Allen, J.H. - Judah's Sceptre & Joseph's Birthright(2)

Excerpt:
THE SCEPTRE, AND THE DAVIDIC COVENANT There is no question, with those who have followed us thus far, that the Birthright people have been cast out into an unknown and far-away country, which, when they entered, was an uninhabited and unexplored wilderness. While Israel has been exploring, pioneering and settling this wilderness, the Lord has so hedged up their way that they can find neither the paths by which they came nor the place from whence they came.Although lost, in so far as their national identity is concerned, they are in the place where the Lord has said they shall find grace, and where he has promised to speak comforting words to their hearts -- in the wilderness.There we will leave them to fulfill their appointed destiny of becoming a multitude of nations, while we follow the history of the Scepter, and learn what the Word of the Lord has revealed concerning his present and its future. For, if God has been true to his word, and unless the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has become of no effect, then the Scepter, as well as the Birthright, has not only a present existence, but a glorious future.When God made the covenant with Abram in which he made him (prospectively) the father of many nations, thereby changing his name to Abraham, he gave the promise, "Kings shall come out of thee." Also, when the promise concerning the multiplicity of nations was reiterated to his wife, whose former name was Sarai, but now Sarah, or princess, it was said, "Kings of nations shall be of her" (R. V.). Thus by the choice or election of God were they made, not only the progenitors of a race which was to develop into "many nations," which were to spread abroad to the North, South, East and West, but also a royal family. This, of course, includes a Sceptre -- the emblem and sign of royalty.These promised blessings, given by the Lord and confirmed to Abraham by an oath, were received by him in faith, and counted as though they were already in existence, for the simple reason that, when a thing is promised by the Lord and received by any one in faith, that thing must eventually materialize, because faith is the God-given force or power which will and must eventually bring promised things into existence. Hence both "the Birthright" and "the Sceptre" blessing passed from Abraham to Isaac as a real inheritance; while he in turn bestowed them upon Jacob, who so much desired them and considered them so surely to exist already that he was willing to strike bargains for them, or even resort to fraudulent measures to get possession of them.At the death of Jacob these two covenant blessings -- the Birthright and the Sceptre -- were separated, the Birthright falling to one of his sons and the Sceptre to another one of them, as we have heretofore fully explained. When Jacob, at the time of his death, while acting under the direction of the Holy Spirit, gave the Sceptre blessing to Judah and his lineage, the prophecy which he gave with it was, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be," (Gen. 49:10).After the Abrahamic people had cried down the Divine Theocracy, rejected the Lord as their king, and insisted on having a human king, they chose Saul. Although Saul was not of the royal line, but a Benjamite, he was permitted to reign, for the Lord had determined to give the people the desire of their hearts. But after the downfall of that haughty Benjamite, David, a son of the royal family, was enthroned, and to him were reiterated the promises concerning the royal family, which had been emphasized to Judah by his dying father when he bestowed on him the covenant blessing of royal fatherhood.
 

About the author:
J. H. Allen (1847-1930) was an American minister. He was associated with the Church of God (Holiness). He is also heavily associated with British Israelism. He came from Illinois later moving to Missouri in 1879. He was a Methodist who became one of the founders of the Church of God (Holiness), which was founded in 1883. He “evangelized throughout the West and eventually moved to Pasadena”. Around 1917 he produced a publication entitled Stone Kingdom Herald. He died May 14, 1930 at Pasadena.