. Adam will always hold onto the characteristics and principles of his nature and no amount of teaching or indoctrination shall ever purge him of his ways. Though many have adopted self-disciplines which show a worshipping of the flesh even with the strictest of moral codes and proper ethics of social living, Adam will always be of the earth, earthly. Manasseh and his children manifest the nature of man and the experience of the children born from above.

“Jair, the son of Manasseh, took all the country of Argob unto the coasts of Geshuri and Maachathi and called them, after his own name, Bashan-ha-voth-jair, unto this day” (Deut. 3:14).

Moses spoke of the inheritance of the children of Israel and to the tribes of Reuben, Gad and half the tribe of Manasseh, he assigned an area to the east of the Jordan River. These were the lands of Sihon, king of the Amorites and Og the king of Bashan with all the land, cities and coasts and the cities round about them (Num. 32:33). Moses gave the land unto the sons of Reuben and Gad because they had much cattle (32:4) but he also assigned this land unto half the tribe of the children of Manasseh (they did not choose this land for themselves). Here in this exchange between Moses and the two tribes is yet another wonderful expression of the bountiful goodness of God to His people. When the nation of Israel was fully entrenched in the oppression of the task-masters, God raised up His deliverer, Moses. As He continued to harden the heart of Pharaoh and systematically demonstrate His majesty over the gods of Egypt, the people of the land were sorely oppressed by Yehovah. When Moses approached Pharaoh and stretched forth his hands toward heaven, “there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days. They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings” (Ex. 10:21). Pharaoh instructed Moses to go into the wilderness to worship Yehovah God but to leave the flocks and herds behind. Moses refused the conditions of Pharaoh as Yehovah hardened his heart once again.

Then the Messenger of death came and exacted the righteous judgment of Yehovah God upon the sins of man and the wickedness of the people by requiring the life of the first born of every house. Yehovah God gave the children of Israel “favour in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people” (Ex 11:3) “and they spoiled Egypt” (Ex 12:36). Thus by a famine in the land a nomadic people came to a strange land and became prosperous as the herdsman of Pharaoh. They then became builders and artisans and after four hundred years of slavery came forth a mighty nation, wealthy in possessions and abundant in cattle. Now after forty years of grazing in the wilderness Reuben and Gad come to Moses and say ‘we have much cattle and this land is suitable for raising them; now let us settle here on the east side of the Jordan River’ (Josh. 22:8).

These lands and the borders thereof were under the control of the king ‘warrior’ and the proud king ‘long-neck’, Sihon and Og. These ruled over the fruitful (Bashan) and enchanted land of the ‘Sayers’ (Amorites) for the time allotted unto them. But in the fullness of time, Yehovah commanded Moses to send the army of Israel against these formidable enemies, which dwelt at Heshbon. “So, they smote him and his sons and all his people until there was none left him alive: and they possessed the land” (Num. 21:35).

At the same time, at the end of the fortieth year, Moses assigned the northern part of this land unto half the tribe of Manasseh. They were ‘proud beholders’ who would ‘bridge’ (Geshuri) the Jordan (comes down from above) and unite east and west against the ‘pressures’ of ‘oppression’ (Maachathi). They would stand as the first line of defense from the marauding invaders from the east as they settled in a fruitful land of ‘soft soil’ (Bashan), suitable for farming, wherein there were ‘heaps of clods’ (Argob) from the plowing of the fields. Here they would be the first to see the dawning of the day as they anticipated living a ‘life of enlightenment’ with ‘he who enlightens’ (Havoth – Jair).

“And to Machir I gave upon Gilead”

God made provisions for the tribes of the east to be able to sell their wares and goods in the ‘rocky regions’ to the east which were ideal trade routes. Many valleys and gorges led from the plains of the east down to the towns by the Jordan River and then continued on into Egypt. This enabled the trafficking of commerce to not have to go to the north, around the Sea of Chinnereth (Galilee) or extremely south around the Salt Sea and so ‘to the ‘selling’ I gave upon the rocky regions’.

This merchandising created a connection between the children of Manasseh and the traders of the world. This brought the influences and news of the surrounding lands into the hearts, minds and ears of those whom God had commanded that they not have any alliances with. Instead of driving the indigenous people of the land out and utterly destroying them, the exchanging of goods led to business arrangements which culminated in affluence for Israel. Thus before there was a Jerusalem with the all the wonder and majesty of the palace and the temple, the nation had already became involved with the commerce of the world. They prospered and became influential as God had decreed and “by the multitude of the merchandise they have filled the midst of you with violence and you have sinned” (Ezek. 28:16). This is the nature of man “wherein no man might buy or sell, save he that has the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name” (Rev. 13:17).

This is not to condemn the buying and selling of goods or the business of our lives. These things have been made necessary as the path which God has ordained to be walked. The problem is not the money or the acquisition of wealth; it is the love of that which is deemed of value that is the root of all evil (I Tim. 6:10). The wealth and affluence of this world is what the children of the dust crave and unto which God has ordained some to obtain yet these are tangible and shall soon fade away for these are that which the moth will eat and the rust shall corrupt (Matt. 6:19). Men that trust in their wealth boast themselves in the multitude of their riches but none of them can redeem his brother or give God a ransom for him (Ps. 49:10). Solomon in all his glory and wisdom concluded that the accumulation of the material elements of the world, in which he “was great and increased more than all that were before him in Jerusalem” (Ecc. 2:9), was not only empty and without profit but that it was unto him a vexation upon his soul. Thus Jesus did not teach His disciples not to work and earn a living, as if to wait for the sheet from heaven bearing all manner of meat (Acts 10:11), but rather to take no thought as to what you shall eat or what you should wear; “for your Father in heaven knows what things you are in need of before you ask Him” (Matt. 6:8). If God had decreed that Manasseh have the rocky regions to buy and sell his good and yet had not also provided the goods to be sold and the buyers to purchase the goods, there would have been no testimony unto Machir upon Gilead. All parts are necessary to the whole that the purpose of God might be manifested.

Gilead, the ‘rocky region’, is however, much more than a place where merchandise is bought and sold. It was the place where Laban overtook Jacob as he finally left his father-in-laws services with his wives, his children and his livestock. Here Laban accused Jacob of thievery and deceit yet when he could not find the stolen objects, for Rachel was sitting on them and said “Let it not displease my lord that I cannot rise up before you for the custom of women is upon me”, he made a covenant with Jacob. This was to be a ‘witness’ between two adversaries who were untrustworthy thieves; “and Jacob took a stone and set up a pillar and Jacob said unto his brethren, Gather stones, and they took stones and made a heap and they did eat upon the heap. Laban called it Je-gar-sa-ha-du-tha (Aramaic – witness heap) but Jacob called it Gileed (Hebrew – witness heap)” (Gen. 31:44f). Thus this rocky region, which stood as a testimony to the deceitfulness and corrupt nature of father Jacob for over five hundred years, was now the inheritance of the family of his grandson. It would still remain a pillar or heap of a testimony to not only Manasseh but to the whole nation of Israel of the stain or mark of Adam upon them and the deliverance, protection and preservation of God. Yet as the testimony of the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day did not turn the stoney hearts of the people in the wilderness so this perpetual witness upon the earth shall not deliver Adam.

This inheritance that Moses gave unto Machir also represented the testimony of something particular which was sold and that which was procured along with a certain seller. It is evidence of a certain man who sold all he had and purchased the field for the treasure that was within. It declares that this certain man, who was a merchant, when he had found that which was lost, a pearl of great price, sold all that he had and bought it. And so the same ‘certain man’ is both Lord and Master over the treasure and the vessel it is housed in. His blood redeemed His people as He raised up seed in the generation of Jesus Christ. That same precious blood delivered His Beloved from the righteous wrath of God against the ungodliness of man and identifies them as a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and a peculiar people unto God; “unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His blood, and has made us kings and priest unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever” (Rev. 1:5f).

Manasseh in Gilead is the witness to the absolute nature of God’s love and mercy for His people. He established this heap of testimony in the same way that Joseph would name his son, that is, the acknowledgment of the witness establishes the action. Joseph called his son ‘forget’ because Yehovah had filled his life with many events, acquaintances and possession so that he forgot the toil of his father’s house. Yet each time he spoke the name of his son, he was reminded of why he named him in that manner. Thus the enigma of the name is the surety of the testimony. God established Manasseh upon Gilead as a reminder to the nation of Israel of all that had transpired in their lives through the four hundred years of captivity for now they were in the land of promise. He also confirmed this report as being the end of the forty years of wandering and the manifestation of the people of Israel as a nation.

But more particular, this is the testimony of the Anointed Salvation of Yehovah. The sacrifice for sin was complete in heaven as the Lamb stood as He had been slain from before the world was created. God had removed the inability of His people in the rebellion and apostasy of Adam as far as the east was to be from the west and it was not to be remembered any more (Ps. 103:12). This imputation of the inherent nature of Adam in which he falls short of the glory of God is essential that the blood of the Lamb may cleanse His people from all their ungodliness. The shed blood is the remission for the rebellion in Adam and the Lamb standing manifests that the work is complete. The shed blood is the washing of the Adamic garment and the sweeping of the tabernacle of this dwelling, purging it from all leaven. It is the way God has afore prepared the earthen vessels for the seed that should be planted in them.

“And one shall say unto Him, What are these wounds in your hands? Then shall He answer, those with which I was wounded in the house of My friends” (Zech. 13:6).

The risen Lamb is the testimony to the finished work which every child of grace possesses as a witness to their soul. Jesus, after He arose from the tomb, still bore the marks in His body of the identification of His death. This testified to all, unto whom He revealed Himself, that he was the same Messiah who hung on the tree three days prior, that he died and was buried (all other marks from the beatings, the crown of thorns and the brutality of the guards were no longer visible). They were the marks by which John identified Him as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world and the perpetual testimony before the throne of grace of the faithfulness of the Son of God, His elect servant. They gave evidence that He was now risen from the grave and were still visible when he ascended into the heavens when the Messenger of Yehovah said, “Men of Galilee, why stand you here gazing up into heaven. This same Jesus, which was taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go into heaven” (Acts. 1:11). This is the Gilead of Manasseh (the pillar heap of the testimony to forget).

Jesus told Thomas; “Reach here your finger and behold My hands; reach here your hand and thrust into My side and be not faithless but believing” (John 20:27). The marks of the risen body identified Him as the Redeemer of His people and as the Lamb who was “wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and by His stripes we are healed” (Is. 53:5). They also testify to the removal of the sin of Adam and God’s promise that He would never call them into account against His Beloved. The testimony of what God has forgotten (the sin of His people in Adam) is the reminder of why the Lamb was slain (for God had concluded all under sin). “And I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications: and they shall look upon Me who they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son and shall be in bitterness as one that is in bitterness for firstborn” (Zech. 12:10).

The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a treasure hidden in a field; the which when a man has found, he hides it and for the joy thereof he goes forth and sells all that he has and buys the field (Matt. 13:44). This treasure is hidden in the earthen vessels afore prepared unto glory for which the Son of man bled and died. He made Himself of no reputation and laying aside the glory He has in the Godhead, He gave His life (all He had) and bought the field. He did not need to buy the treasure, which is the eternal incorruptible seed, for it is hewn from that Rock which casts a great shadow in the weary land. He bought the field wherein the treasure was hid and paid the price for the corruption and defilement of that field.

The kingdom of heaven is also likened unto a merchant man seeking goodly pearls, who, when He found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it (Matt. 13:45). This merchant man came to buy a specific item. He was not a collector of items, comparing them one unto another and then discarding those of inferior quality. He came seeking goodly pearls but He could not find any (“for there is none righteous, no not one” – Rom. 3:10). He found that one pearl of great price, which is His Beloved, who was sold under sin and in bondage. He redeemed Her unto Himself for the nearer kinsman could not redeem for himself; “lest I mar mine own inheritance” (Ruth 4:6). The Anointed Salvation of Yehovah has drawn off His shoe, which reveals the beautiful feet upon the mountain of “Him that brings the good tidings that publishes peace; that brings good tidings of good that says unto Zion, YOUR GOD REIGNS!” (Is. 52:7 – emph. added). He has cast His shoe over Edom for He is Lord and Master over all flesh (Ps. 60:8). He has declared “unto the elders and all the people, You are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech’s (My God is King) and all that was Chilion’s (destruction, consumption and annihilation) and Mahlon’s (sickness, weakness, wounded, disease and sorrow) of the hand of Naomi (My delight). Moreover, Ruth (friend, companion, mate, one of the pasture) the Moabitess (of the father) have I purchased to be My wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren and from the gate of his place: you are witnesses this day” (Ruth 4:9f). The redemption of Ruth was for the seed of Israel not the natural heritage in Moab or Adam; so Messiah’s Kinsman Redemption of His people in Adam was for the eternal seed within not the preservation of the flesh.

“Gilead is mine, Manasseh is mine” (Ps. 108:8)

The performance of the work of God in and for His people is His testimony alone. It is not the word or work of another for there was none other. He looked and He saw that there was none of the race of Adam who sought after righteousness. He saw there was none qualified to intercede and that there was none of the seed of Adam who was capable of the work that needed to be accomplished. He saw the testimony of these things in and of Himself in the purpose of His will therefore the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. He purposed this condition of inability and ignorance in man before Adam was even created because He had concluded all under sin. Man was never given a chance to be obedient unto God or to understand and hopefully keep His law. Therefore Yehovah told Adam, “for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17) and in the fullness of time His Word was confirmed.

The Law of God is eternal in Him. It is as pure and righteous, without spot or blemish, as the Lawgiver, wherein there is no shadow of turning. God did not look into some mystical crystal ball to see what man might do in the exercise of his alleged ‘free will’ and then make His Law accordingly. God is not a respecter of persons nor does He react to the conduct of His creation. He purposed that man should be of the earth and therefore carnal, and that he should be drawn away after the needs and desires of the flesh. He ordained that man should walk after the nature which He put in Adam and his seed and that his point of reference should always be that which he can see, hear, smell, taste and feel. The logic of the flesh is flawed because of his limited reasoning and his inherent inability to know the ways of God. Therefore man looks to those things which are natural to try to find the answers to life and the universe. He attempts to know the work which God has done from the beginning but he cannot “because that, when they knew God they did not glorify Him as God, neither were they thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened” (Rom. 1:21).

God has made everything beautiful in His time and has put the things of this world into the mind of man. Adam was not seeking to deliver himself or his wife from their guilt before God; he was looking for a natural explanation and tangible remedy. This is the beginning of the number of man and the fullness of his being, therefore his testimony is of the earth, earthly. The gospel is the testimony of Jesus Christ which is the power of Yehovah God unto deliverance. This is the work of God, through faith, and His children are His workmanship, created in the Anointed Salvation of Yehovah unto good works. The possibility never existed that there could come out of Adam a deliverer for there could never have been one born unto the race of dust who was not conceived in inability and shapened in guilt (Ps. 51:5).

The promise of God in the new covenant is that He would remove the heart of stone, which is the stubborn abstinence of Adam, and give an heart of flesh. He would sprinkle clean water upon His people and they should be cleansed from ALL their filthiness and from their idols for He will clean them. He promised to perform this in and for His Beloved because their sin in Adam had already been imputed unto the scapegoat and ‘driven into the wilderness’ (Lev. 16:21). Here the goat was released and, in this uninhabited land, there was no one to retrieve it and attempt to reform it in order to return it back into the camp; so it is with the inability of man to measure up to the standard of the Holiness of God. It is never brought into account again by the Father because His Law has been fulfilled in all righteousness and all debts are forgiven in the Acceptable Year of the Lord. This was manifested in the fullness of time when Messiah came and glorified the Father in finishing His work and it is revealed to each child of grace, every man in his order, in a time when it pleases the Father.

The doctrine of religion is to go into that uninhabited land, find the scapegoat and convert it into a sheep, then, once the work of conversion is complete, it will return unto the fold of it’s now liberated free will. The labourers rejoice in the ‘finding of that which was lost’ as they ‘rescue the perishing and care for the dying’ while the newly reformed goat may be refitted and made ready for the mission fields; “Woe unto you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! For you compass sea and land to make one proselyte and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves” (Matt. 23:15). Thanks be unto our God that He has fulfilled the Law completely in all righteousness. He is the living scapegoat and the sacrifice for sin. He has satisfied His Law in perfect obedience delivering all that were in Him as the eternal seed from the bondage of corruption and the vanity of this world. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and blessing” (Rev. 5:12).

“Then shall you remember you own evil ways and your doings that are not good, and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations” (Ezek. 36:31).

Manasseh is indeed a paradox. His father named him because God caused him to forget the toil of his father Jacob’s house by replacing it with the labours of Egypt and the acclaim that accompanied them, but, his presence and his name reminded Joseph of the very thing. The all inclusive being of God demands that there can be nothing hid from Him, for He has created all things and for His pleasure they are and were created (Rev. 4:11). The immutability of His nature and the perfection of His Holiness require that He cannot forget anything. Everything, that comes to pass in time, has been purposed in eternity and predestined to come to pass at the appointed hour, for good to them that love Him; to the called, which is the Beloved of Yehovah, according to His purpose. She is seated with Him in the heavenlies, adorned in fine linen pure and white, which is the imputed righteousness of the saints, because of what He has done for her before time began. She was protected from the evil in Adam and remained without spot or blemish because He fashioned an earthen vessel which He had afore prepared unto glory by the shedding of His blood. He struck the ‘doorposts’ of that dwelling with the blood that the wrath of God might ‘passover’ and come not upon the saints within. He cleansed the inside of these chosen vessels from all leaven that the incorruptible seed be not polluted by coming in contact with a dead body and the nail prints in His hands and the spear hole in His side testify to this truth. The wounds that He received in the house of His friend are the eternal witness to that which He has forgotten; the sin of His people.

The children of hope receive the testimony of the Jubilee of Yehovah through the testimony of the Spirit which bears witness with their Spirit that they are the sons of God. Their eyes are opened and as they grow in the grace and knowledge of His will, they understand the bondage of corruption of the body of this death. The Spirit reveals unto them their inability in Adam as they begin to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin and their guilt before God. Though they have the name of their Father in their foreheads and are sealed with His blood yet they know the evil within their flesh as that they are daily shown that they are carnal sold under sin. They see the wickedness of the ways of this world and the emptiness of all the labours therein and as the hope and confidence that they have in Adam is purged away by the Refiner’s fire and Fuller’s soap they know that they are strangers in the land. This causes the expectation of their return to Zion to grow stronger and stronger as the outward man perishes and the inner man is renewed daily. This is the manifest token of the life within, not only that they would believe but that they would be counted worthy to suffer for the Kingdom of Heaven.

As Manasseh grew older and matured in his life in Egypt he saw nothing amiss with his ways or the ways of the people yet in the fullness of time God revealed his heritage in Israel. Jacob confirmed this testimony in the blessing he gave to Manasseh and soon after he was removed from the common people of the land and identified with the sons of Jacob. Then did the conflict begin as he entered into many years of oppression, hard labours and the groaning for deliverance. God caused Manasseh to forget the luxuries of this world through the cruelties of Edom which gave him hope for the Land of Promise. Even after the deliverance and the manifestations of the glory of God, he and his children after him, continued to demonstrate the carnal nature in their actions, weakness and inabilities. Yet these also represent the children of hope who walk the appointed path and run the race with patience.

The tribe of Manasseh is settled on both sides of the Jordan River. Half of the tribe settled their families before the nation crossed into the land flowing with milk and honey to show that God’s work was finished before the inheritance was realized, yet were they settled within the confines of the Land of Promise (Gen. 15:18). Neither they nor the other tribes of Israel could drive out the indigenous people of the land. The Canaanites, which dwelt among them, were, in accordance with the promise of God, put to tribute to serve the house of Israel. This is yet another demonstration of the reality of the elder Adam and the spiritual man within. The first Adam is indigenous to the land for he was formed from the dust of the ground. Howbeit, that which is first is not spiritual but natural (I Cor. 15:46), but God has decreed that the elder shall serve the younger. The inner man is created in Christ Jesus and assigned this habitation being subjected to the vanity of this world in hope. Thus he runs the race with patience looking unto the Anointed Salvation of Yehovah, the author and finisher of our faith.

The inheritance of God is unto the eternal seed which are the sons of God and, as joint heirs with Christ, that inheritance is God. The seed is eternal in Him, His Word is established and sure and the foundation of God, which is the Anointed Salvation of Yehovah, stands sure, “having this seal, The Lord knows them that are His” (II Tim. 2:19).. Therefore the anchor to the soul of the prisoners of hope is that He is Faithful, He will never call into account the sins in Adam against His people and that His name is Jesus, for He has saved His people from their sin.

Your servant in Christ,
(Elder) Chet Dirkes

Banner of Hope
Volume 9, No. 2
August 2015