that rises up when this combined authority is given to a fallen human man.

 

You might have heard this human saying: Power 

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corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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The present history of the nations reveal the scars caused by madmen who were given too much power and fell into pride, and before their fall, they took along with them millions of lives and caused untold sufferings.

 

As we study the Old Testament we see this power divided, not only in the way the kings of Israel and Judah ruled, but also in the way secular rulers governed their kingdoms; all kings availed themselves of the counsel of spiritual advisers called priests or seers.

 

The reason why kings needed spiritual counsel was because God deprived them of spiritual revelation as long as they ruled as kings, thereby separating their physical power from the spiritual power.

 

In other words, they had to depend on the judgment of somebody else in order to avail themselves of spiritual revelation.

 

Exodus 28:30 “And you shall put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim (Lights and the Perfections), and they shall be over Aaron’s heart when he goes in before the Lord. So Aaron shall bear the judgment (decision making tools) of the children of Israel over his heart before the Lord continually.”

 

When God brought the nation of Israel out of Egypt to give them their own land, He made provisions for them as to how their leaders were to handle both of these powers after they became a nation.

 

The Urim and the Thummim were placed on the breastplate that the priest was to wear before he went into the Lord’s Presence, along with the twelve stones that represented each one of the tribes of Israel.

 

The function of these two stones was to ask the Lord for guidance and direction in both physical and spiritual matters. That way, they could be certain that when the Lord answered them, that they had received perfect light or complete enlightenment as how to precede in any given matter.

 

1 Samuel 28:6 “And when Saul inquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams or by Urim or by the prophets.”

 

It was not long after Israel became a nation, that they wanted to be ruled by a king like the other nations.

 

They did not like the way that God had set up their government, for at that time they were ruled by priests, judges, and prophets. God had divided the power of their leaders to keep them from becoming dictators who imposed their own will over God’s people.

 

Saul, who was their first king, violated this separation of powers that God had set up to protect Israel from oppression, and thereby, Saul lost his ability to receive direction from God.

 

This lesson is about the interactions between spiritual and physical authority, the restrictions that God placed between them and why, and how God has restored back to the Man Jesus, all spiritual and physical authority, and how this dual authority has been made available to all of us who are believers of the resurrected Christ.

 

Matthew 28:18 “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth (physical and spiritual).’”

 

Before the flood of Noah’s day, interactions between the spiritual realm and physical realm were common, which led to the corruption of the entire human race, except for Noah and his children.

 

After the destruction of the entire human race—except for the eight souls that God spared— God separated man’s ability to rule in both, the physical and spiritual realms through one man.

 

After Nimrod lead a rebellion and built a tower to reach to the heavens, God extended the separation to include the common language of men so as to frustrate man’s ability to operate in both realms singularly.

 

Is not that God does not want man to have rule over both realms, but rather to protect mankind from the dangers that the abuse of such great power ushers into society, when fallen men are empowered by them.

 

Genesis 14:17-18 “And the king of Sodom went out to meet him (Abraham) at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley), after his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him. Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High.”

 

Abraham went to war in order to rescue his nephew Lot, who had been taken captive by an invading army. In his victory, Abraham also gained all the peoples that had been taken captive along with Lot.

 

As Abraham returns with the spoils, he is met by the king of Sodom and the king of Salem in a place called the King’s Valley.

 

What happened next determined the future of Abraham and the covenant that God made with him afterwards.

 

As we look at it from the spiritual perspective, we notice that Abraham became a king—one who wields physical authority—by defeating other kings and taking the spoil away from them.

 

As Abraham arrives to the Valley of the Kings, he is acknowledged by two other kings.

 

The king of Sodom who was himself defeated by the kings that Abraham had just defeated, tells Abraham to keep all the spoils, and just return his people to him that had been taken captive by the invading army. He simply recognized the fact that Abraham was a greater king than he was.

 

The other king is Melchizedek who offers Abraham bread and wine, which are the implements of a covenant.

 

God gave Abraham a choice that day, when he ascended into the King’s Valley—between spiritual authority and physical authority—Abraham had to choose between becoming a king or a priest.

 

Notice that Melchizedek was not only king of Salem, but he was also priest of the Most High God.

 

Genesis 14:22-23 “But Abram said to the king of Sodom, ‘I have raised my hand to the Lord, God Most High, the Possessor of heaven and earth (the Possessor of all physical and spiritual authority), that I will take nothing, from a thread to a sandal strap, and that I will not take anything that is yours, lest you should say, “I have made Abram rich”.’”

 

Two great things happened that day; first, Abram who was a spiritual man, recognized the division that God had set between physical and spiritual authority, and the fact that he could not have both.

 

Secondly, he was quick to recognize that God was giving him a choice between the physical gains that he had earned in battle—gains which passes away—and a spiritual covenant of grace that endures forever.

 

Romans 4:1-3 “What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’”

 

The reason king Saul did not receive an answer from God when he inquired of the Lord, was because he took it upon himself to offer sacrifices to God, which is the ministry of the priesthood, thereby violating the separation of powers that God had ordained between spiritual and physical authority.

 

Looking at the big picture, when God ordained spiritual authority that He established for the nations are usurped by those who rule over the physical realm, the blessings of God upon that nation dries up.

 

As the Judeo-Christian principles upon which many of the western nations were established are replaced by the godless doctrines of secular humanism, the decline of western civilization increases to the point to where the rule of law becomes a choice that lawless leaders make.

 

In the United States, the secular humanist have fought long and hard to remove any vestige of the Judeo-Christian principles upon which our founding fathers anchored the moral values and virtues that should govern our nation.

 

We can measure the decline of our nation’s power and influence by the quantity of the moral values and virtues that it has rejected.

 

We know that the secular humanist movement against the principles established by our founding fathers have succeeded by the fact that instead of receiving honorable decisions from our leaders that benefit the people, we get nothing but lies and deception from them.

 

Looking at it from the individual point of view, we can see that for those of us who are in Christ, it has been granted to us to operate in the power of both, the physical and the spiritual realms.

 

Ephesians 2:14-16 “For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation (between spiritual and physical power), having abolished in His flesh (Jesus is the only perfect human who cannot be corrupted by absolute power) the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.”

 

What is the difference between us and those in the Old Testament? The cross! One cannot become a follower of Jesus unless we first, with Him, bear our very own cross. Death to self is the key that opens the door that allows us access to the united spiritual and physical power.

 

Ephesians 2:18 “For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”

 

Those of us who have taken our infirmities and mortality to the cross of Jesus, we have the spiritual and the physical power that binds us together as a nation out of the many nations, for the deliverance of the nations.

 

In the natural, the godless and their godlessness seems to be advancing, but in reality, by the decline that their godless deeds produce, the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is made clearer and clearer to those who were fooled before into believing their dead humanistic doctrines.

 

This is what Jesus said after He told us that all power in heaven and on earth had been given to Him, and this is what we should do in the face of all this godlessness that is going on, here is the antidote to all their lies:

 

Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.