Look to Jerusalem

The chronicle of Solomon’s reign ends in 2 Chronicles 9. After he died, Israel went through a terrible period and split in two. Ezra constrains his history to the kingdom of Judah, whose headquarters remained in Jerusalem. Just that fact alone gives us a message about God’s headquarters focus and His emphasis on Jerusalem.

2 Chronicles 10 through 36 relate the history of Judah right up to the fall of Jerusalem in 585 b.c. Ezra records very little about the 10 tribes, because they had separated themselves from David’s throne.

We see 95 percent of God’s own Church deceived today because they have been led away from the teaching of David’s throne!

We will always have problems if we don’t keep these in our mind: the great history of David’s throne, the city of Jerusalem, the land of Judah, and all that God will do from there in the future. We must keep our minds on Jerusalem! When Christ returns, the whole world will be led from David’s throne in that glorious city!

God gives us projects like participating in an archaeological dig in Jerusalem and building Him a house in order to keep our focus on a future Jerusalem headquarters. How important are those projects to each one of us personally? If our thinking is right, we will be exuding excitement for them! The book of Chronicles helps us understand exactly what those projects are really about.

Ezra showed that the focus must be on headquarters. What could we accomplish today if God hadn’t established a headquarters from where He can direct all the activities of the Work? It is through headquarters, today in Edmond, Oklahoma, that God anchors our focus in Jerusalem and everything that is about to happen there. God’s house that we have built points us toward the Ezekiel temple we are about to build in Jerusalem!

King Zedekiah, the last king to sit on David’s throne in Jerusalem, rejected Jeremiah’s warning about his sins. The people followed their king’s example, and God sent them into Babylonian captivity.

In this end time, the majority of God’s own people rebelled against God’s teaching about the throne of David—revealed to them by God. They were taken captive spiritually by the devil—to be followed by physical captivity to a modern-day Babylon.

God’s Church has been commissioned to always proclaim the truth about David’s throne. The Laodiceans refused to do so.

Ezra didn’t dwell on the external details of this history. In Chronicles, he focused more on the work of the priesthood and how kings should rule. God wants us to focus on the spiritual today and get prepared to be kings and priests to rule with Christ on David’s throne. Christ’s wife must get ready (Revelation 19:7).

Ezra spent a lot of time talking about the altar—a type of God’s ministry today. We can learn a lot from this book about how our ministry should be organized and unified. All members of God’s Church are going to be ministers, or priests, in the World Tomorrow. But we must get prepared in the world today.

I have a covenant with God to talk about and explain the throne of David. The Philadelphia Church of God supports that covenant so we can help mankind understand that it is their only hope! (To learn about what God is doing with that throne today, request a free copy of my book The New Throne of David.)

Any work that doesn’t really focus on that throne isn’t God’s Work! It isn’t led by Jesus Christ. It is easy to see which work is led by Jesus Christ if we understand about that throne—because that is the throne Christ is about to sit on forever! Whatever Christ is excited about, we should also be excited about! Whatever He is doing, that is what we want to be doing.

Herbert W. Armstrong set a marvelous example of being really excited about every project of Christ—even the less significant ones.

God wants people looking to Jerusalem. Today, that means Jerusalem above. That is our headquarters! Where is there a headquarters on Earth that looks to Jerusalem above? It is easy to prove. There is one true Church, and one pure priesthood, that looks to Jerusalem above.

Here is what happened with those other 10 tribes: “Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law” (2 Chronicles 15:3). What a terrible state of affairs! The 10 tribes are mentioned only incidentally. That is how unimportant they are. Interest is concentrated on the throne of David.

The book of Chronicles is different from Kings and Samuel. Kings and Samuel were written before 585 b.c. and Judah’s captivity. Chronicles was written after all that tragedy unfolded. Ezra used it to conclude the Old Testament and to get Judah’s mind where it needed to be.

At the time Ezra wrote this book, the people’s focus was off. They were saying, Don’t look to Jerusalem—look to Mount Gerazim. Look to Samaria, the capital of the northern kingdom. Today, people’s focus is all over the place. They look to the Vatican or to the lukewarm Christians. But, as in Ezra’s day, God wants us to keep our focus on Jerusalem above and the key of David!

Where is the true worship of God today? We need to know that and prove it right out of the Bible. You should be proving that all the time. We have to know that deeply—and live our lives by it!

In his doctoral dissertation for Ambassador College, Design and Development of the Holy Scripture, Ernest Martin wrote that the subject matter of Chronicles is almost totally about the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem. It revolves around David’s throne! “Ezra was especially interested in the history of David’s throne, which had been in Jerusalem,” he wrote. “Ezra spares no pain to describe the temple located in Jerusalem. He is very keen on relating how every single one of the Levites, during the reign of Jeroboam, [was] forced to leave the region, which later became the Samaritan area [the northern kingdom]. All the priests of God, he informs us, had to leave Israel in the north and move south to Jerusalem.” Why? Because Jerusalem was where the temple was.

The true worship is still centered in Jerusalem, if you look at it spiritually. God made a covenant that established there would be a throne of David and a man to deliver the message about that throne (Jeremiah 33). That throne would continue to the coming of the Messiah and throughout His rule in Jerusalem forever.

The concluding book of the Old Testament emphasizes David’s throne, but people don’t even want to follow up and find out why. Do you know why? It is because God wants us to stay away from evil Samaria, that northern kingdom. He wants us to stay away from Jeroboam’s throne and his way of thinking. Ezra focuses us on real, pure theology—real, pure worship of God.

Today we have to avoid the false worship of Laodicea—those who claim they are Jews but lie (Revelation 3:9). We can and must prove where the true worship is: It is where the key of David message is.

Jeroboam took people away from Jerusalem and Judah; he split 10 tribes away from the house of David. Many people left David’s throne! But there was no hope in that. God says there is no hope if you leave spiritual Jerusalem and David’s throne! That is where our future is! There is no other future!

1 Chronicles revolves around King David’s throne that God’s firstfruit kings and priests will sit on forever. 2 Chronicles emphasizes the history and prophecy of 1 and 2 Kings.

Samuel and Kings are books that teach us how to be kings and share David’s throne with Christ.

The very elect will rule at headquarters forever. The repentant Laodiceans will not be given that headquarters responsibility. They didn’t qualify for that reward. The 50 percent of unrepentant Laodiceans will die forever.

Everything is at stake for people who are chosen by God before Christ’s Second Coming!

Our supreme goal must be to prepare for these indescribably awesome royal offices. These positions will be the most exalted ones ever to be awarded throughout all eternity!

That is why we are called today. God is training us to be royal teachers and leaders to share David’s God Family throne and help rule the Earth and universe eternally.

Jeroboam led the 10 tribes away from the temple in Jerusalem and David’s throne. So this rebellion is not included in the book of Chronicles. Today the Laodiceans rebelled against the key of David message (Revelation 3:7-9, 14-22). So God records and supports the history of the Philadelphia Church, where His Work is being done. We focus on Jerusalem above, and we watch Jerusalem below where Christ is about to return and establish His throne forever.

Ezra recorded the history of the best kings. Today, God is behind the loyal Philadelphians who are His kings and priests in embryo (Revelation 1:6). They have the key of David message and look to Jerusalem above, the mother of us all. That is why God speaks only to His Philadelphians with new revelation.

Of course, ancient Judah had problems as well as Israel. Before Judah was taken captive, inside Solomon’s temple—the most magnificent building on Earth, a house in which God could dwell with Israel—the Israelites were just going through empty rituals, like pagans do. What did God think of that impure religion? He had Nebuchadnezzar burn it down!

Ezra showed them where the truth was—and he shows us where the truth is today! To know where the truth is, you must know who looks to Jerusalem above and Jerusalem below. Even many commentaries have insight into the fact that Ezra’s focus is on pure worship—but they will not pursue it because it has law attached. As a result, they are cursed and don’t understand. But we have to follow through and embrace Ezra and pure religion and God’s law of love.

The Depth of the Law

Under the righteous kings of Judah (which not all of them were), the priests were trained in the law.

But people in this world hate God’s law. “It would be most unjust to call the chronicler a falsifier. He shows himself, on the contrary, as a man of great sincerity and moral earnestness. … He illustrates for us the value and the limitations of the law in spiritual education. Obedience to its smallest requirements was an avenue to God. Formalism, the subordination of the moral to the ceremonial, is the accompanying danger, and the chronicler did not wholly escape it” (A Dictionary of the Bible).

Here is this great, arrogant dictionary author sitting in judgment of God and Ezra and the law! He doesn’t like the law, and he believes Ezra really got fouled up there! You just see that attitude over and over in this world.

There must be law, and there must be a priest to teach the law! When there isn’t, we get into serious trouble, whether in this Church or in the world. Just look around in physical and spiritual Israel today and you see abundant evidence of that lawlessness and the curses that result.

When our attitude is right, we recognize the law as a wonderful blessing. The fact that Ezra concentrated on the law as he did is what helps make Chronicles such an inspiring book!

When I began studying Chronicles, I almost felt like somebody in the desert, thirsty for water—and then coming upon a gushing, glorious waterfall! I just wanted to try to soak up as much as I possibly could! There is so much wonderful instruction in this book. But this is an education that only people with the Spirit of God can fully comprehend.

There is such depth in the law, if you look at it spiritually. It is profound! Every time God corrects His people, He talks about the law. Apparently the commentary and dictionary writers want something more abstract, not so “ritualistic”; they think they’re beyond that. The crux of the problem is that they have so much more to learn about the depth of the law! That is what Chronicles teaches us: that we need to spend more time in the basics and make sure everything is founded on the law!

The books of Chronicles and of Ezra are about raising the ruins and establishing God’s spiritual temple. Doing that kind of work correctly—exactly what we are doing today—requires deep understanding of the law!

Think of the emphasis Ezra placed on the ark in the book of Chronicles. What was in the ark? The Ten Commandments, or God’s law—and Aaron’s rod, representing the government that implements that law. It also had manna from heaven. If we want to be fed that manna, representing God’s truth, we must know about the law and the rod of Aaron.

Just as Ezra was there to establish the law in his day, Mr. Armstrong established the law in this end time. Not one of us understands it like he understood it!

God wants His ministers and His people to really understand the law. We need to get into it far more deeply. We are here to become righteous kings who teach the law.

2 Chronicles 17:1-9 describe how Jehoshaphat walked in the way of God’s law—and then he sent priests throughout Judah to teach the people in the law. We follow that pattern by educating God’s ministers at conferences in Edmond and then sending them out to minister to God’s people around the world.

Nehemiah 8:4-18 also show Ezra and Nehemiah teaching the law along with the priests and Levites.

Josiah

“Ezra also describes at length the major reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah which were accomplished in Jerusalem,” Dr. Martin wrote. “He sought to preserve the purity of God’s true religion. The pure worship of God had always been conducted from Judah and Jerusalem, not from illegitimate Samaria” (op cit).

“There was a large Jewish community in Babylon. There were also the Samaritans, Gentiles falsely claiming Israelite origin,” Dr. Martin explained. The situation was terribly confused, just like it is today. The people desperately needed what Ezra gave them: a strong emphasis that Jerusalem was indeed the center of God’s Work.

Jerusalem is about to become the center of everything, because the Eternal shall yet choose Jerusalem (Zechariah 1:17; 2:12). Whatever He chooses, that’s where we want to be.

Let’s briefly look at the Josiah example.

Josiah became king of Judah at age 8. When he was 20, he began to put the nation’s corrupted religion back on track (2 Chronicles 34:3). “Six years later, having cleansed the land of idolatry, he ordered that the temple—which lay practically in ruins—be completely repaired and restored to its former splendor. He also ordained that all the priestly functions be reinstated,” Dr. Martin wrote. “The whole land was being renovated by Josiah. His reformation was much like that of Hezekiah.”

You can read beginning in verse 14 where the high priest, Hilkiah—who was actually Jeremiah’s father—found a copy of the law. He immediately had it brought to the king. Josiah read it, and studied it, allowing its words and warnings to sink in. He discovered that even in his reformation, he had not been doing things exactly as the law commanded (verse 19). He saw the prophecies in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 that God would curse the nation if it disobeyed Him. These had quite an impact on the king, and he repented bitterly.

Because of Josiah’s repentance, God promised that the nation would not go into captivity as long as he lived. That meant that Judah would be at peace during Josiah’s lifetime.

You can see why Ezra would include such an inspiring example of the power of godly leadership in establishing true religion in the book of Chronicles!

The tragedy that followed does not take away from the potency of that example. Since Josiah was young, the people assumed they would be safe for many years to come. But before long, enemies threatened to attack, and Josiah foolishly went to confront them. Soon the news came back that Josiah had been killed. He was only 39 years old. The people instantly knew this would mean the death of the nation. They were seized with outright horror.

That is when Jeremiah sat down and wrote the book of Lamentations. Dr. Martin continued: “It is no coincidence that from this time forward Jeremiah began his series of long prophecies about the imminent captivity of Judah. And at this very critical moment—the time of Josiah’s death—Jeremiah was inspired to compose an important work. ‘And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations’ (2 Chronicles 35:25).

“This is a remarkable testimony to the writing of one of our Old Testament books: the book of Lamentations. It was a prophetical song, to be sung in a minor or mournful key. It was a composition written as a result of the slaying of Josiah.

“Yet today, ‘enlightened’ scholars and theologians simply will not allow the reference in Chronicles to mean our biblical book. To them, the Lamentations in their Bible shows an eyewitness account written after the fall of Jerusalem while the Lamentations mentioned in Chronicles was composed some 22 years before”!

You can read about this in our booklet Lamentations: The Point of No Return. Lamentations is a prophetic book for this end time. This verse is another example of how prophetic the book of Chronicles is.

God Is With You in Judgment

During Jehoshaphat’s reign, he set judges throughout Judah, city by city. Here is the direction he gave them: “Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment. Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts” (2 Chronicles 19:6-7). That is priceless instruction even for our ministers today.

One minister under Mr. Armstrong said that when he would counsel with people, several times he would be asked a question and God gave him the answer. And when the visit was over, he would go back to his car and write down the answer—because he knew it came from God!

That is a marvelous demonstration of how God is with His judges in the judgment. The sad thing is, virtually none of those ministers really understand today! God was right there with them!

God is with our ministers today as they judge. That is miraculous and earthshaking—and it cannot be said of any other people on Earth! This is the Church of the living God! He wants to be in on the counseling. Human beings have nothing to give the people of God. Only Christ and the Father do! If a minister doesn’t have them with him in the judgment, it will be wrong judgment.

Believe God’s Prophets

Another inspiring lesson from Jehoshaphat’s life illustrates an area where I believe just about every minister who has ever left God’s Church has made a terrible mistake. We must be careful to follow Jehoshaphat’s example here.

In 2 Chronicles 20, an alliance of foreign armies came against Judah. Jehoshaphat responded by calling a fast throughout the nation. You can read his stirring prayer to God in verses 5 through 12.

God heard and answered. He sent a prophet to inform the people that they would prevail in the battle. The people praised God mightily.

Then, notice this: “And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper” (verse 20).

What an important lesson! We can’t afford to miss the point here. Believe God, and that will establish you. And if you want to prosper, and if you really believe God, you will believe His prophets! Yes—God has prophets. God uses human beings. That is the system of government.

It is so easy to become self-righteous and think you’re viewing things God’s way—while completely disagreeing with the person God has put in charge. I know what God says, people will say, and I don’t care what any man says!

The modern history of God’s Church shows that many people had no problem disagreeing with Mr. Armstrong. And I have seen some people who have no problem disagreeing with me. We have to put this in the right context—obviously I am human and am just the offscouring of the Earth. But we all have to recognize our susceptibility to self-righteousness. People can assume they know something is right. But the fact is, you don’t always know—and neither do I. God has to show us!

Are you like Solomon in his early days? Am I like that? Do we have a childlike attitude where we acknowledge before God that we are like little children who don’t know how to go out or come in?

Self-righteousness manifests itself in this area perhaps more than any other! That is why Ezra made sure to record these words of Jehoshaphat: Yes, to be established you must believe God—but remember that in order to prosper you also had better believe God’s prophets.

This is the system God has established. He doesn’t ask you to believe false prophets—simply believe God’s prophets. That is so important. I am not asking anyone to do anything other than follow God—and God forbid that they should do anything other than that! But it is very easy to think, Well, I’m being established by God and I’m working this out—while leaving God’s prophet out of the equation!

Today, 95 percent of God’s people say they have need of nothing—and certainly don’t need a man to tell them about the law of God. That attitude is leading them into spiritual oblivion! All of those people were taught an enormous amount of truth by Mr. Armstrong—an apostle of God! Yet they arrogantly turned away from it, and half of them are never, ever coming back! And the other half will experience the Great Tribulation before they come back. What a serious warning!

Music

Notice what Jehoshaphat did immediately after giving that wonderful advice: “And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out before the army, and to say, Praise the Lord; for his mercy endureth for ever. And when they began to sing and to praise, the Lord set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten” (2 Chronicles 20:21-22).

The people of Judah marched out to meet the enemy with their hymnals! They sang sincere praises to God—and won this war overwhelmingly.

Music is such an important part of worshiping God! That is a significant component of our work today, especially what goes on in the house of God.

A Lamp Israel Doesn’t See

After Jehoshaphat died, his son Jehoram took his place as king (2 Chronicles 21:1). Jehoram was a wicked king (verses 5-6). But notice what Ezra says: “Howbeit the Lord would not destroy the house of David, because of the covenant that he had made with David, and as he promised to give a light to him and to his sons for ever” (verse 7).

This is one of the most inspiring verses in this book. God has given me a deeper understanding of it.

How does God give light (Hebrew—a lamp) to David and his sons who sit on that throne? It all gets back to Jeremiah 33:17-18. God made a covenant with David that there would always be a man to rule on his throne until Christ returns to sit on that throne forever. But God also made a covenant with the priests, or His ministry, that there would always be a man to shed light on that throne, all the way to the Second Coming. That means God would always explain through His leading minister the inspiring truth about the most exalted throne on Earth by far!

2 Chronicles 21:12-15 discuss some correction from Elijah for evil King Jehoram. I don’t believe this is only happenstance. Most of the light proclaimed about David’s throne has been done through the Elijah work. Elijah’s successor, Elisha, did an Elijah work. John the Baptist was a type of Elijah. And so was Herbert W. Armstrong in this end time. That same Elijah work continues through a type of Elisha (my office), the successor of Herbert W. Armstrong.

Mr. Armstrong wrote The United States and Britain in Prophecy. Over 6 million copies have been mailed. That book sheds a bright light on David’s throne. So do my books The Key of David and The New Throne of David.

No matter who is ruling on it, God always sheds abundant and inspiring light on that throne—especially in this end time.

Our message about David’s throne is the lamp, or light, today. It is what the second covenant of Jeremiah 33 is all about.

What would God’s covenant with David about that throne be if there were no light shed on it in this black and wicked world? God made certain that there would always be a lamp. There has been an unusually bright lamp in each of the last two eras of God’s Church.

Only the Philadelphia Church of God shines a light on David’s throne today. That lamp burns around the world! God promised that light would be shining brighter today than at any time in man’s history!

A Letter From Elijah

Jehoram’s sins created all kinds of problems. “So the Edomites revolted from under the hand of Judah unto this day. The same time also did Libnah revolt from under his hand; because he had forsaken the Lord God of his fathers” (2 Chronicles 21:10). The International Critical Commentary says, “In his reign Edom revolted from Judah, and the chronicler [Ezra] connected this, as the older narrative did not, directly with [Jehoram’s] sins. Moreover, he also saw in [Jehoram] a seducer of his own people, and threatened him with fearful plagues through a letter from Elijah ….”

Here is the record of that letter: “And there came a writing to him from Elijah the prophet, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of David thy father …” (verse 12). There is Elijah teaching about David again! This occurred anciently, but it is also for our time today. Elijah just keeps coming back—he seems never to die.

Look at the stern warning Elijah gave to this evil king: “Because thou hast not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat thy father, nor in the ways of Asa king of Judah, But hast walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and hast made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go a whoring … Behold, with a great plague will the Lord smite thy people, and thy children, and thy wives, and all thy goods” (verses 12-14). Elijah really came back with authority!

Elijah is a real key to everything we understand today—and here he is in Chronicles. There is a definite tie to us today. Mr. Armstrong wrote The United States and Britain in Prophecy. He is the one who taught us about God’s covenant with David.

The Key of the House of David

In a way, Chronicles is a synopsis of the entire Old Testament. And it is about David’s throne and the key of David.

Some archaeologists have said there is no evidence King David ever existed; many have said he was only a local chieftain. But in 2005, Dr. Eilat Mazar and her team of archaeologists uncovered David’s magnificent palace that showed he was a great king of a mighty nation—just as the Bible describes!

Only a few years ago, there had been almost no archaeological finds from Nehemiah’s time. I spoke about Nehemiah in 1996 at a ministerial conference, showing parallels to our work today. In 2006, I delivered a two-hour message on Nehemiah. In November 2007, Dr. Mazar found the wall that Nehemiah constructed in Jerusalem! By that time we had formed a relationship with Dr. Mazar, and our Herbert W. Armstrong College students were right there assisting her with that discovery!

Why would that discovery happen at that time, when we were talking about Nehemiah and Ezra and the wall built around Jerusalem? Was God behind that? God is certainly guiding His Church and performing great things to focus our attention on what He wants us to understand!

Is the fact that King David’s palace came to light just in the last few years a mere coincidence? No—it is because God is involved! If you understand what this is all about, as Ezra did, it is as positive as anything you can imagine!

Remember an end-time prophecy discussed in our booklet Who Is ‘That Prophet’? (request a free copy if you do not have one): “And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will call my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah” (Isaiah 22:20). “In that day” always refers to this end time. Hilkiah is a type of the office Mr. Armstrong held. His work paved the way for what we are doing in Jerusalem today. There are two eras involved here: the Hilkiah era and the Eliakim era.

Notice: Both of these eras have a key of David message! “And I will clothe him with thy robe, and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I will commit thy government into his hand: and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open” (verses 21-22).

Eliakim today is “a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah.” Eliakim could only be a spiritual father today. So these verses are primarily speaking to us spiritually. Our Isaiah booklet fully explains the Eliakim office. It is one of the most dramatic revelations in that book.

These “inhabitants of Jerusalem” are members of God’s Church.

Eliakim is also the father of “the house of Judah”—not the inhabitants of Judah. That means Eliakim is the father of a work in Judah.

This Eliakim type has a key that unlocks an astounding work in Judah. He will be doing an inspiring work in that land.

Notice the phrase “the key of the house of David”—or the descendants of David. David’s palace is a powerful symbol of David’s house, with the emphasis on the dynasty of kings from David to the Second Coming of Christ!

Is it just coincidence that the Philadelphia Church of God today is digging in David’s ancient palace in Jerusalem?

This dig is another dimension of the key of David vision that adds luster to this message and expands our open door to do the Work.

Nehemiah 2:8 talks about Nehemiah making a request to the keeper of the king’s forest, “that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into.” Some commentaries speculate that the house he is referring to is David’s palace—and that Nehemiah reconstructed that house for himself!

Wherever Nehemiah lived, it had to be huge, because the Bible says he hosted 150 builders at his table (Nehemiah 5:16-19).

This key of David message is about palaces and royalty. David was the royal king, and he had a huge palace. We are going to be kings and priests as well, living in some impressive places. Kings and priests represent both church and state. That is a huge responsibility, but that is what God is giving us. God keeps focusing our minds on the royalty that we are in embryo and will be in the future.