Tuesday, December 28, 2021
HEAVEN'S CROWN LAND
Genesis chapter 1
Today we are walking in: Heaven's Crown Land
Today we look to the word- KING- H4427- Malak- to reign; inceptively, to ascend the throne; causatively, to induct into royalty; hence (by implication) to take counsel:—consult, indeed, be (make, set a, set up) king, be (make) queen, (begin to, make to) reigning, rule, surely.
The Torah Testifies……………………
Genesis 14:18
And Melchizedek king H4427 of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.
The Prophets Proclaim……………………
Isaiah 44:6
Thus saith the LORD the King H4427 of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.
The Writings Bear Witness…………………..
Psalm 10:16
The LORD is King H4427 for ever and ever: the heathen are perished out of his land.
Heaven’s Crown Land
Yah created the earth as a place over which to extend His influence, but He intended to do it through mankind, not Himself. He designed man to be a fit colonizer of the physical world He wanted to colonize. That is why we humans are so well suited physically for life in this world. The Bible says that Yah created man “from the dust of the ground” (see Gen. 2:7). Scientific evidence confirms this. Our bodies are made of the same stuff as the earth. Before Yah created us, He fashioned a physical world that would be a perfect environment for us to fulfill our purpose and destiny. Then He formed our physical bodies from the same material. Man is a triune being just like his Creator. We reflect His image even in our composition. Man is a spirit being after the nature and essence of his source, Father Yah; he lives in a body, which is his earth suit that allows him to relate to the physical environment; and he possesses a soul, which is his intellect, will, and emotional faculties. We are suited for the earth as perfectly as Yah is suited for Heaven.
As we discussed earlier, the foundation and qualification for kingship is rightful ownership of land. In a kingdom, the land is the personal property of the king, and it is this ownership right that designates him as lord. In a kingdom, when referring to the physical land, the territory is called “crown land.” This implies the land is property of “the crown,” referring to the king himself. By creative right, the earth is heaven’s “crown land.” In a kingdom, all the land within the kingdom belongs to the king. Every square foot of territory is his personal property—his “king-domain.” In a true kingdom, therefore, there is no such thing as private property owned by the citizens; the king owns all.
The Bahamas was once part of the United Kingdom of the British Empire. When the British seized the Bahamas from the Spanish, all 700-plus islands immediately became the personal property of the king of England. They did not become the property of the British government; there’s a difference. These islands became the personal property of the British sovereign. All who grew up under that arrangement understood that all the land was known as crown land, meaning it belonged to the one who wore the crown. As a matter of fact, during those years, it was not uncommon for the king or queen of England to give an island as a birthday present to a son or daughter or niece or nephew. Since the islands were crown land, the monarchs, on their own prerogative, could give them away at any time to anyone they wished as personal gifts. As a matter of fact, this land could be given to any citizen as a personal gift of the government at the authority of the king, and many people in our colony received large parcels of land for personal use.
The same is true in Yah’s Kingdom. Yah owns the earth and everything on it; the earth is His crown land. As an ancient poet wrote:
The earth is the Most High’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for He founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters (Psalm 24:1-2).
Because Yah owns the earth, He can do with it however He pleases. And it pleased Him to give it to man. Again, in the words of the ancient poet:
The highest heavens belong to the Most High, but the earth He has given to man (Psalm 115:16).
Don’t make the mistake of equating this with ownership. Crown land given to someone by the king remains crown land. At any time the king can take it back and give it to someone else. That is the king’s prerogative. So when Yah “gave” the earth to man, He did not relinquish ownership. We possess the earth as a trust, as stewards, as “kings” under the High King of Heaven. The King gave us dominion over the earth, not as owners but as vassal-kings to extend His heavenly government to the earthly realm. He gave us rulership, not ownership. We have the privilege to rule the earth, and with that privilege also comes the responsibility of wise and righteous management. And we are accountable to the King for how we manage our domain.
It is also on this prerogative of Kingship and Lordship that Yah could, without the permission of its current inhabitants, promise Abraham the land of Canaan as a birthright.
Today we see this understanding of crown land applied in the nation of Israel. The ancient Hebrew law handed down through Moses stipulated that no property sales in Israel were permanent because the land belonged to Yah:
The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is Mine and you are but aliens and My tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land (Leviticus 25:23-24).
Israelites were free to occupy their own plot of land, develop it, cultivate it, live off of it, and even pass it on to their heirs. They were not to sell it, however, especially to non- Israelites. If financial circumstances necessitated selling the property to a fellow Israelite, the law made provision for the land to be returned. Every 50 years Israel celebrated a Year of Jubilee, during which time any land that had changed hands since the previous jubilee year automatically reverted to the original possessor.
In Israel today, a similar principle is in effect. When young couples in Israel marry, the Israeli government provides or assists them with their first house. Why? Because there is no private ownership of property in Israel. Officially, the land belongs to Yah. The principle here is that in a kingdom, living on and using the land is a privilege, not a right.
This practice reflects a kingdom consciousness that we all need to cultivate. It is critical for our understanding of the Kingdom and how it works that we recognize that the whole earth is Heaven’s crown land and that we are merely “aliens” and stewards of Yah’s property.
Yah’s Colonial Intent
Yah never does anything to no purpose. From the very beginning, Yah’s intent for the earth was that it be colonized. Isaiah, an ancient scribe and spokesman for the King, wrote:
...He who created the heavens, He is Yah; He who fashioned and made the earth, He founded it; He did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited... (Isaiah 45:18).
Our presence on earth was a colonial decision by our King. He created this planet as new territory, fashioned us out of the same material, planted us here, and issued the colonial charter giving us dominion. We own nothing but have access to everything, as long as we operate within the parameters of the governing principles the King has established for His Kingdom. This is what it means to be a colony of Heaven.
The concept of colonization is the most important component of a kingdom that we must understand or else it will be impossible to fully grasp the essence of the message of the Bible, the prophets, and the focus and priority of Yahusha Hamachiach. It is the misunderstanding or ignorance of this kingdom concept of colonization that has produced all human religions and sects. Christianity as a religion is itself a product of this misunderstanding. The primary purpose, motive, plan, and program of Yah the Creator was to colonize earth with Heaven.
Understanding the concept of colonization is key because once we understand what Yah intended, we will understand what Yah is doing. He put people on this planet for the purpose of expanding His influence and authority from the supernatural realm to the natural realm. A colony, by definition, is populated by people who originally came from another place. It is an outpost inhabited by citizens of a faraway country whose allegiance remains with their home government. Stated another way, a colony is “a group of emigrants or their descendants who settle in a distant land but remain subject to the parent country.”
Colonization involves citizens of one country inhabiting foreign territory for the purpose of influencing that domain with the culture and values of their native country and governing it with the laws of their home government. For example, the message of Yahusha as stated in His mission statement recorded in Matthew 4:17, “...the kingdom of heaven has arrived” (author’s paraphrase), would indicate that the first colony of Heaven had returned to earth through Him. As citizens of heaven, we inhabit the earth for the purpose of influencing it with the culture and values of Heaven and bringing it under the government of the King of Heaven.
Paul of Tarsus, a first-century ambassador and colonizer for the King of heaven, described the King’s colonial intent this way:
...to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in Yah, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of Yah should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to His eternal purpose which He accomplished in Hamachiach Yahusha our Most High (Ephesians 3:9-11).
Yah’s intent was to plant a colony of His citizens on the earth to make His “manifold wisdom”—His heart, mind, will, and desires—known to “the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.” In other words, to the spirit world. His purpose in colonizing earth was to show the spiritual powers of darkness how beings created in His own image could be planted on the earth and bring in the government and culture of Heaven so that in the end, the earth would look just like Heaven.
In summary:
1. A colony is a group of citizens established in a foreign territory to influence that domain for their home government.
2. A colony is a foreign territory inhabited by citizens charged to influence that domain with the culture and values of their government.
3. A colony is the presence of a distinct cultural citizenry in a foreign territory governed by the laws and culture of their home government.
Such is the concept of kingdom colonization.
Understanding Kingdom Concepts
Studying the concept of kingdoms is important for a couple of reasons. First, because most of us today, particularly in the west, have never lived in a kingdom, the concept is completely foreign to us. We simply do not know what it is like to live under a king. This might not be a problem were it not for the second reason for studying the Kingdom:Yah’s government, the government of Heaven, is a kingdom, and Yah is the King. And because His Kingdom extends through all creation, encompassing both the supernatural and the natural realms, it covers us also, which is why we need to understand it. A third and critical reason to study and restore this concept of kingdom is because the Bible is not about a religion or an organization but a King and His Kingdom. Therefore, in order to correctly understand, interpret, and apply the Scriptures, knowledge of kingdoms is necessary.
The kingdom is the oldest of all forms of government and the only one that is of divine origin. Yah “invented” the kingdom concept and established it first in Heaven. Simply stated, a kingdom is simply a domain over which a king has rulership. Heaven was the first domain that Yah created. Although invisible, it is a very real place, even more real than what we call reality. The natural came from the supernatural; therefore, the supernatural is always more real than the natural. Heaven is more real than earth, even though we cannot see it with our physical eyes. In the beginning, Yah established a kingdom as the governmental system for ruling the supernatural realm of Heaven.
Once His Kingdom was established in Heaven, Yah desired to extend it to another realm. With this end in mind (the big picture) He created a visible, physical universe with billions of stars, including the one we callSol, the sun around which revolves this planet we call Earth. The King chose this planet specifically as the location of His Kingdom colony in the natural realm. He created it for that purpose. Then He placed on it human beings created in His image to run the colony for Him. In this way, Yah also established the first earthly kingdom, which was merely an extension of His Kingdom in Heaven.
Through rebellion against the King, however, man lost his rulership. We have been trying to get it back ever since. Even though we lost our earthly kingdom, we still retain the original kingdom idea that the King implanted in our spirit. We are searching for the Kingdom all the time, but without Yah we can never find it because it is from Him.
In our Kingdom search through the ages, man has developed and experimented with many different systems of government, as we saw earlier in this teaching. Every one of them, including those we call kingdoms, are defective because mankind is defective. But they all are driven by our desire to regain and restore the original Kingdom. This is not a “utopian” fantasy. In the beginning, Yah established utopia in heaven—and then extended it to earth. Our utopian dreams are simply expressions of our yearning to regain the Kingdom we once had but lost.
According to the “colonial charter” stated in Genesis 1:26 that we looked at earlier, man originally was given an earthly kingdom to rule over, which was perfect. Adam and Eve were overlords of the physical domain, corulers who themselves were ruled only by Yah, their Creator-King. They were His people, and He was their Yah; there was no intermediary rulership.
Human kingdoms, which at best were but dim and flawed reflections of Yah’s Kingdom, had citizens who were also subjects of the king, meaning that they were “subject” to the king’s personal ambitions, goals, whims, and desires. Yah’s Kingdom is different. In the Kingdom of Yah there are no subjects, only citizens—but every citizen is a king (or queen) in his or her own right. This is why the Bible refers to Yah as the “King of kings.” He is the High King of Heaven who rules over the human kings He created in turn to rule over the earthly domain.
The Kingdom Is Here
Adam and Eve’s rebellion cost them their kingdom. Chapter 3 of Genesis relates the sad story of how the human pair fell victim to the lies and deceptions of the serpent, which embodied the prince of darkness, that fallen angel known as Hasatan or lucifer. With Adam and Eve’s abdication, lucifer seized control of their earthly domain as a brazen, arrogant, and illegal pretender to the throne.
Immediately the King of Heaven put in motion His plan to restore what man had lost. And what did man lose? A kingdom. Adam and Eve did not lose a religion because they had never had a religion; they had a kingdom. So when Yah set out to restore what they had lost, He set out to restore a kingdom, not a religion. Religion is an invention of man, born of his efforts to find Yah and restore the kingdom on his own. But only Yah can restore the kingdom man lost.
After the disaster in Eden, the King confronted His rebellious corulers and their deceiver and addressed each one in turn. Of greatest interest to us in this context is what the King said to the serpent, because it has kingdom implications:
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel (Genesis 3:15).
Referring to the woman’s “offspring” by the singular pronoun “He,” indicates that the King was speaking of one specific offspring—one who would strike a fatal blow against lucifer and his schemes by “crushing” his head. As the rest of Scripture makes abundantly clear, this one specific offspring appeared thousands of years later as the man Yahusha Hamachiach of Nazareth, who was the Son of Yah embodied in human flesh.
When Yahusha appeared on the scene in real, space-time history, He brought a message not of a religion, new or old, but of the Kingdom:
From that time on Yahusha began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matthew 4:17).
These are the first recorded words of Yahusha. The phrase “that time” refers to the arrest of John the Baptist, a prophet whose mission was to announce the arrival of the King. Now the King Himself was on the scene, and He was announcing the arrival of the Kingdom. This was the only message Yahusha preached. Search all four of the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you will find that Yahusha always talked about the Kingdom. Everything He said and did related to the Kingdom and its arrival on earth.
Yahusha said, “Repent” (which means to change your mind or adopt a new way of thinking), “for the kingdom of heaven is near” (which means, in effect, that it has arrived). In other words, Yahusha was saying, “Change your way of thinking! The Kingdom of Heaven is here! I brought it with me!” When Yahusha brought the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, He brought also the promise of restoring to mankind the dominion over the earth that Adam and Eve had lost in Eden. He brought back our rulership.
Before we could be fully restored to our Kingdom, however, the matter of our rebellion against Yah had to be dealt with. This rebellion is what the Bible calls sin, and it is universal in human nature, a legacy of Adam and Eve’s treason in Eden so long ago. Yahusha’ death on the crucifixion stake paid the price for our rebellion so that we could be restored to a right standing with Yah, our King, and be reinstalled in our original and rightful place as rulers of the earthly domain. The “gospel” message— the “good news”—is more than the crucifixion stake. The crucifixion stake is the doorway that gets us back into the Kingdom. The crucifixion stake of Hamachiach, therefore, is all about Kingdom restoration. It is about restoration of power and authority. It is about regaining rulership, not religion.
Sons, Not Servants
Why did Yah wait thousands of years from the promise in Eden of Kingdom restoration to its realization with the coming of Yahusha? He had to allow the course of human history to flow until the timing was right. In order for us to understand what we lost when we lost the Kingdom, much less understand kingdom principles, Yah needed the right prototype as an example. Across the millennia, many human civilizations and kingdoms rose and fell until finally a kingdom appeared that had everything Yah needed to show how His Kingdom was supposed to work. When the Roman Empire came to power, it had a concept of citizenship. It had a concept of lordship (ownership). It had a king and a domain. It practiced colonization. Rome had such an influence that wherever it advanced, that part of the world became like Rome. When Yah saw Rome, He said, “That’s exactly what I want.”
When the time was right, the King of Heaven sent His Son to restore His Kingdom on earth. Paul of Tarsus stated it this way:
But when the time had fully come, Yah sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons (Galatians 4:4-5).
The fullness of time has nothing to do with clocks but everything to do with seasons. When the season of history was right, when the Roman Empire had risen to serve as a living example, when everything was in place according to divine purpose, Yah sent His Son into the physical world with the message that the Kingdom of Heaven had arrived. What was His purpose in restoring the Kingdom? Not to give us a religion but to restore to us our “full rights” as sons and daughters of the King.
The King of Heaven wants sons and daughters, not servants. Religion produces servants. It revels in the spirit of servitude. Please don’t misunderstand me. A servant heart is, as Yahusha said, the key to greatness in the Kingdom of Yah (see Matt. 20:26-27). And He said that He Himself came to serve rather than to be served (see Matt. 20:28). But this kind of service should always proceed from the place of security in our knowledge that we are sons and daughters of the King and simply are following His example. Servanthood in the religious spirit, on the other hand, proceeds from a sense of false humility and self-deprecation where one sees oneself not as a son or daughter, but as a slave. Sons and daughters of the King see service as a privilege; religious people see it as an obligation. And therein lies the difference. Sons and daughters serve willingly because they are sons and daughters. Religious people serve grudgingly because they feel they have no choice if they hope to win the approval of the King. Never confuse serving with being a servant.
Yahusha came that we might “receive the full rights of sons.” This is legal language. There is not a bit of religion in these words. They refer to legal rights and entitlements based on relationship of birth. We are sons and daughters of Yah. Sonship is our right by creation. Hamachiach did not die to improve us; He died to regain and confirm us. The price He paid in His own blood was not to make us worthy but to prove our worth. He did not come to earth to enlist an army of servants. He came to restore the King’s sons and daughters to their rightful position—rulership as heirs of His Kingdom.
If we are heirs and are destined to rule in our Father’s Kingdom, then we had better learn to understand His Kingdom and how it operates. We had better learn its principles and concepts. We must learn how to think, talk, and live like Kingdom citizens. The Kingdom is the most important message of our age and the answer to the dilemma of ancient and modern man. According to Yahusha Hamachiach, everyone is trying all they can to find it and forcing their way through life to lay hold on it:
Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of Yah is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it (Luke 16:16b).
Everyone of the over six billion people on earth are searching for this Kingdom. This series is to help you and your fellow planet dwellers discover and understand it. With this end in mind, the remaining teachings of this series will examine in detail key concepts of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Principles
1. Colonization is Heaven’s system for earthly influence.
2. Yah’s original intent was to extend His heavenly government over the earth, and His plan for accomplishing this was to establish a colony of Heaven on the earth.
3. By creative right, the earth is Heaven’s “crown land.”
4. The King gave man rulership of the earth, not ownership.
5. A colony is “a group of emigrants or their descendants who settle in a distant land but remain subject to the parent country.”
6. As citizens of Heaven, we inhabit the earth for the purpose of influencing it with the culture and values of heaven and bringing it under the government of the King of Heaven.
7. Yah’s government, the government of Heaven, is a Kingdom, and Yah is the King.
8. A kingdom is simply a domain over which a king has rulership.
9. In the Kingdom of Yah there are no subjects, only citizens—but every citizen is a king (or queen) in his or her own right.
10. When Yahusha brought the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, He brought also the promise of restoring to mankind the dominion over the earth that Adam and Eve had lost in Eden.
11. The King of Heaven wants sons and daughters, not servants.
12. Yahusha came that we might “receive the full rights of sons.”
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