In our lives whenever we strive in faithfulness and obedience to God to be good, the devil is there to deceive and destroy.
I pray this is a joyous new year of Our Lord Jesus 2022 for all Covenant Nations. I pray each person in our Covenant Nations will be encouraged to “see” Jesus in repentance, faith and obedience for it is to Almighty God of the Holy Bible we will have to give an account when we pass from this wonderful inheritance. We give thanks and praise to Almighty God for the faithfulness of Covenant Nation England (Ephraim Genesis 48.20) which Almighty God placed “ahead”, even though today not as powerful as other Covenant Nations but still first. Ever since I was encouraged by the Editorial[1] following, I have been praying for Britain, and indeed all Covenant Nations to return to their “first love”. The Editorial: “Britain has been in a state of national unfaithfulness to its lawful husband – ‘the Queen-in-Parliament under God’. Treason by instalments…”
Concerning this Editorial, I constantly believe there is political deception and deliberate unfaithfulness and disobedience to Almighty God and the people. I totally agree and believe that the Queen, indeed the Crown in Parliament under God, was deceived in 1972 and 1993. Not many subjects at those times, and today, seemed to care or truly understand the spiritual disobedience caused by the Heath Administration and John Major’s evil announcement in the House of Commons on 11 February 1993.
I was remembering the growth of the Church over the centuries by focusing again on the compiling of Liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer. We need to remember and truly value our history – it is so easy to forget and allow the devil to lead us astray as I have already mentioned commenting on 1972 and 1993 above. From the Preface[2] “It hath been the wisdom of the Church of England ever since the first compiling of her Publick Liturgy, to keep the mean between the two extremes, of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting any variation from it.”
To that day, and indeed our day: “… the vain attempts and impetuous assaults made against it by men as are given to change, and have always discovered a greater regard to their own private fancies and interests, than to that duty they owe to publick….
By what undue means, and for what mischievous purposes the use of the Liturgy came, during the late unhappy confusions, to be discontinued, is too well known to the world….”
Many clergy were murderously dealt with on the basis of power ignoring pure biblical truth. Pushing error to overcome truth is not new. Further in the Preface: “… such men are very hardly brought to do with their utmost endeavours to hinder the restitution thereof. In order whereunto divers Pamphlets were published against the Book of Common Prayer, the old objections mustered up, with the addition of some new ones, more than formerly had been made, to make the number swell.” “….and therefore, of the sundry alterations proposed unto us, we have rejected all such as were either of dangerous consequence (as secretly striking at some established Doctrine, or laudable Practice of the Church of England, or indeed of the whole Catholick Church of Christ) or else of no consequence at all, but utterly frivolous and vain. But such alterations as were tendered to us (by what persons, under what pretenses, or to what purpose soever so tendered) as seemed to us in any degree requisite or expedient, we have willingly, and of our own accord assented unto: not enforced so to do by any strength of Argument, convincing us of the necessity of making the said Alterations: For we are fully persuaded in our judgements (and we here profess it to the world) that the Book, as it stood before established by Law, doth not contain in it any thing contrary to the Word of God, or to sound Doctrine, or which a godly man may not with a good Conscience use and submit unto, or which is not fairly defensible against any that shall oppose the same; if it shall be allowed such just and favourable construction as in common Equity ought to be allowed to all human Writings, especially such as are set forth by Authority, and even to the very best translations of the holy Scripture itself.”
Those faithful Sons of the Church have (and had) good hope, “….that what is here presented, and hath been by the Convocations of both Provinces with great diligence examined and approved, will be also well accepted and approved by all sober, peaceable and truly conscientious Sons of the Church of England.”
Before and since 1662 there have been attempts to ‘blind’ the people of Almighty God as we have seen in the unfaithfulness with the error of the union with the EU.
Hence, my encouragement to focus on the pure Word of Almighty God by again briefly ministering a small part of the Book of Common Prayer – The Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion – a service rarely used in these ‘modern liberal’ adulterous times. I focus on the 10 Commandments and number them so I can add Our Lord Jesus’ teachings from His New Covenant.
God spake these words, and said; I am the Lord thy God:
1. Thou shalt have none other gods but me.
2. Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath or in the water underneath. Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and shew mercy unto thousands in them that love me and keep my commandments.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless, that taketh his Name in vain.
4. Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord Thy God. In it thou shalt do no manner of work ,thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, thy cattle, and thy stranger that is within thy gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it.
The first four covenant stipulations, commands or words relate directly to Jesus commands. Jesus is the Eternal Living Word the Eternal Second Person of YAHWEH. From John’s gospel:
John 1.1-4
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
Jesus is before Abraham (John 8.58). The first four commands correspond to the following truths of the Lord’s Prayer. From Matthew’s gospel:
Matthew 6.9-10 AV
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
We note that Jesus prays praising, that is reverencing, the Father’s Name. Jesus also prays that the people will bear true allegiance to the Father – “your Kingdom come” – the Father’s rule in the obedient heart. This is continued acknowledging that the Father’s will is to be obeyed. Jesus was always in the will of His Father. This is the encouragement to obedience.
Jesus teaches a further truth and command corresponding to the first four commandments. We see this in Matthew’s gospel:
Matthew 22.34-38 AV
34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.
35 Then one of them which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him and saying.
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
Referring to the remaining six covenant stipulations:
5. Honour thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
6. Thou shalt do no murder.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thy shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his servant, nor his maid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his.
These last six commands correspond to the following truths of the Lord’s Prayer:
Matthew 6.11-13 AV
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen
You will note these parts of the prayer relate to our daily needs and how we understand our daily needs and how we relate in love and care to others.
Also, Jesus teaches a further truth and command corresponding to the last six commandments. We see this where Jesus teaches his Second Commandment of His New Covenant for us faithful Covenant Nations. From Matthew’s gospel:
Matthew 22.39-40 AV
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
We remember Jesus said:
Matthew 5.17-19
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
As Covenant Nations we need to truly return to Almighty God with all our hearts, souls and minds. We are the descendants of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and we belong to Jesus:
Galatians 3.29
29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
We, as Covenant Nations, have been grafted into the House of Israel as the Apostle Paul records:
Romans 11.25-26
25 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.
26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.”
The Old Covenant reminds us of God’s choosing:
Deuteronomy 7.6-8
6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.
8 But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers…”
I share this prayer which tells of the love and faithfulness of our forefathers who compiled[3] this truth “Almighty God, whose Kingdom is everlasting, and power infinite: Have mercy upon the whole Church: and so rule the heart of thy chosen servant Elizabeth, our Queen and Governor, that she (knowing whose minister she is) may above all things seek thy honour and glory: and that we and all her subjects (duly considering whose authority she hath) may faithfully serve, honour, and humbly obey her, in thee, and for thee, according to thy blessed Word and ordinance; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end. Amen.”
I conclude with:
John 14.6
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
[1] The Covenant Nations Volume 4, Number 5, 2019
[2] The Book of Common Prayer
[3] Book of Common Prayer p 239