Last time we started a discussion of the doctrine of the pivot that is defined as the accumulation of mature believers living in a client nation or under civil government in a specific geographical location.
We have seen that a believer matures because of their persistent and consistent residence and function inside the PPOG of God following the pattern set by TLJC. These believers become the invisible heroes who provide the prosperity of that nation through the principle of blessing by association.
A client nation has enough personal freedoms to provide for extensive evangelism without government interference or federal persecution. From this evangelism comes a cadre for the pivot. But not all believers enter this cadre and execute the plan of God. A good pivot is perhaps 20% of all believers in the nation.
One of the greatest enemies to spiritual influence in a nation are believers in the cosmic system. They become apostate through life under the control of the OSN and fail to advance in God's plan for their lives.
These apostate believers become potential revolutionists through civil disobedience and criminality. They become fanatical crusaders, disrupting the freedom and rights of others through social action.
There are at least five general characteristics of the client nation:
There must be a civil government with a policy based on the laws of divine establishment. This is summarized in Rom 13:1-10 and codices #1 and #3 of the Mosaic Law.
The very existence of a civil government precludes a "Christian nation".
The function of evangelism occurs through those with the spiritual gift of evangelism, through the teaching of the pastor-teacher when he covers passages that teach the Gospel, through believers as ambassadors for Christ who personally witness for Christ, and through the reading of literature or Scripture with the Gospel message.
Believers who evangelize must recognize the freedom of others. Freedom means privacy. No one has the right to coerce anyone because it is a violation of privacy as well as being contradictory to the plan of God
The believer's role in evangelism is simply to communicate the Gospel clearly, believers are not to force, beg, or plead. They simply leave people with the information.
Everyone must use their own free volition to respond to the Gospel if they choose to. It is wrong for Christians to pressure people.
There must also not be any government pressure to restrict the practice of Christianity in the public arena.
Within the client nation, there is the establishment of autonomous local assemblies where believers practice separation of church and state.
When local churches form into denominations, the client nation principle is being destroyed because denominations inevitably become the enemy of the client nation through political involvement or social action.
Local churches should not connect with other churches to form denominations or spheres of influence. They should not become involved in any activity that seeks to unite church and state.
In the local assembly, there is to be a vigorous and dynamic Bible teaching that emphasizes the mystery doctrine of the church age and the protocol plan of God for the church.
Vigor and dynamics in teaching does not necessarily imply that the pastor-teacher is scintillating and spectacular in the presentation of his message. The dynamics come from the Holy Spirit and the power of the Word, not from the communicator.
There is to be vigorous missionary activity from the client nation to other nations. Missionaries must function under the principle of establishing local assemblies with indigenous local pastors, and must not interfere in the political activities of foreign governments.
The first client nation to God was Israel. The dispensation of Israel was comprised of four successive client nations between B.C. 1440 and A.D. 70.
God had established a new racial species with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and called their descendants out of Egypt in order to form the first in a series of Israelite client nations under Moses. Blessing from God was related to those nations. The Books of the Old Testament reveal Israel's impact on history.
The four different nations were The United Kingdom, that was divided into the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom after Solomon died, and Judah after the remnant of the Southern Kingdom returned from their Babylonian captivity.
The administration of the fifth cycle of discipline was ultimately executed on each of the four client nations.
God used Assyria to administer the fifth cycle of discipline to the Northern Kingdom in 721BC. He used the Babylonians to administer the fifth cycle of discipline to the Southern Kingdom in 586BC and He used the Romans to take out Judea in 70AD when Titus destroyed Jerusalem.
That was the end of Jewish client nations until the millennial rule of TLJC, and the beginning of the Gentile client nations that would occur during the church age that TLJC referred to in his prophecy in Luke 21:24; as " the times of the Gentiles"
During the times of the Gentiles, no Jewish nation can be a client nation to God. There will never be a Jewish client nation again until the Second Advent of Jesus Christ and the fulfillment of the four unconditional covenants to Israel.
The first Gentile client nation to God was S.P.Q.R., aka., the Senate and the People of Rome, that we call the Roman Empire. This was the first and in many ways the greatest Gentile client nation to God.
When the Roman Empire reached its peak with a large pivot, there was the golden age of the Antonine Caesars, from 96 - 192 A.D.
The historian Gibbon called this period the "golden age of humanity."
The period of the Antonine Caesars was a time when Rome was ruled by dictators, and yet it was simultaneously a time of the most fantastic blessing.
This shows that the issue is not the type of civil government, but the issue is the pivot of believers.
Other great Gentile client nations of the past include the Goths, the Franks, the Swiss under Calvin and Zwingli, Scotland under Patrick, Sweden under Gustavus Adolphus, parts of Germany under Luther, France under the Huguenots, Great Britain, and Brandenberg Prussia under Frederick the Great.
The principle of the pivot means that a small pivot means a declining client nation. An enlarged pivot means a prosperous, blessed ascendant client nation.
The pivot is a remnant of mature believers who live in a client nation under the "salt of the earth" principle of Matt 5:13;They have advanced through the three stages of spiritual adulthood to spiritual maturity.
When the pivot is too small in any generation, there are disasters in that nation; some are economic, some are military, some are policy related. When the number of believers who are involved with the cosmic system becomes too great, God destroys that generation with the fifth cycle of discipline.
If there is no response to the four cycles of discipline, God eventually removes that client nation from history. Chapters 17 and 18 of the book of Revelation teach this under the principle of active evil being used to destroy passive evil.
This is what is happening today between Islam and the west. God is using Islam to bring the cycles of discipline on the USA and if believers don't respond with Bible Doctrine in sufficient numbers the nation will be ultimately be taken out.
When divine judgment falls on a nation, the pivot is secure. The pivot is always preserved, even though it also shares in the difficulties of the nation in the disaster.
However, unbelievers and reversionistic believers are wiped out. While the pivot is preserved, believers with negative volition are destroyed by historical catastrophe.
This is sometimes how God administers the sin unto death to reversionistic believers. Historical disaster separates the pivot from those with negative volition to Bible Doctrine.
If the pivot is too small and those with negative volition are too large, then the nation is destroyed. But if the nation is destroyed, the pivot is preserved through the disaster. Isa 28:5-6; The word translated "remnant" is the Hebrew word "shaar" that means those who are left or those who survive the national disaster.
By destroying those with locked in negative volition, the Lord protects future generations of history from evil, reversionism, apostasy, and tyranny. Believers with negative volition are destroyed so that future generations are not corrupted by their locked in NVTD.
Historical crisis and disaster is the means of cleansing a nation from the evil of negative volition. A large group of believers with who have NVTD will destroy a nation unless God intervenes with historical disaster to eliminate that cancer. Either those with NVTD must go or the nation must go.
The destruction of believers with NVTD is therefore comparable to a national adjustment to the justice of God. With the infection of the reversionists destroyed, the nation takes on new life and vigor and continues.
If large enough, the pivot is the means of delivering a nation through the discipline, either from or through the historical disaster.
An example of this is the Southern Kingdom of Judah in 701 B.C. during the Assyrian invasion under Sennacherib.
The consistent ministry of Isaiah and the PVTD of King Hezekiah and the believers in Judah there turned the tide. This is described in 2Kings 19:34-37;
When the nation has gone past the point where deliverance can be obtained by establishment principles, positive volition to Bible teaching and the Grace of God is the only hope.
If the pivot is large enough, not only is the client nation delivered from historical disaster, but a large pivot of mature believers means great blessing by association to the client nation and to all nations around it.
This has been the case of the USA, but we have forgotten the source of our prosperity and become totally focused on the prosperity itself. God warned Israel about this in Deut 6:9-12; and Deut 4:7-9;
Hosea 4:1-6; is the most lucid of all the passages on the fifth cycle of discipline. it was addressed to the Northern Kingdom of Israel and describes how a client nation is destroyed.
v1, "Hear the doctrine of the Lord, you citizens of Israel, because the Lord has a court case against the citizens of the nation; because there is nothing of doctrine being taught, there is nothing of grace being applied, and there is no knowledge of God in the nation."
This is a call for positive volition toward doctrine as taught by prophet and priest.
v2, "Instead, there is lying and deceiving (lack of virtue), there is both murder and stealing and rape (criminality), plus unrestrained violence."
The rise in criminality comes from moral and immoral degeneration. The Hebrew idiom "blood reaches out and touches blood" means unrestrained violence.
v3, "For this cause, the land shall mourn; consequently, everyone who lives in it shall lose strength along with the animals of the field; both the birds of the sky and the fish of the lakes are taken away." One of the signs of degeneration is cruelty to animals.
v4, "Yet let no one contend (blame others for the judgment) and let no one impugn God, for you people are like those who contend with the priest (communicator of doctrine)."
v5, "Therefore, you have stumbled by day (failure to apply doctrine in the daily life); furthermore, the prophet will stumble with you by night (apostate teaching in night classes). Then I will destroy your mother (nation)."
v6, "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge of doctrine. Because you have rejected doctrine, I will reject you from being a priest nation (client nation); since you have neglected the doctrine of your God, I will neglect your children (the next generation was enslaved)."
The same subject is found in Isa 28:1-13;
When believers fail, the nation fails. When believers advance to maturity and joins the pivot in any generation the nation prospers. None of this is recorded in the pages of human history, but it is recorded in heaven and will remain no record forever.
This is described in Rev 3:12; "The winner, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God (permanent historical record in heaven of all mature believers who had an impact on history as a part of the pivot); furthermore, he will never vanish from history, in fact, I will emblazon on him the title of my God, the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem (coat of arms of winner) which will descend from heaven (the satellite city), also from God a new title (as a member of the new aristocracy for eternity)."
Part of escrow blessings that are conveyed to a mature believer are personal, national, and international impact.
The United States of America is current a client nation but before it became a nation, the United States of America was already under client nation status as a part of the Anglo-Saxon pivot. When the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4. 1776 the USA became an independent client nation.