(388) – THE KINGDOM OF JEHOVAH

When Jehovah made a concert with the house of Jacob on Mount Sinai and gave the law he planted his kingdom on this world. On that day the kingdom of Israel was born. Three days before giving the law, Jehovah said: “And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6,15-16). On that day the children of Jehovah were also born: “You are the children of the Lord your God: you are not to make cuts on your bodies or take off the hair on your brows in honour of the dead; For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has taken you to be his special people out of all the nations on the face of the earth” (Deut. 14:1,2). On that day the holy ones of Jehovah were born, to whom he commanded Moses to say: “You shall be holy; for I Jehovah your God am holy” (Lev. 19:2; 20:7,26). On that day the priesthood of Aaron was born (Lev. 8:1,2,10-13).

When Jehovah gave the aw, he gave it in a loud voice, and Moses said from the middle of the darkness: “You came near and stood under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire to the heart of the sky, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. Jehovah spoke to you out of the midst of the fire: you heard the voice of words, but you saw no form; only [you heard] a voice. He declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even the ten commandments; and he wrote them on two tables of stone” (Deut. 4:11-13). “It happened, when you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, that you came near to me, even all the heads of your tribes, and your elders; and you said, ‘Behold, Jehovah our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire: we have seen this day that God does speak with man, and he lives’” (Deut. 5:23-24). We may wonder: Does the glory of Jehovah include the darkness?

It is also possible to conclude that the darkness includes Jehovah. This is why the people of Israel, which is the people of Jehovah, lived in darkness. Isaiah said: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who lived in the land of the shadow of death, on them the light has shined” (Is. 9:2). And this light shone when Jesus came to the world (Matt. 4:16-17).

But Solomon reveals that the law of Jehovah is light: “For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light. Reproofs of instruction are the way of life” (Prov. 6:23). If the law is a light, how to explain that the people that kept the law walked in darkness? The only explanation is that the law was a black light, for it did not illuminate. Let us see:

The law was a black light because it brings the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20).

The law was a black light because it produces slaves, not free men (Gal. 4:21-25).

The law was a black light because it stimulates sinful passions that kill (Rom. 7:5).

The law was a black light because it was and still is useless, and cannot make anything perfect (Luke 18:9-14).

The law was a black light because it separates from Jesus, the true light (John 8:12; 1:9; Gal. 5:1-4).

The kingdom of Satan is the kingdom of darkness, and it is in this world; but Jesus delivers from darkness and the power of Satan, and grants the remission of sins (Acts 26:18). And Jehovah gave a law that brings the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20). And the law of Jehovah is the power of sin (1 Cor. 15:56). AND HE WHO COMMITS SINS IS OF THE DEVIL (1 John 3:8). If whoever commits sin is of the devil, and Jehovah gave a law that is the strength of sin, Jehovah is edifying not his kingdom, but the kingdom of Satan. On the other hand, death is the prize of sin. Paul is the one who says it (Rom. 6:23). If the wages of sin is death, and the empire of death belongs to the devil, Jehovah works for the devil. And Jesus Christ works against the devil and also against Jehovah, for it is written: “Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in the same way partook of the same, that through death he might bring to nothing him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14).

Another aspect to be considered is that sin is ascribed only when the law exists, for Paul says: “For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not charged when there is no law” (Rom. 5:13). Now, if the wages of sin is death, and the law was given on Mount Sinai, eternal death was decreed for all men, that is to say, eternal condemnation, for from Adam to Moses 2,400 years went by, and all died, physically. Therefore, death as a consequence of sin is a spiritual death, not a physical death, and the spiritual death is an eternal death, in other words, eternal separation from God. The conclusion we come to is that, when Jehovah gave the law, he established two kingdoms at Sinai: his kingdom and the kingdom of Satan, which is Satan’s empire of death, which is in the letter to the Hebrews 2:14.

As Jehovah declares that everyone sins, and that there is not one that does not sin (1 Kings 8:46; Eccl. 7:20), the kingdom of Jehovah was the kingdom of those who were going to die for eternity. The empire of Satan is the kingdom of those who were already dead and condemned.

This is why the kingdom of Jehovah was a kingdom of dead, as Paul says: “For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; so much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:17). Jesus affirms himself this truth when a disciple, wishing to follow him, said: “Another of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, allow me first to go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead’” (Matt. 8:21,22).

Finally: As all have sinned and all will be condemned, the kingdom of Jehovah, here on the earth, was only a door of entrance into the eternal empire of Satan. This is why the story of the serpent that feeds on dust, in other words, on the dead, will repeat itself in Jehovah’s New Heaven and New Earth (Gen. 3:14,19). This is the reason why we read in the letter to the Hebrews: “How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation–which at the first having been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard” (Heb. 2:3).

If Jesus was willing to come down from his glory to this abyss and grave of the dead, for Paul says: “Who will descend into the abyss? (THAT IS, TO BRING CHRIST UP FROM THE DEAD)” (Rom. 10:7), Jesus came down to this sepulcher of condemned men, bore all the offenses, persecutions, disgraces, slanders, temptations, cruel agony, and finally, death on the cross, in order to save those who Jehovah condemned. Take advantage of the open door, dear reader, while it is still there.

By Olavo Silveira Pereira

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