Two Sticks

So far we have learned that God has determined to have a chosen people to abide with him forever.  His choice was Abraham and his descendants.  He made unbreakable covenants with these people which included a plan of how the whole world could be brought into these covenants.  Promises in the plan also included that the place where His people would abide with Him would be in the Promised Land from Egypt to the Euphrates River.  The promise and plan also included that it would be many nations.  Now what about the “New Covenant?”

The most important thing that we must realize about the New Covenant is that it is just one more step in God’s perfect plan.  It is through the New Covenant that He brings the whole world into his promises, His grace and His presence forever.  Just as not one of all the previous covenants altered, voided or made obsolete any covenant prior to it, the New Covenant did not change or supercede any previous covenant.  The New Covenant is the door in which the lost children of Israel, that is, all the seed of Abraham can enter His Kingdom and eternity.  This is what Yeshua meant when He said:

Joh 10:16  And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

For this reason Paul was called to the mission field.  It was his task to take the Gospel, the good news, to that other sheep, the gentiles.  The New Covenant was Paul’s “Mission Statement.”  It was his authority to take another step in God’s plan to include those other sheep into the fold with the House of Judah.

Ezekiel wrote about how the two folds would be brought together into one fold with one shepherd.

Eze 37:16  Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:

Eze 37:17  And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.

Eze 37:18  And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?

Eze 37:19  Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.

Eze 37:20  And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.

Eze 37:21  And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:

Eze 37:22  And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:

Eze 37:23  Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.

Eze 37:24  And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.

Eze 37:25  And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.

Eze 37:26  Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.

Eze 37:27  My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Eze 37:28  And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.

Let us identify some people listed here.  Judah are those people in the Southern Kingdom which included the Jews, Benjaminites, most of the Levites, some of the tribe of Dan, some of the tribe of Manasseh, and some of the tribe of Simeon.  The largest group living in the Southern Kingdom was the Jews so the area became known as Judea and the people as Jews.

The Northern Kingdom included the tribes of Ephraim, Reuben, Asher, Zebulon, Issachar, Gad, Naphtali, part of the tribe of Dan, part of the tribe of Simeon, part of the tribe of Mannasseh and a few of the Levites that remained.  Ephraim and Manasseh were sons of Joseph but they were given equal status as tribes.  The Northern Kingdom was sometimes called Israel, sometimes Ephraim and sometimes Samaria.

Since their ancestors were sons of Jacob, each tribe became known by their forefather’s name.  The reference to David clearly speaks to a descendant, Yeshua.  He is the Mashiach which means the “anointed one” The anointed one is the one to be called as a prophet, priest or a king. In the Old Testament we find people that held two of these offices but never anyone who held three, until Yeshua.  He is the son of David by lineage through His mother and the Yeshua Há Mashiac

So often I hear pastors and historians say the prophecy of God’s people returning to the land has happened, and that this has been fulfilled in the Jews now being in Israel. They lump Israel, Judah, Ephriam, Jacob, and Joseph into one description of one small part of a people and say it has been done.  If they would recognize who Israel is and who Judah is, they would see that has to happen in the future.  That will happen when Yeshua will bring his people back in what is known as the “Greater Exodus”.  Every word of the verses cited above will come true and there will be two folds joining as one with one shepherd.  Another thing, not just some Jews will return, but all believing Jews will come back to the land.  All the believing seed of Abraham will return.

Who is the seed of Abraham?  I have shown you how God spread Abraham’s seed throughout the world.  I told you how God has caused the DNA of Abraham to spread through every nation and every people.  You say that the natives of America may not be Abraham's seed.  I am not going to write a long paper to explain all this but the Indians of South America and Mexico are clearly transplanted Egyptians.  Their pyramids, perfected calendars, sun worship, sacrificial systems and some language structure speak of this.  The Cherokee have Hebrew words in their language, worship one God, and had civil laws that could only have come from the Torah.  Africa, China and Europe have already been explained how that came about.  The point is that if you are reading this, you are Abraham’s seed.  Which tribe are you from?  I don’t know!  Your ancestors have mixed and intermixed so much that only God can answer that question. I take literally the verse below:

Gal 3:29  And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

What promise are we heirs to?  The covenants of course and that’s a promise.

Psa 89:33  Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.

Psa 89:34  My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.

Even if you still do not believe this, it does not matter.  If you are a believer in Yeshua, you are adopted; you are grafted into the olive tree.  Moses wrote in the last few chapters of Deuteronomy what was going to happen to his people.  He said that they would serve other gods and they would mix idol worship in their performance of God’s love.  He also foretold what would happen to them for mixing.  They would be scattered and the land would become desolate.

Deu 29:22  So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it;

Deu 29:23  And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:

Deu 29:24  Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?

Deu 29:25  Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt:

Deu 29:26  For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:

Deu 29:27  And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:

Deu 29:28  And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.

Deu 29:29  The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

One may say that they see how God scattered the Children of Israel, both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.  They may say that they understand that this was millions of people scattered throughout the world.  They can think and say, “Well, my ancestors came from a very secluded part of the world and I don’t think that I am descended from Abraham.  Let us take a little look at your lineage in a way I am sure you never have before.

First let us establish some points of fact so that we can understand the magnitude of what I am about to write.  There are on an average of four generations in a hundred years.  The average age a person has their first child is about twenty-five years old.  Some may be eighteen and some may be thirty, thus four generations per hundred years.  That first child grows to be about twenty-five years old to have their first child, and so on.  The ten tribes were scattered about 600 years before Yeshua and the final Diaspora of the Jews was in 135 AD.  That was 1,875 years ago, but let’s just go back about one thousand years.  In 1066 AD, William the Conqueror won the Battle of Hastings and that is far enough back.

You have one set of parents, and two sets of grandparents. Go back another generation and you have four sets of great-grandparents.  Go another generation and you have eight sets of great great grandparents.  The number of grandparents you gain each generation backward is exactly double that of the generation before it.  The only way that could change is that somewhere back there you had grandparents that were cousins and that would lessen the number by one set at that point but many times less as you go further back.  I won’t bore you with carrying this math on back 1000 years or forty generations.  I’ll let you do that, but I will tell you that in forty generations you will have more than 364 billion grandparents if there were no cousins marrying cousins.

You say, “Wait a minute, there has never been that many people on the earth since the beginning.”  You are right.  The conservative demographer tells us that there have been about 96 billion since the first couple and the liberal, because he wants to stretch it as far back as possible, says there has been about 126 billion.  The conservative estimates that took about 6,000 years and the liberal with all his stretching can only get it back about ten thousand years.

How do we get a figure in the billions for your grandparents in 1000 years?  Your mother’s, mother’s, mother’s, mother’s mother back some twenty generations was the sister to your father’s mother’s, mother’s, mother’s, mother.  In other words there were a lot of cases of cousins marrying cousins.  There were also a lot of cases that your ancestors migrating from one place to another met and married some of your other ancestors.  Hey, we did not have seven billion people on the earth a 1000 years ago, we had less than a billion.

Your family tree is not an umbrella, pointing from you and stretching wider and wider until there is no end.  Somewhere back there about the middle, it starts to close in and finally comes to a point at just two people, Noah and his wife.  Just a couple generations below him we find Abraham, yours and my grandpa.

Your family tree is not an upside down pyramid.  It is a diamond; it is God’s diamond.  He looks down and sees diamonds every where He looks.

In the next chapter Moses foretells about the children returning to the Promised Land.  Remember he is talking to the whole Hebrew Nation and not to just one tribe or the Southern Kingdom.

Deu 30:1  And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee,

Deu 30:2  And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul;

Deu 30:3  That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee.

Deu 30:4  If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee:

Deu 30:5  And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.

Deu 30:6  And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

Deu 30:7  And the LORD thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee.

Deu 30:8  And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day.

Deu 30:9  And the LORD thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers:

Deu 30:10  If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.

Now let us look at some places where God is specifically talking to the Northern Kingdom (Israel) and the Southern Kingdom (JUDAH) as separate people. This is after ten tribes (Israel) has been taken into captivity.

Jer 3:6  Then the LORD said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen what faithless Israel did? She went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and she was a harlot there.

Jer 3:7  “I thought, ‘After she has done all these things she will return to Me’; but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it.

Jer 3:8  “And I saw that for all the adulteries of faithless Israel, I had sent her away and given her a writ of divorce, yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear; but she went and was a harlot also.

Jer 3:9  “Because of the lightness of her harlotry, she polluted the land and committed adultery with stones and trees.

Jer 3:10  “Yet in spite of all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to Me with all her heart, but rather in deception,” declares the LORD.

Jer 3:11  And the LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel has proved herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.

Jer 3:12  “Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say, ‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the LORD; ‘I will not look upon you in anger. For I am gracious,’ declares the LORD; ‘I will not be angry forever.

Jer 3:13  ‘Only acknowledge your iniquity, That you have transgressed against the LORD your God And have scattered your favors to the strangers under every green tree, And you have not obeyed My voice,’ declares the LORD.

Jer 3:14  ‘Return, O faithless sons,’ declares the LORD; ‘For I am a master to you, And I will take you one from a city and two from a family, And I will bring you to Zion.’

Jer 3:15  “Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding.

Jer 3:16  “It shall be in those days when you are multiplied and increased in the land,” declares the LORD, “they will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD.’ And it will not come to mind, nor will they remember it, nor will they miss it, nor will it be made again.

Jer 3:17  “At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘The Throne of the LORD,’ and all the nations will be gathered to it, to Jerusalem, for the name of the LORD; nor will they walk anymore after the stubbornness of their evil heart.

Jer 3:18  “In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers as an inheritance.

One can easily see that he is making a distinction between Israel and Judah.  Also note that He made a certificate of divorce with Israel and they were scattered through the nations.  But there is hope because He promises to bring the two together again in the land with one King.

You know the problem of identifying Israel or Ephriam as Judah or the Jews puts a veil over one’s eyes so they can not see who Israel really is.  My friend was born in Texas so he is a Texan.  He is a citizen of the United States so he is also an American.  All native Texans are Americans, but not all Americans are Texans.  All Jews are Israeli but not all Israeli are Jews.  In the passages above the reference for Israel is for the ten tribes He divorced, not the Jews, they are referred to as Judah.

Isaiah makes a distinction between the two houses.

Isa 5:7  For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel And the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; For righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.

The following shows very clearly that there are two houses and that both will be gathered in the end times.

Isa 11:11  Then it will happen on that day that the Lord Will again recover the second time with His hand The remnant of His people, who will remain, From Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, And from the islands of the sea.

Isa 11:12  And He will lift up a standard for the nations And assemble the banished ones of Israel, And will gather the dispersed of Judah From the four corners of the earth.

Isa 11:13  Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart, And those who harass Judah will be cut off; Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, And Judah will not harass Ephraim.

Its very plain that Ephraim and Judah will not harass each other any longer or will there be any jealousy between them.  Both will be brought together again, gathered from all the nations where they have been scattered.  The verse below describes the two houses as both being a part of Jacob.

Isa 48:1  “Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are named Israel And who came forth from the loins of Judah, Who swear by the name of the LORD And invoke the God of Israel, But not in truth nor in righteousness.

In the below verses many try to show that the tribulation is going to

be for the Jew.  Again they do not see that both the House of Israel

and the House of Judah, both parts of the House of Jacob is going to

be in the tribulation.

Jer 30:1  The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

Jer 30:2  “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Write all the words which I have spoken to you in a book.

Jer 30:3  ‘For behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah.’ The LORD says, ‘I will also bring them back to the land that I gave to their forefathers and they shall possess it."

Jer 30:4  Now these are the words which the LORD spoke concerning Israel and concerning Judah:

Jer 30:5  “For thus says the LORD, ‘I have heard a sound of terror, Of dread, and there is no peace.

Jer 30:6  ‘Ask now, and see If a male can give birth. Why do I see every man With his hands on his loins, as a woman in childbirth? And why have all faces turned pale?

Jer 30:7  ‘Alas! for that day is great, There is none like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s distress, But he will be saved from it.

Jer 30:8  ‘It shall come about on that day,’ declares the LORD of hosts, ‘that I will break his yoke from off their neck and will tear off their bonds; and strangers will no longer make them their slaves.

Jer 30:9  ‘But they shall serve the LORD their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.

Jer 30:10  ‘Fear not, O Jacob My servant,’ declares the LORD, ‘And do not be dismayed, O Israel; For behold, I will save you from afar And your offspring from the land of their captivity. And Jacob will return and will be quiet and at ease, And no one will make him afraid.

Jer 30:11  ‘For I am with you,’ declares the LORD, ‘to save you; For I will destroy completely all the nations where I have scattered you, Only I will not destroy you completely. But I will chasten you justly And will by no means leave you unpunished.’

All these verses are speaking of the two houses, Israel and Judah, are describing the Covenants that will be fulfilled at the end of this age.  I could cite many more but there is no need in beating a horse into hamburger meat.  It is very plain, when you see it by looking through the covenants, the two houses will come back together, we all will go through the tribulation, and all that are saved will go back to the land to live with Yeshua.  Now let me try to show this indirectly by another means.

Rev 7:4  And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:

Rev 7:5  from the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand, from the tribe of Gad twelve thousand,

Rev 7:6  from the tribe of Asher twelve thousand, from the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand, from the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand,

Rev 7:7  from the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand, from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand, from the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand,

Rev 7:8  from the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand, from the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand, from the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand were sealed.

Rev 7:9  After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands;

If there is going to be twelve thousand from every tribe from the sons of Israel, and this occurs in the middle of the tribulation, do you not think that would include both houses?  These 144,000 are scattered all over the world and God knows who they are.  They will be in the tribulation and so will we.  They will be our protectors and leaders through the last half of the tribulation and through the greater exodus.  Now look at another concept of how all twelve tribes will include us all in the land when we return.

Rev 21:9  Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”

Rev 21:10  And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,

Rev 21:11  having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper.

Rev 21:12  It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel.

When the holy city of Jerusalem arrives it will have twelve gates, a gate for each tribe.  It will be through our own gate, the gate for our own tribe that we will pass when we enter the city.  How do we know which shall be ours?  Remember I said we are so mixed up that only God knows what tribe we are from.  He will tell us.  Just as a building is not a church but it is the people in it that is the church, so it will be true for the bride of Yeshua.  It will be the bride of Yeshua that will enter and be in the city, the New Jerusalem. It was Yeshua as the Father who made these covenants and He is the one who made the New Covenant.  He did not come to start a new religion or a new faith.  He did not come to change anything; He made the covenants and promises more full, He fulfilled them.  He made them more full by explaining them and teaching them.  By giving a New Covenant He fulfilled part of His perfect plan in offering salvation to the entire world.  It was and is in His perfect plan to bring the two sticks together again in fulfillment of the covenant with Abraham. Anyone and everyone that refuses to see they are the seed of Abraham and how it came about is denying one of the great blessings of God.  Everybody that does not want to believe they are indeed in the direct lineage of the children of Israel is placing a roadblock between themselves and God’s perfect plan.  By denying the heritage we deny the inheritance.  By not being able to see the bloodline we cannot see the covenants.  So, my fellow Hebrew cousins, is it not wonderful that we can come to recognize who we are.