Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
A Shining City on a Hill
January 12, 2012
The United States, at the moment, is caught up in the GOP primaries and the race among candidates to become the GOP nominee for the presidency of the United States. The country is at a critical point in her history. The question, which must be answered, is whether or not she will become a shining city on a hill.
Thankfully, God took the evil of Hollywood and used it for good. The brothers of Joseph thought they had rid themselves of him for good, only to have him pop up in Egypt to become ruler over them. Ronald Reagan went from acting with monkeys in Hollywood to Washington, from where he ruled over the entire lot of stars from the entertainment capital of the world, caught up in presenting a liberal agenda. He went on to become, perhaps, the finest president the United States has ever known.
He was the President who made the phrase famous, when he referred to the Bible, by stating that he saw America like a shining city on a hill. Two of the GOP candidates for that office, Bachmann and Romney, used this same statement, but with neither having the slightest idea of what it truly means.
It takes us back to Isaiah 2:1-5 where the prophet prophesies into these latter days saying that the mountain of the Lord’s (who was then the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus) house would be established on the top of the mountains and exalted above the hills with all nations flowing to it. This will be the real house of Jacob, which will teach the Lord’s ways, because He has taught it, and shall walk in His paths and in His steps. For out of Zion shall go forth the Law of God, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem, another name used to describe the rule of Jesus and His bride or the church of spiritual Israel, a shining city on a hill. O house of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of the Lord (Isaiah 2:5).
Now, we jump ahead to Matthew, and to Jesus’ message known as the Beatitudes to those who would become His followers of the Way – His church, which will inherit the kingdom, described as the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and those persecuted for righteousness’ sake. They will become the inheritors of the kingdom, which we all pray will come soon to this earth. The church merely becomes an extension of the prophets who went before them, as it becomes the prophetic voice of the Lord (see Matthew 5:11-12) as the persecuted church.
Then Jesus makes the famous statement to which Ronald Reagan was alluding; “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:13-16).”
Do Bachmann and Romney understand that the prophet is the voice, which speaks for God to the nation as did the prophets of old? That is the reason the three friends of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego, walked in the fire judgment with the fourth, like the Son of God, the three representing the prophet, the apostle and the bride (see Daniel 3:19-30). They all hear, listen to the voice of God and then let their light shine into the nation and, ultimately, into the world.
The church is called to be the voice of God, to be a very active part of the church/state of spiritual Israel in America, as were the prophets of old called to be the voice of God to the prophet/state of the nation Israel. Does either candidate understand that America is called, not to be a religious/state, but rather a church/state? The three men who came out of the fired-up furnace of Babylon were promoted to political office in the provinces instead of being marginalized and side-stepped by accepting the bribes of tax-dollar exemptions to silence their voices for God.
What was it, according to Isaiah 2, which caused Israel’s light to go out? Here is the sad answer to a nation once chosen by God, only to be rejected by Him because she rejected His calling upon her to be a light of God’s truth to the world. She forsook her people, the house of Jacob, by becoming filled with eastern ways. Did God not bring America from the East to the West to get rid of religious eastern ways?
The house of Jacob became pleased with the children of foreigners, full of gold, silver and treasures of all sorts, as well as being full of idols, with no end to an armament build-up. Academia took over with the worship of the minds and hands within the house. Then the warning came to not forgive them for the Day of the Lord was at hand, when man’s pride would be judged. Do either Bachmann or Romney, if chosen, suggest that they would rid America of the foreign religions in the land, which are taking her down, that is to say, grant no establishment of any religious law, nor bow down to it in any way within the nation of America?
Here is the pattern for the journey of Jacob from Israel to become spiritual Israel. Through his sons he became a nation like a worm of the natural earth within the cocoon. However, it grew and came forth from the cocoon to become a butterfly, no longer an earthbound worm. What the Word tells us, which we have not yet seen accomplished by either Israel or spiritual Israel, is that the butterfly must undergo another supernatural change, which will make it a new creation in the Spirit, a vibrant church of shining light, void of all religion. It must become a firefly, the light of which shines in the darkness of a dark world ensnared by the nets of satanic religion.
The pattern, the principle and the precept are as follows. The route back from death in this world to the kingdom is seen in the pattern of Israel, a nation under God in truth, and not in religion, as it moves ever westward from the East. Israel, the worm, grew in the cocoon of Egypt in the land of Goshen. She then made the change from the worm of the cocoon to a butterfly. It required a Passover sacrifice before making her exodus across the sea to the wilderness, at last set free by an act of God to take His people, who survived the wilderness experience by obeying God’s Word, into the Promised Land. But it was there that they failed to make the transition to the firefly.
So, He sent His Son, Jesus, who would take the sin of darkness for not just Israel, but for all men at the cross. He became the worm for man so that he could pass through the cross and, for the second time, receive the opportunity to receive the gift of the Spirit of life through the grace of God, by which Spirit he would be transformed into the changed life of the butterfly, an event we call Pentecost. Once the butterfly had received the Spirit, it was then ready to be changed into a firefly, whereby the light of the Lord shines through the vessel in truth, for it would no longer be covered over in darkness by the spirit of religion and death.
The apostolic church became the body washed clean of religious filth, standing only on the rock-solid foundation of truth, against which the gates of hell could no longer prevail. However, religious darkness once again covered the church with the robes of Christianity, but it did not destroy the remnant of the apostolic church, which began the move to come out of it and into the light. Its movement was westward to America, beginning an exodus from all religious states to become the church/state of America.
This was the homeland or land of promise for spiritual Israel, after she had crossed over the sea to another wilderness, having experienced only a partial spiritual exodus from the religious/states. This new nation was almost, but not totally, dependent upon the Passover Lamb on the cross instead of being dependent upon a religious system, but it still had a religious adhesion of the golden image in the form of Christianity.
Crosses were planted across the two nations of America claiming it for God. The only thing, which will save America from a death like that which came to the nation Israel, is a GOP candidate who understands the importance of returning God to the nation in the knowledge that you cannot go back to the cocoon as did the worm Israel, but rather must go forward as the firefly.
The entire back-to-Israel movement is a movement away from the shining city on a hill. It is back to a nation of failure, which put out her light 2000 years ago when she rejected Jesus. The U.N. created another Israel in our day, which is not the Israel of God, but rather a state, still suffering from a double adhesion of the gold image of Judaism and Islam, which keeps it in the spiritual darkness of Satan’s camp.
Unless the GOP candidates understand that America needs to return to God for her nature of exceptionalism and for her liberty by listening to the voice of the true apostolic church lit up like a firefly, then she shall no longer be a Jerusalem like a shining city on a hill. She will go the way of all nations as eastern religions pour into the West, transforming it into little more than just another eastern state, lodged in the West – a nation of religion instead of a nation of truth.
Awake, America! Arise and shine before your light goes out! Take a closer look at your GOP candidates and remember exactly what and WHO made you exceptional! Remember your heritage and your calling as a church/state called to be the light of the world. Let your light so shine that you will be seen as a shining city on a hill, the mountaintop of God, as seen over 2700 years ago by the prophet Isaiah – one and the same prophet who wrote the original words for the now-revered and the not-so-dead Dead Sea Scrolls of the Living Word of God.