Chapter 5 Joshua’s Altar

Part 2 Adultery of a Nation

The kingdom of God is not like the kingdoms and governments of the world. To the world, the kingdom of God appears upside down. That is because the kingdom of God is based on freewill and choice from the bottom up. That type of government, by its nature, takes on a particular form. We see this described in the time of Moses and implemented in the first century Church. We also see the people straying from God when they chose to make men their rulers or chose to rule over their neighbors by the agencies of the governments they instituted for themselves.

It is very important, even essential, that the people, who are washed or baptized into God's Kingdom, act, in every aspect of their lives, according to the Commandments and precepts of God. When they do not, they betray God.

And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also. Jeremiah 3:8

The whole nation of Israel eventually committed adultery. How does a nation commit adultery?

And it came to pass through the lightness of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks. Jeremiah 3:9

It is clear that adultery does not only mean extra marital relations, but included national relationships outside those prescribed by God for His people. No one in the nation had relationships with stones and stocks. These objects represented the civic altars of other nations and the agreements that brought the people under other jurisdiction, institutions, and, therefore, the ruling judges of those other nations.

These men who make and enforce regulations and laws with exercising authority are the gods men have chosen for themselves, and of who are spoken in Judges.

Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation. Judges 10:14

People enter jurisdictions with oaths and applications for benefits and, if they go under a ruler or ruling body, that body may further enter jurisdictions for them. They are no longer God’s children but, become the children of those men they have chosen instead of God the Father. This is the adultery of which Jeremiah spoke.

How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by [them that are] no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses. Jeremiah 5:7

In the time of the kings of Israel, the rulers would appoint officers and clerks of the kingdom from the top down. They would take from the houses of the people what was once their possessions and would rule over them instead of God. They became the tail and other men would become the fountainhead of justice. These are the gods you have chosen for yourself. They are your ministers who exercise authority over you.

Jesus said that we not only were to obey the commandments concerning stealing, adultery, and coveting, but we had to actively love one another. Your brothers house was as important as your own. Men and women have often strayed from the basic precepts of God and Jesus and become the tail of the institutions they make for themselves. They may have a collective choice, but their use of it still robs and exercises authority over their neighbor. And their rulers now have the power to make treaties for them.

They have become the tail and have chosen ministers like the gentiles because their hearts have been like those princes who exercise authority. They have done like they did from the beginning and have neglected the precepts of God and His ways and, like Cain, have chosen to rule over their brothers in a common purse of rights.

And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. Luke 22:25