In our study of the doctrine of freedom. John 8:32: Gal 5:1; We have noted that positive volition to any aspect of God's Word of truth creates freedom because God imputes grace through the divine decree to bless positive volition to truth and discipline negative volition to truth. Lam 3:21-23; James 4:6;

We noted that positive volition to divine establishment truth provides for temporal human freedom, positive volition toward the truth of the Gospel creates spiritual freedom and positive volition to the truth of Bible Doctrine creates experiential spiritual freedom and spiritual advance.

We see from this that establishment truth is what establishes freedom within the national entity in the chaos of the devil's world.

Under the principles of divine establishment every person has free volition so they have the right to be wrong but when their negative volition metastases to the point they meddle with and violate the God given freedom, privacy or property of others their free negative volition becomes criminal.

We noted that the two enemies of freedom in the national entity are criminality and criminal nations that are run by criminals who establish and maintain policies within the nation that violate divine establishment principles.

We noted that there are two general categories of nations: those that are power oriented and function under some system of tyranny, and those nations that are freedom oriented and function under the laws of divine establishment.

Free nations lose their internal freedom to criminals as their citizens reject truth and refuse or neglect to defend it because of negative volition to truth. This loss of freedom occurs incrementally until the nation is weakened to the point where predator nations attack and left unanswered defeat the nation that was previously a free nation in warfare.

We refer to this incremental decline as the five cycles of discipline that we are now studying under doctrine of the five cycles of discipline.

Last time we noted the successive instantiations of client nation Israel that terminated with Judea in 70AD when Titus destroyed Jerusalem terminating the times of the Israelite client nations and commencing the times of the gentile client nations.

The successive Gentile client nations between 70 AD and the present time have included SPQR, France/Germany, Spain, Holland, England and the USA. At the present time the United States of America represents God as His Gentile client nation.

At this his point in history all of these client nations to God except for the USA have been removed as client nations under the cycles discipline. In some cases they still remain as identifiable nations but they no longer function as client nations.

This brings us to a study of the doctrine of the client nation. A client nation is a national entity that functions under the patronage of God to whom God assigns the responsibility for the formation, preservation, communication, and fulfillment of the canon of Scripture.

Before Israel became a nation, custodianship of the word of God involved direct divine revelation. There was no canon of written Scripture before Moses the first leader of Israel began writing it down.

When Israel became a nation, it became involved in the authorship, custodianship and dissemination of the written Word of God first comprised of the Torah and now that it is completed as the Tnach.

Additional custodianship was assigned to Israel in the formation of the New Testament, since all but two of the writers of the New Testament were Jewish. During the time of the writing of the New Testament, the client nation changed from Judea to the Roman Empire, in 70 A.D.

The first reference to the client nation concept is found in Exod 19:4-6; "You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I carried you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself.

v5 Now therefore, if hearing, you will obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all peoples, for all the earth is Mine;

v6 then you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation to Me. These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel."

Deut 7:6; "For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth."

Deut 26:18-19; "And the Lord has today declared you to be His people, a people for His own [a treasured] possession, as He promised you; therefore, you are to keep all His commandments;

v19 and that He will set you high above all nations which He made, for praise, fame, and honor; and that you shall be a holy people to the Lord your God, as He has spoken."

During human history there are two categories of client nations to God: the five Jewish client nations of the Old Testament with a specialized priesthood and the Gentile client nations during the dispensation of the Church with the universal priesthood.

In the Old Testament no Gentile nation was a client nation to God. The Gentile client nation category follows exactly the same pattern as Israel with some differences related to the uniqueness of the grace provision and the unique spiritual life of Church Age believers.

The failure to recognize the principle of Gentile client nations during the Church Age gives rise to false doctrines such as British Israelism that alleges that England and her colonies including the USA are comprised of the lost 10 tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel.

Those who accept this premise then proceed to attempt to apply God's ritual plan for Israel onto the Church because they fail to recognize that the unique spiritual life of the Church has its precedence in the unique spiritual life of Jesus Christ in His unglorified humanity not the ritual plan of Israel.

A synonym for Client nation is priest nation. The name "priest nation" is used for Israel because it had a specialized priesthood. The term "client nation" is used for any Gentile nation where the universal priesthood comprised of Church Age believers performs the function of the priesthood.

In Roman history, a client was someone dependent on another. Instead of calling a Gentile nation a priest nation as such, the believers in the Church Age are the holy priesthood and a royal family of God.

During the Church Age the client nation to God is dependent on the function of the church as the holy priesthood and royal family of God under the principle of as goes the believer so goes the client nation.

1Pet 2:4-5; "And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but elect and precious in the sight of God,

v5 you also, as living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house ( Heb 3:6;) as a result of a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through the agency of Jesus Christ."

Israel was always called a holy nation. The Church is called a holy priesthood because in the universal priesthood of the Church Age, every believer is a priest.

Jesus Christ tested and proved the prototype spiritual life that was conveyed to the Church on Pentecost. We offer up spiritual sacrifices by the fulfillment of the three stages of the adult spiritual life. God does not want sacrifices and offerings; He wants the sacrifice of advance in the spiritual life.

The spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God are comprised of the spiritual mechanics of the spiritual life that start with the filling ministry of God the Holy Spirit. Eph 5:18;b

1Pet 2:9; "But you are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out from darkness into His marvelous light."

The idea of an elect race comes from the Greek phrase "kaine ktisis" in 2Cor 5:17; that is translated as "new creature" in the NASB that means, "a new spiritual species."

v17 Therefore, if anyone is in union with Christ, he is a new spiritual species; old things have lost their power, behold, new things have come to pass."

The Jewish client nations of the Age of Israel were comprised of the new racial species, the Gentile client nation of the Church Age are comprised of the new spiritual species.

The new things that have come to pass are the spiritual mechanics and the spiritual objectives for Church Age believer priests. As a Church Age believer priest In the privacy of your priesthood, you have equal privilege and equal opportunity that creates complete and total freedom for you to succeed or fail before God in your advance in the unique spiritual life of the Church Age.

The royal priesthood is related to positional sanctification. Jesus Christ the head of the church is a king-priest from the line of David. Believers in Christ during the Church Age comprise His royal family, and this is the key to Gentile client nations in the Church Age.

A client nation to God is a nation under divine protection, because it has a large pivot of mature believers. These mature believers have blessing by association to those around them and historical blessing to their nation.

A client nation is destroyed when believers with negative volition "spin-off" from the pivot of mature believers by their rejection of the truth of Bible doctrine. As the pivot shrinks, the nation undergoes the five cycles of discipline and loses is client nation status.

Ever since God created the client nation He has directed and controlled historical trends of through the function of the client nation. The first and most important client nation that is the key understanding the principle of client nations is found in the history of Israel as a client or priest nation.

We see from this that a client nation is responsible to do five things. It must evangelize its own population at home. It must communicate Bible doctrine to the believers in the nation. It is responsible for the custodianship of Bible doctrine. It provides a haven for the Jews. It is responsible to send out missionaries to evangelize other nations.

In our study we have already noted the five Jewish client nations in the Old Testament.

The theocratic kingdom, B.C. 1441-1020, from the Exodus until the prophet Samuel. The theocratic kingdom ended when the Jews said, "We want to be like other nations."

The United Kingdom from Saul to Rehoboam, B.C. 1020-926.

The Northern Kingdom from Jeroboam to Hoshea, B.C. 926-721. In 721 B.C. the fifth cycle of discipline was administered by the Assyrians under Sargon II.

The Southern Kingdom from Rehoboam to Zedekiah, B.C. 926-586. The fifth cycle of discipline was administered by the Chaldeans under Nebuchadnezzar.

After the Northern and Southern Kingdoms were both destroyed and no Jewish client nation was operational the Jews in captivity in Babylon including Daniel, Esther, and Mordecai filled in the gap until God restored Judah to the land under Zerubbabel, Ezra and Nehemiah.

In 458 B.C., once the fifth Jewish client nation was operational the entire Old Testament canon was rediscovered and Ezra led a great revival back to Bible doctrine. In 445 B.C., Nehemiah returned to rebuild the walls and organize the military to defend the client nation.

Apostasy from negative volition to Bible doctrine always destroys the client nation. Apostasy in a client nation is a cancer that if left unchecked destroys the client nation under the cycles of discipline.

In every case of apostasy in the Jewish client nations both the clergy and the politicians were indicted along with the negative volition of the people.

Jer 6:13-14; "For from the least of them even to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for profit, furthermore from the prophet even to the priest everyone manufactures lies.

v14 In fact they falsely alleged that they have solved the problems of My people, saying, `Peace, peace,' when there is no peace."

Ezek 13:10-16; "It is definitely because they have misled My people by saying, `Peace!' when there is no peace. Now when anyone builds a wall (the lies of politicians and the media), behold, they cover it with whitewash (the false solution to the problems of the client nation);

v11 so tell those who plaster it over with whitewash, that it will fall. A flooding rain will come, and you, O hailstones, will fall; and a violent wind (fifth cycle of discipline) will break out.

v12 Behold, when the wall has fallen, will you not be asked, `Where is the plaster with which you have plastered it?'

Ezek 13:13; Therefore, thus says the Lord God, `I will cause a violent wind to break out in My wrath. There will also be in My anger a flooding rain and hailstones to consume it in wrath.

v14 So I shall tear down the wall (the political lies) which you plastered over with whitewash and bring it down to the ground, so that its foundation is laid bare; furthermore when it falls, you will be destroyed with it. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

v15 Therefore I will spend My wrath against the wall and against those who have plastered it with whitewash; then I will say to you, `The wall is gone along with its plasterers,

Ezek 13:16; along with the prophets of Israel (the lying media and politicians)
who prophesy to Jerusalem, and saw visions of peace for her where there is no peace,' declares the Lord God."

We see from this that the bad decisions made by national leadership destroy freedom and enslave the nation, so that the client nation status is destroyed from within during the first three cycles of discipline.

A nation that is not prepared for war is not prepared for peace.

Mankind always has been and always will be the product of their own free volition, not their environment. Those who are functioning in the hypocrisy, deception and lies in arrogance and self-deception blame their environment.

The doctrine of man's sin nature and total depravity plus the function of satan's cosmic system occasionally require that the citizens of the client nation to make great sacrifices to maintain their freedom.