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Part two of this message by Denver was originally recorded on February 8, 2020 in Sandy, Utah.
There’s a concept that runs throughout the true religion. (There actually is a true religion, although it has been badly preserved and, at times, decimated and, at times, truncated.) But Adam, in the beginning, was taught a true religion. The record of that, which Adam preserved in his own hand, was passed down. Ultimately, the last person to have possession of the records of the fathers (that go all the way back to the time of Adam) was Abraham. There’s an interesting story about how that came about.
Abraham’s father was an idolater, and he had little interest in the records that had come down through the fathers to him—but he had them, nonetheless. He regarded them like a talisman. They were simply a lucky charm. And while he had possession of them, he thought he enjoyed good luck.
At one point, the father of Abraham repented—briefly. At the time that he happened to be repenting, Abraham was told by God to “get thee out” of this land to another land (see Genesis 12:1 KJV). And so he packed up to leave, and as they were packing up, the father (Terah) found the records kept in a box. And because, at the time, he was reconciled with his son, because at the time he had repented, because at the time he was trying to follow the true God, he gave the records in the box to Abraham. And Abraham will record in a record that’s been restored to us that the records of the fathers from the beginning have come down into his possession (see Abraham 1:28 LE). And he had the records.
One of the incidents of the true religion, always, is that God establishes a covenant. It may be a covenant designed to last for generations, or it may be a covenant designed to last for all time, or it may be a covenant designed to last for one generation. But God is a God of covenants. And in the beginning, the first covenant was made with Adam. Always, covenants with God involve promises, one of which is the promise of land. In the case of Father Adam, the covenant given him by God was that he would have dominion over the whole earth. Everything in the earth was given to the man Adam, and that covenant applied not only to Adam, but to all generations after him—which means that this earth belongs to man by a covenant from God.
Well, as you get down through the generations and the abuses that took place, and the apostasies that took place, and the forgettings, the rebellions, you get down to the days of Father Abraham, one of the components of the covenant that was made with Father Abraham was the promise of a land. And the land that Abraham could see—as far to the north, as far to the sea, as far to the east, as far to the south as he could see—all that land was given to Father Abraham as his inheritance. And that inheritance was renewed again with Isaac. And that inheritance was renewed again with Jacob. And so that land was given to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as their land.
As people were led away from Israel under the direction of God, God would appoint to the people He led away other lands as “lands of inheritance.” When the prophet Lehi and his family was led away, one of the things they were told before the departure from the land of Israel was that they would receive a promised land—which is exactly what took place. They arrived on a new continent, and that land on which they settled was given to them by covenant.
Well, in the Allegory of Zenos, involving likening the people of Israel (who are covenant people) to an olive tree, they are taken, and they are grafted into wild olive trees and branches throughout the vineyard. The quality of the land in which they are grafted is commented on in the allegory.
One of the lands in which the grafting takes place is called “choice above all other lands.” In that segment of the land, there was a grafting that took place in which both good and bitter fruit was born. The allegory of the activity of the transplanted olive branch in the choicest land is an allegory that is told in the history of The Stick of Joseph. It talks about the conduct of those people and their descendants in a way that makes it clear that the land that is called “choice above all others” is the land on which the descendants of Lehi inherited, or the Americas. That land is also appointed to one of the branches of Israel as a land of their inheritance—The Stick of Joseph, Ya’akov chapter 3, is the place where the allegory is set out. But the fact that Lehi, belonging to the tribe of Joseph, would inherit this land is foretold by Israel in his blessing given to Joseph in the record of the blessings given in Genesis chapter 49. In Genesis chapter 49, Father Israel said to his son Joseph:
Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall:
The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him:
But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)
Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with the blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb:
The blessings of thy fathers have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors and to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren. (Genesis 49:22-26 KJV)
Joseph was separated from his brethren in Egypt. Joseph was separated from his brethren in a new land. Joseph has a promised land in the Americas. Joseph, whose “prophesied reconciliation with Judah” Isaiah foretold, is something yet to occur. And Ezekiel talks about the stick of Joseph and the stick of Judah and of them coming together in one volume. Well, no one makes claim to having fulfilled that promise, to having met the description of that prophetic, covenantal obligation God took upon Himself to fulfill other than the people who claim the God of Abraham speaks yet to them again today.
The people who are taking The Stick of Joseph to their brothers, their cousins, their members of the house of Abraham to try and reunite and to try and eliminate the jealousy, the envy, the fighting that has gone on for far too long—there’s a prophecy that there will yet be a temple built in Jerusalem. Well, there are prophecies also about a temple to be built in another land.
We’ve received word from the God of Abraham instructing us that we are to build a temple. We intend to do so. And when we have done so, we intend to make that a welcome place for those of the house of Judah, those who have kept the memory alive—the Jews—to be as equally welcome in that house as any of those who are believers in the God of Abraham among us today. When we have the means and the ability to do so, we will build that temple on the covenant land that was given to Joseph in the Americas. There will be a place of Zion. There will be a place of Jerusalem. There will be a New Jerusalem. And there will be an old Jerusalem. And the God of Abraham will respect them both because He has sent messages through prophets promising that both will happen. And the God of Abraham is good to His word. He intends to vindicate every word He has caused to be spoken through any prophet in any age at any time. The God of Abraham will vindicate His word.
So when God covenanted with Father Adam, He taught Father Adam a religion. We know that before he departed from the garden, Adam was clothed in skins from an animal to cover his shame. Everything about that incident was part of teaching Adam a religion. The sacrifice of an animal and the shedding of blood before the departure of Adam from the garden would have been like killing the family pet, because God had brought all the animals to Adam to see what he would name them. And Adam named all of the animals that were with him there in the garden. And one of those, in order to teach the lesson that needed to be taught, one of those (likely to be the one most valued by Adam among the entire menagerie in the garden) was slain, and its skin was taken, and a coat to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve was given them.
All of this is symbolic. All of this is to teach a lesson. All of this is about having a covering so that you do not need to stand before God in your shame and in your humiliation, because God, by His grace and by His kindness, has given to you something that allows you to stand forth on your feet in the face of the God of Adam and not cower and try to cover yourself with a fig leaf for your shame.
This was the promise given in the beginning to Adam in the garden, that there would come a sacrifice who would die to cover the sins and the shame of mankind to provide something which, to look upon, would save you from the torment—symbolized once again in the wilderness with Moses when the serpent made of brass was raised up on a staff, which to look upon would heal you. That garment that was given to Adam was a symbol of the covenant, and the blood that was shed to provide the covering for Adam foretold, foreshadowed, symbolized, and was a type of the Messiah who was to come, who would save not only Israel but all people from the fall and from death having entered the world.
And so the death of the animal and the covering with the skin of the animal upon Adam symbolized a new skin, a new life, a redemption through the blood of a Messiah who would save, who would redeem and protect mankind from the judgments that would befall mankind, including the inevitability of the grave. For when the Messiah came, He did shed His blood on the Passover, like the Paschal lamb; He did die for the sake of sealing the covenant, for the sake of providing the atonement that would satisfy the ends of justice, for the sake of making mercy possible—all of which was foreshadowed in the garment that was given to Adam (which garment was handed down through the generations and, ultimately, became the property of Joseph, which was destroyed by the jealousy of his brothers). And so the pattern that was given in the beginning through our own jealousy, our own foolishness, our own pride, our own envy was destroyed at the time that Joseph was thrown in the well, and his brothers tore the garment, and they put blood upon it, and they took it back as evidence of Joseph having been slain by a wild animal.
We do so much harm to one another. We envy, and we fight, and we turn those things that are sacred into things about which we dispute, and we treat one another with such disrespect when, at the beginning and throughout, it was the purpose of God to make us brothers and to make us prize one another and to love one another. And He sent a Messiah, calling Him “His Son,” into the world. And so, like Abraham putting Isaac on the altar to make him an offering because God commanded that it be so, the God of Heaven put His own son upon an altar, to be sacrificed in order to save, redeem, and restore us back so that we can stand without shame in the presence of the God of Heaven, in whom there is no sin, in whom there is nothing but light.
Isaiah said the work of this Messiah would remove your sins; though they be like scarlet, yet shall they be as the driven snow (see Isaiah 1:18 KJV). The driven snow in the bright daylight can be blinding; you can go snow-blind. Imagine yourself covered in scarlet blood for shame, and a Messiah who can take that and turn that into something blindingly white and pure.
That was what God covenanted to do with Father Adam, a promise that was renewed, and renewed again, generation after generation. And the remnants, the echoes of that promise animated the poetry of Isaiah, who wrote about these promises in the prophecies of Isaiah.
The promises that were given and the prophecies that were spoken foretell of the Jews being scattered and of the Jews being gathered again. The God of Heaven committed to having the people that would descend from Father Adam (through Isaac, through Jacob, and through the 12 sons of Jacob) to be regathered again in the last days on a land that had been promised originally to Father Abraham. In 1948, when the nation of Israel came into being, the vindication of that promise began. And when the capital of Israel, as Jerusalem, was recognized (just a few short years ago), that too fulfills promises.
There must yet be a temple built in Jerusalem. But these things are not interesting, modern-day occurrences; these were foretold in the records that came down from the beginning and in the prophecies given to the prophets of Israel throughout their history. The regathering again in the last days and the making of Israel into a fruitful bough in which there is fruit that is good and suitable to be gathered again against the harvest is all foretold 800 years BCE. It goes back to the allegory that got preserved in The Stick of Joseph. It’s in the third chapter of Ya’akov. It’s there, and it tells the story.
We look at our history as something that occurs because of the will of strong men fighting as they lead nations into battle, and lessons being learned, and new lands being discovered. It’s all unfolding according to a prophetic pattern that the God of Israel willed from the beginning.
In the days of Adam, three years previous to the death of Adam, he gathered together all of his righteous posterity in a valley. The name of the valley was named after the event, Adam-ondi-Ahman, which in the language of Adam means “Adam before the son of Father Ahman”—the God of Adam, the God of Abraham—where a meeting took place. And in that meeting, Father Adam was blessed. But he was filled with the spirit of God in the meeting. And despite the fact that he was 960+ years old at the time, he stood up, and being filled with the spirit of God, he prophesied what would befall his descendants to the latest generation. That prophecy under the influence of the spirit in that meeting at that time set the pattern which all the prophets thereafter would repeat in one form or another with one piece or another of that original promise, that original covenant.
It was the destiny that a Redeemer would come through Judah. It was the destiny that all Israel would be scattered, and much of Israel would lose their identity. It was the destiny of a remnant calling themselves Jews to return again to that land promised to Father Abraham and to occupy that before Messiah comes to take possession of the world.
All of this from the beginning is leading to a restoration of the original pattern that started at the beginning. Just as man was given dominion over the earth at the beginning through Father Adam, the prophecies foretell that at the last day, someone on the earth (mortal) will again possess dominion in the same form as originally given to Father Adam, and that dominion will be returned to that God from whom it came in yet another meeting that will be called Adam-ondi-Ahman because father Adam will be there (as will the patriarchs, as will Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all those who were given dominion) to return back that right, so that the Messiah can claim that right when He returns to judge the world.
All these things are foretold. All these things have been foreshadowed. All these things have been placed in motion. And the Jews are occupying the land at present in Palestine by the will of God, and they will be there still when the Messiah comes to judge the world.
Likewise, the tribe of Joseph has a land on which they have obligations and where they will fulfill prophecies, including the erection of a house of God where He will take up His abode, as once He took His abode up in a temple built by Solomon. And so the time will come when the land of Judah will have a temple, and the land of Joseph will have a temple, and the sun will never set upon the houses of God. For as darkness overtakes one, the light will shine upon the other. Day and night, the light of the sun will shine upon the houses of God in the two lands of Judah and of Joseph.
This is a huge family! When you think about the numbers that aggregate in Egypt before the exodus that departs, this is only one small part of the family of Abraham that Moses is leading out of captivity. I mean, the entire region is filled with this blood of Abraham. And it has migrated out of there as the Allegory of Zenos has told us. And they are bearing fruit—predominantly wild fruit, but bearing fruit nonetheless—throughout the vineyard, which is the world.
The covenant that God made with Father Abraham involved all of his posterity, including a promise of priesthood. The covenant with Israel was initially an attempt to pass along all that Father Abraham had in a fullness, because as soon as Abraham departs this world, the one with the memory is Isaac. And when Isaac departs this world, the one with memory is Jacob. Now, all the sons had some of the information, but forgetfulness sets in almost immediately.
The promise that was given to Father Abraham concerning priesthood gives a right to receive priesthood to all of the descendants of all of the sons of Abraham—all eight of the sons, including Midian. By the time you get down to Israel, Israel will wind up in a state in which they were offered a fullness of the covenant through Moses at the mount, but they rejected what God initially offered at the mount. And so a different law was offered thereafter as a substitute, because they were unwilling to receive what was first offered. And that law restricted the priesthood to the tribe of Levi. And so Israel, following Moses, left with enough ritual, ordinance, commandments, teachings to preserve alive the knowledge concerning the God that created this world. But it was not the covenant that was originally given to Father Abraham, nor did it preserve intact fully what was first offered through Moses.
Keeping covenants involved two things: God must offer, and man must accept.
We cannot make covenants with God. God offers covenants to us. Our obligation is to accept what is offered and to accept and then perform what is offered. And if God offers us a covenant and we refuse to accept that covenant, He can make another covenant, and He can dial back what was first offered into something else. The purpose of God is always to teach us; it’s always to make us understand better: truth and error, light and darkness, right and wrong. So the law given through Moses was designed to instruct us.
An eye for an eye was not a law of retaliation. It was a law of limitation. You don’t kill someone because they took your eye. In fact, the way in which the law of Moses was enforced, it allowed for the giving of satisfaction. If you took my eye, I have the right to take your eye—and so, how much should be paid to me that you may keep the eye? That’s called satisfaction. It’s really a law that involved compensation for injuries. It was not brutal; it was merciful. It was intended to help us understand when we hurt our brother, we should help our brother; we should restore again our brother.
But the law that was given the first time and offered through Moses is really what Yeshua tried to teach in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon on the Mount removes the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” by replacing it with, “You’re supposed to love. You’re supposed to care. You’re supposed to regard your brother as yourself. You’re supposed to do unto your brother as you would have him do unto you. Don’t be angry with your brother. Reconcile yourself with your brother if you be angry with him. Don’t go make an offering at the altar.”
The law of Moses was designed to point forward to the law of mercy. Yeshua came to teach the law of mercy. The ordinances and the performances under the law of Moses pointed forward to the great sacrifice of Yeshua. When Yeshua came and fulfilled the promise, there was no longer any need for a continuation of the animal sacrifices that were being offered under the law of Moses. And so the sacrifices came to an end.
The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem was not done because Rome got mad at the Jews. The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem was done because the law of Moses was brought to an end by the complete fulfillment of the requirements of that law and the promises of that law through the sacrifice of Yeshua. And so there was no more a need for the shedding of blood.
The shedding of the blood of the Son of God was sufficient to fulfill what was required under the law of Moses. And so, although we still have the Torah, we do not have animal sacrifice. And why do we not have animal sacrifice? Because it was the will of Yeshua—the will of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—that those sacrifices come to an end when the great and last and final blood sacrifice was offered.
And yet, it is foretold that there will yet be animal sacrifices offered again. The conditions for those (when they begin, and how they’re observed, and what their purposes are) are things to be taught in the temple to be built by Joseph in the land of Joseph for purposes that God understands and will teach again.
What I took from being reminded, as I thought about all this of that section of modern scripture, what I took from all this is the Jews are not picking a fight. They will counterpunch, but they will not punch you. The Jews would rather be left alone. But this message will help clarify for them who it is that they’re fighting with. They really need to turn them back into their cousins and brothers. And that has to come from information given to the other side. I think the Jews are predisposed to peace right now.
None of us will ever feel threatened, visiting Israel, by a Jew. Jews want to be left alone if they can achieve it. I mean, they’re not pacifists because they’ve been taught that pacifism leads to enslavement; it leads to death. The Jews are not picking a fight. But this message is to all of the house of the family of Abraham. How do you make up with your brother who’s so angry with you that he wants to kill you? I mean, he’s angry, and he wants to kill you. He’s not gonna change his attitude. You have to teach him something better.
The record that Ishmael needs to pay closer attention to is the record of the Jews. Ishmael is killing Ishmael. Ishmael was busy killing Ishmael when there were no Jews around to hate. Their land has been drenched in the blood of Father Abraham by the sons of Abraham, generation after generation. When will the killing stop? When will they recognize one another’s possessing and shedding the blood of Abraham by one another? It’s clearly on the mind of the God of Abraham.
That’s a powerful piece of scripture, given to us, I think, for this very purpose.
For more information, visit the website www.stickofjoseph.info. No money will be solicited from you, and a free copy of The Stick of Joseph in the Hands of Ephraim is available at that website: www.stickofjoseph.info.