The Lord our God chose to manifest Himself through various prominent people, prophets and publicly through the people of Israel whom he chose for specific purposes. One common feature throughout God’s interactions with humankind is our propensity to be led astray, to be distracted by those around us. Mankind is easily manipulated to follow teachings and doctrines that go against the enshrined religious teachings of the Lord our God, and of late even the teachings of His son, Jesus Christ. Our scriptures have numerous examples of such behaviours exhibited by some of the most trusted men of God.
sundayword BY PROSPER TINGINI
We often glorify King Solomon as a very wise man. True, he chose wisdom ahead of everything else and God rewarded him likewise. His darker side, even though equally recorded, is made of little value and often ignored yet it signifies a huge part of human weakness. We easily succumb to external influence religiously, socially and even politically.
Scriptures tell us that King Solomon had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines (1 Kings 11). When Solomon was old, some of his wives of foreign origin turned his heart away from the God of Israel and he incorporated other foreign and pagan gods into his heart. The Lord was very angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this practice, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not keep what the Lord commanded. As a punishment for disloyalty, the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this had been your mind (doing) and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant. Yet for the sake of David your father, I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away all the kingdom; but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen”. This was around 1000BC.
True to God’s forewarned words to Solomon, this came to pass and only the land belonging to the house of Judah was left for the Jews. Even thereafter, the Israelis continued with some sporadic disobedience of one kind or other. About 400 years later, the land of Judah itself was conquered and the city of Jerusalem vanquished and its people carried into exile. The Lord our God does not want His religion (teachings and commandments) mixed with other religions of different gods, of all sorts. He wants His brand to remain with its original purity. Those whose seek to incorporate other foreign practices alien to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ are acting against God’s set principles. This precedent has also manifested itself in our Christian faith and is still in motion. Our Christianity is now riddled with practices different in nature to the actual teaching of Jesus Christ. We need some kind of fumigation to remove this contamination of our Christian religion.
Around 600BC in the third year of the reign of Jehoi’akim King of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon overpowered both the land of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. Both the king of Judah and all the vessels belonging to the house of God in Jerusalem were surrendered into the hands of the new King, Nebuchadnezzar.
In Daniel 2, there is a story of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream as told and interpreted by the prophet Daniel. God’s interpretation of that dream through Daniel, carries a huge significance in comparison to today’s religion. The Lord our God is one, whether we are Christians, Jewish or Moslem. We all worship the same God. Yet in each of the religions, we will always find some elements of infiltration by foreign ideologies in deviation to the original principles. God foretells us of that state of affairs.
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For clearer understanding, it is imperative that the whole dream and its interpretation be told, as spoken by the prophet Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar. The book of Daniel:2 v 31-43 reads (RSV): “You saw, O King, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze; its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it smote the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces; then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold, altogether were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that no trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.”
This then was the interpretation of dream as told through Daniel to the King; “You, O King, the King of Kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the might, and the glory, and into whose hand he has given, wherever they dwell, the sons of men, the beasts of the field, and the birds of the air, making you rule over them all. You are the head of gold. After you shall rise another kingdom inferior to you (silver), and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because it breaks to pieces and shatters all things; and like iron which crushes, it shall break and crush all these. And as you saw the feet and toes partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom; but some of the firmness of the iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle (weak and fragile). As you saw the iron mixed with miry clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay”.
About the supernatural stone that struck and broke the multi-mineral image, Daniel went on to interpret the King’s dream; “And in the days of those Kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand for ever; just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain and its interpretation true”.
The Heavenly Kingdom of God is one and it shall never be divided. The Earthly Kingdom is divided into fragments of different religious groups at each other’s throats, all divided in pursuit of different but often polluted beliefs “mixed with one another in marriage”, but subscribing to the same God. We need peace, unity, and religious purification. We need one big supernatural stone to bring religious order on to our planet. We need this salvation now.
Prosper Tingini would like to invite interested individuals, well-wishers, church organisations, donors and people from all walks of life to assist or form partnerships in establishing training centres across the country for pastors and priests. These training centres would be interdenominational (non-aligned). Those interested can phone or whatsapp on 0771 260 195 or email: [email protected]
