Out of Israel came Judah, and out of Judah came Zion. This would be as true among the Gentiles as it was for the Jews. This is where I come in. I had come home to work during my summer break from college. It was 1975, I was twenty-three, and having the time of my life, so I was not prepared for what was about to happen. Having landed a job in the Florida Keys as a housemother for troubled boys, I was paired with a housefather, who loved to talk about God, rekindling my interest. On one of my days off, on my way home to visit my family two hours north, I did a favor for my co-worker.  He had asked me to drop off his guitar, which needed some work, so I obliged, having no idea that it would change my life, forever. As I walked into this building on the outskirts of my hometown, I noticed a scripture posted on the wall: Acts 2:38. And on the desk, a very big book, which piqued my curiosity…It turned out to be a book of Bible words, a number given for each word. Clueless, I closed the book… 

This man, whom I consider to be a true man of God, began his odyssey in 1960. And like me, he had no previous teachings on the Bible. In fact, from a beginner’s standpoint, he knew less than I did. He once told me that when he read the first four books of the New Testament, he broke down and cried after each book. He thought Jesus kept coming back, and they kept killing him, not aware that it was the same story being told by different men. This was a pure vessel, his mind a clean slate, quiet, having no preconceived ideas about God’s Word. It was in 1960 that he received a picture in his mind of a nearby church, where he was instructed to go and be baptized. It was a Pentecostal Church; Judah of the Gentiles, where he received the name through water baptism following fifty days of prayer, in which he heard things like “the seed, the seed, the seed.” Frustrated, he would cry out, “Lord, what about the seed?” And with that question, the information started pouring in. What he heard he wrote down, papers I recall seeing some years after we met. He had gone through a period of repentance in those fifty days, and was baptized in the name of Jesus in accordance with Acts 2:38, in the church called out to bear the name. What happened to him that night in the church was readily accepted, mirroring their image of what they call “getting the Holy Ghost,” only this was not a mockery. This display was for the congregation, as the gift of the Holy Spirit had already been received in the form of truth he received over those fifty days. When he spoke in tongues, two in the congregation received the interpretation, after which time he was asked to teach from the pulpit. But what he taught did not support their beliefs. He was speaking things they did not understand, a new language, and it wasn’t long before he and his teachings were angrily rejected. 

The man of God spent the next fourteen years alone, being taught. Fifteen years from the time this man experienced a connection with the spirit of truth, which began in 1960, a new people was gathered together. Pentecost was given fifteen years in which to accept this truth, before being cut off in 1975. And what is quite interesting, is that during those fifteen years, a religious Jew named Yehuda, Hebrew for Judah, stayed in contact with this man of God. Judah of the Gentiles and Judah of Judaism were both privy to the spirit of truth teachings…

Israel, who became Judah at the crossing of the Jordan, was also given a period of fifteen; fifteen hundred years in which to assimilate this ancient spiritual truth, illustrated by their eating of the old corn in the land of Canaan, which replaced the manna, symbolizing the carnal law.  But fifteen hundred years later, when the spiritual word of God returned to take them out from the law, which they went back under through their disobedience in the Promised Land, they rejected it, wasting the holy seed, illustrated by Onan, the second son of Judah, who spilled the seed upon the ground. God then chose a new people, open-minded pagans, Gentiles, who understood the spiritual, drinking of the new wine and speaking with new tongues. When God’s people stagnate by slipping back into a carnal way of thinking, a strong dose of God’s spirit and word appears to move them forward into a spiritual way of thinking. If they reject it, there will be a new people prepared to take their place. God’s kingdom is always moving; moving us into a deeper spiritual understanding, which if applied through action, brings us back to our place of origin… 

Judah, Pentecost, never brought forth fruit unto God, so the name was taken away from them and given to a new people, to Zion. This Zion, gathered together in the carnal era of Isaac, went through a carnal baptism, taking on the carnal name, while Judah became as backsliding Israel, without a name, and having been married to God through a spiritual intercourse, was given a bill of divorce. This occurred in 1975, when the man of God heard the word, Ichabod...  The word Ichabod means there is no glory. This is the story of Ichabod: Now the sons of Eli were the sons of Belial; they knew not the Lord… Wherefore the sin of the young men was very great before the Lord: for men abhorred the offering of the Lord. 1 Samuel 2:12,17. The word Belial means without profit, worthlessness, destruction, wickedness, evil, naughty, ungodly men. These two men, who did evil by robbing God with respect to sacrifices, represent the Gentile Israel and Judah, who were cut off in one day, in 1975. 

To be of Zion we must first realize that we are Judah, which takes place when we realize that we only thought we were serving God, or thought we were doing the right thing.  But now we realize it was just a pretense. We begin to see that the way we are thinking and managing our life is no longer working for us, that it is only bringing us more problems. We are ready for change. In this humbled state, we make our way down to a symbolic Jordan. Here we begin the process of being stripped, our secret parts exposed through awareness of our false perceptions and beliefs. When we are ready to deal with the reality of our life, we become a daughter of Zion, building upon an awareness of our true condition, which we will change through works. The word Zion goes to the unused root meaning to parch, aridity, a desert, barren, solitary place, wilderness. It is a solitary place because we are the only ones that can change the way we think and feel, and what we believe. Each of us must do our own spiritual works, becoming a barren wilderness by drying up to our old way of thinking, and by sacrificing the destructive beliefs born of painful emotions. To be a spiritual daughter of Zion takes work, but it is worth it! 

 Purchase through Amazon