This article is concerned with how the Pentateuch gave its sublime contribution and significance to the New Testament. But this will not focus on its general contribution as a whole but it will deal exclusively on the concept of the church as portrayed in one or another in the Pentateuch. I will give emphasis on the nature of the church in the pentateuchal concept as far as the author implies. My main concern here is not so much to propound a particular approach in interpreting the Old Testament but to give as much as possible a comprehensive overview of the concept of church and its continual progression in history in the perspective of the Pentateuch.

From the genesis of the Pentateuch the shadow of the church began to illumine, from Genesis 12 the calling of Abraham, to the miraculous deliverance of his descendants from the slavery of Egypt in Exodus up to the reconstituting of the Law at Mt. Sinai (Exodus 19- Numbers 10:10). These events though the Pentateuch doesn’t explicitly implied are possible indications of God’s universal plan for His people, not just for the Jews but also for the Gentiles.

The relationship between the church and Israel is very important in studying the Pentateuch. I believe Israel as a nation is not merely a symbolic representation of the church or a picture of the church and nothing more Israel as a chosen nation is the starting point wherein the renewed nation, which is probably the church will soon be established. Michael Eaton stated it quite clearly in his book How to Enjoy God’s Worldwide Church, “The church would be re-formed and re-structured with the remnant- Israel as its foundation. Upon that basis Jesus will build the church. It will be a renewed nation producing the fruits of the kingdom of God.” (Eaton, 1995)

2

The Calling of Abraham

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse and all people on earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12: 2-3

In Genesis 12:1-3, the Lord summoned Abram to leave his homeland, for he is promised a new land (v.1), many descendants and that he will be a source of blessing to others (v. 2) and a promise of divine protection (v.3). “The promises of land, descendants and protection dominate the subsequent story, but the blessing to the nations is also highly significant.” (Durham, et al. 1987) That Abraham will be a blessing to every nation implies that God in all his goodness and grace shall gather the people from every part of the earth and blessed them.

The calling of Abraham is a very significant event in primeval history up to the present time. I believe that what makes it sublime boundary stone in history is not the promise and the covenant alone but the act of God in choosing Abraham. This is a very integral part of the calling story wherein God chose him to be his people and bless the nations of the earth through. Why Abraham? That I cannot answer but God knows what He is doing when he did it.

Another important thing here is the response of Abram when God called him and gave him the command. In verse 4 it says that God left his homeland as the Lord had told him. Though there were times when he strayed away from the path God put him in yet in the most decisive moments of his life, he listened to God and obeyed. He was willing to sacrifice anything even his only son Isaac, God’s promised offspring to him. Therefore God put His brand in Abraham through the mark of circumcision (chapter 17) and his descendants were to be forever known ass God’s people.

2:1 New Testament Implications (Matthew 16:18)

The calling of Abraham has three parts; (1) propagation of his descendants, (2) divine protection and (3) blessings to the nations. Almost the same pattern as in Christ prophecy of building the church though his disciple Peter in Matthew 16:18. Through Peter (1) God will build the church, (2) a promise of divine protection and (3) pronouncement of blessing and curse. This declaration of fundamental truth was an implication that “upon such man and such men, the church will be founded and if such men the church of all ages will be composed. Such a church too, is imperishable…” (Erdsman, 1968) This way of instituting has a resemblance to the calling of Abraham in the Pentateuch. The nation Israel will be a people of God through the descendants of one man Abraham. Though this one man and the way God called him and chose him out of his own country foreshadowed the way the church of the New Testament will be incepted.

2.3 The Nature of the Church

The election of Israel as the people of God through Abraham in Genesis 12 “does not constitute a egotistical claim to superiority above other people but rather indicates the priority of God.” (Saucy, 1972) Leland Haines in the preface of his book, The Biblical concept of the Church wrote, “when man fell into sin in the Garden of Eden, God had already planned to redeem him…” this is done through the propitiation of Jesus Christ. “The one result of this redemption is the church…” (Haines, 2000) Out of God’s loving redemptive grace, He had formed a people for Himself for His own glory. The church is God’s people called out to worship Him and to be with Him.

In the Old Testament God chose Abraham that through him the people of God will be founded, which somehow indicate the fulfillment of God’s promise in the New Testament church. The totality of God’s covenant with Abraham was fulfilled through Christ about forty two generations later. And upon this church the Body of Christ as the people of God, His kingdom will be established throughout history until the culmination of the reign of Christ. During this time the dwelling of God is with men and he will live with them. They will be His people and God Himself will be with them and be their God. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

3

Israel’s Deliverance from Egypt

The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard their crying out because of their slave drivers and I am concerned about their suffering.” Exodus 3:7

The book of Genesis ends with Jacob’s family numbering to seventy moved to Egypt. But in the preface of Exodus, 350 years later hundreds of thousands of their ancestors were toiling inn pharaoh’s huge construction projects and no longer as visitors but as slaves (Exodus 1:11-14). In 1: 15-18, a ruthless pharaoh ordered the murder of all male Jewish babies, an edict of which the great irony in the Bible took place.

The birth of Israel’s great leader of deliverance Moses happened (Chapter 2). The parent’s of Moses hid him in a watertight basket among the grasses of swamp (2:3). R From there the tiny baby caught the eyes of pharaoh’s daughter. Adopted into the palace, Moses got the benefit of a superb classical education. His Egyptian upbringing was balance by a Jewish nurture because the pharaoh’s daughter hired his own mother to nurse him. But his career as Israel’s deliverer has to wait through a period of humbling in the desert. Moses fled to Egypt as a brash self- confident man who lived to take matters in his own hands. Forty years later he returned in the country he grew up with to be used by God as Israel’s deliverer.

3.1 Moses as Israel’s Deliverer

The Jews had endured nearly four centuries of oppression before their liberation from the bondage of Egypt. It took years before the pharaoh allowed them to go out of the country to worship their own God. During that period no visions from the prophets are heard, God must have been silent. The challenge for Moses then is to earn the trust of the slaves and inspire hope in them so that they would indeed throw off the chain of slavery from them. He had to prove that God had never forgotten them. When the time is right, God out of His sovereignty unleashed a spectacle of might and power that brought the callous pharaoh to his knees and convinced the Israelites that God did really cared for them.

4

Holiness: An Act to Worship God

“I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves along the ground. I am the Lord who brought you out of Egypt to be your God. Therefore be holy for I am holy.

Leviticus 11:44-45

4.1 A Way of Worship

The book of Exodus concluded with the construction of the Tabernacle according to God’s instruction and filling it with His glory. The book of Leviticus opens and closes at Mt. Sinai where God gave the law. “The book opens with the Hebrew word wayiqqra which means ´and he called`. God has now moved to tabernacle and speaks from there. He calls the people to meet with him at the tabernacle. He tells them how they are to come and how they are going to walk before him” (McGee, 1968). Israelites need to be holy as God’s called out people. Their deliverance from the slavery in Egypt is the primary meaning of conversion, wherein God extract them out of and transferred them to another place in order for them to return to God. The goal of this extraction is for the Israelites to bring transformation to all the nations of the earth. Israel as a community is a catalyst of whom every nation will be change and worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:23-24). They are to be holy nation in order to lead every people to change and be holy before God.

Holiness is the primary purpose why the Lord prescribed the sacrifices. Behind all the sacrifices and offerings is the “permanent truth that God is perfect in goodness and in purity…we need a way of becoming one with him…the Old Testament sacrifices point to that way…” (Alexander, et al. 1978). In this way also God showed his desire to have fellowship with his people, by allowing them to sacrifice and offer them something that would please him.

4.2 New Testament Implications

Paul wrote to the Ephesians that Gentiles and Jews fm one body through Christ, the perfect sacrifice, “… you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.” (Ephesians 2:19-22). Here Paul claims that the Gentiles are a member of God’s household, therefore as Israel was to be holy nation before God so also every nation are to be holy and pure before God. The heir of God’s covenant with Abraham, his descendants and the church also are to be holy before God. In the Pentateuch holiness is to be done through the sacrifice of bulls and rams but in the New Testament holiness is acquired in the cross through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ who enter not from the earthly tabernacle but from the heavenly realms. The progression of God’s covenant from Old Testament to the New Testament implies that God’s people are to be holy fro the Lord our God is holy. Under the old covenant God dwelt in the Temple’s Holy of Holies among His people, but this was change in the new covenant. “When Christ came as High Priest, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made… he did not enter by means of blood of goats and calves, but he entered the most holy place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.” (Hebrews 9:11-12). Through this perfect sacrificed of Christ the church as God’s people are positionally holy in his sight.

Holiness of the church is essential because the Lord who called us and chosen us is holy. The test of holiness is the real acid test for the people of God. The challenge for the church is how to be holy in corrupted and contaminated world. However, it is also important to realize that the idea of holiness here is not centrifugal rather it must be centripetal. Abraham was chosen by God not just to be a source of blessing for himself and for his descendants but to be a blessing for all nations. As I mention earlier the church is not Israel but from this perspective it must be realize that the church is God’s holy people in Christ Jesus. The church therefore is to be a source of blessings for others. Holiness of the church is not confined within the church alone, for the idea of holiness in the Hebrew word qados means “set apart for religious purposes even if there is no moral quality implied” and it indicates an ethics that relates to the social context as a whole leading to a total transformation of the community. The holiness of the church therefore is not to be confined within the community alone. There must be fellowship within he society through the church in order for this community or society to be transformed. The church is to be a community that releases holiness to the society leading to the total transformation of the whole. The idea of holiness here is not passive but active. Jesus aid in John 10:16, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” This is one significance of the Old Testament idea of holiness, that every people of every nation will know God and be with him. The idea of holiness teaches a timeless principle, the people of God are not to judge and condemn others rather they are to be a source of transformation for the society. Remember that God did not chose Israelites because they are holy and faithful but because of His goodness. Jesus did not condemn the sinners he has compassion to them. “Christians should not be quick to judge and condemn others. It is not Christ like to have a harsh attitude towards others… if they have weaknesses or errors we should pray for them and be ready to testify to them, desiring that they too would closely follow one shepherd. Disciples should concentrate on building the church, not running others down.” (Haines, 2000)

Holiness that God requires entails compassion and fellowship with others. This is what Rick Warren describes in his book, The Purpose Driven Life, insulation not isolation. This is living in the world but not compromising the standard of God. the sacrifices and offerings in Leviticus implies that God wants his people to be holy because he desires fellowship with them. Those offerings are a prologue of the sacrifice of Christ who is “all and is in all” (Colossians 3:11) which purify God’s people in order for them to be reconciled back to God (Colossians 1:20). This new sacrifice which brought life and reconciliation was done by Christ so that He may “…present, you holy in His sight without blemish and free from accusations” (Colossians 1:22). I believe that one of the reasons why God did this is to make known among others the glorious mysteries of God, which is in Christ. The idea of holiness thus is not isolation from the world but living in the world allowing the holiness of God that is in us to be with the people so that every knee will bow and worship the Lord. Francis Schaeffer described the goal of the church in the words; “unless people see in our churches not only the preaching of the truth but the practice of the truth, the practice of love and the practice of beauty; unless they see the things that the humanist rightly wants cannot be achieved on a humanist base (human communication and human relationship), is able to be practiced in a communities, then let me say it clearly: they will not listen and they should not listen. Holiness is not a passive element it is active and it brings not just inward transformation for an individual but and onward transformation of the society as a whole

5

Arrangement of the Tribal Camps and the Purpose of the Church

“The Israelites are to camp around the Tent of Meeting some distance from it, each man under his standard with the banners of his family.” Numbers 2:22

5.1 Overview on the Book of Leviticus

In the book of Leviticus we see the Israelites’ marking time at Mt. Sinai while God gave the law to Moses and the making of the tabernacle. God called them to himself and told them how to come to him. In the book of Numbers we see the Israelites depart from Mt. Sinai and march to Kadesh Barnea. From there they began to complain and disobey God which led them to 40 generations of wanderings in the wilderness until that generation died. “The years of wandering were a veritable saga of suffering, a trek of tragedy and a story of straying.” (McGee, 1975) But God is infinitely patient and unfailingly loving in his provision for His people that even in their complaints and disobedience God provided for them, sustain them and allowed the remnants to live.

5.2 Arrangement of the Tribal Camps

After the census in chapter 1 the Israelites must have known who they were and where they belonged in the tribe. “They must know their pedigree in order to know the place in the camps. They would not go to war unless they were sure of their positions.” (McGee, 1975) This could also be a good reason why the census has to be done before the encampment of the tribe. It is important to notice that every tribe camp in reference to the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle is the center and the tribes are to camp round it. On the east side was Judah with the tribe of Issachar (v.5) and the tribe of Zebulun (v.7). The tribe of Reuben was on the south side with Simeon (v.12) and Gad (v.14). Manasseh (v.20), Benjamin (v.22) and Ephraim in the west. The tribes of Asher (v.27), Naphtali (v.29) and Dan in the east side.

5.3 Significance of the Arrangement of the Camps

In Leviticus 26:12, God said, “I will walk among you and be your God and you will be my people.” God has always been faithful to his words even though the people he called his own has strayed away from him many times. The arrangement of the tribal camps is very significant in that it tell s about the fulfillment of what God had promise them. Now God dwells in the Tabernacle with his people around it. The reality of God’s promise is describes by O. Palmer Robertson in His book Christ of the Covenants, “The reality of God residing among his people displays an ever increasing significance throughout the scripture. It moves from the figure of the tabernacle, to the figure of the temple, to the figure of the city of God. it involves the incarnate Christ, the church of Christ and the final glorification of God’s people… by dwelling in their midst, God seals the reality of the fact t hat he indeed is their God and they indeed are his people.”(Robertson, 1980)

Another significance of the tribal camp is the truth that every tribe in Israel knew who they are and where they belong. They are t he people of God and they are to live ij accordance with the standard of God and not on their own.

5.4 The New Testament Implications

The arrangement of the tribal camps and the tabernacle centeredness implies that God dwells with his people. The God who dwells within them is not static which is characterize by the two poles holding the tabernacle, so that the God of Israel must be known in all the earth (Psalm 67). This is the same gospel that Christ preached in the New Testament. Christ emphasized in his teachings that the kingdom of God is near. Before, God dwells in the tabernacle but now God dwells with his people through Christ. Wherever God’s people meet inn the name of Christ to worship, there you have the church. “The church is compose of the body of believers who have been called out from the world, who are under the dominion and authority of Jesus Christ.”(Robertson, 1980) The Pentateuch doesn’t explicitly tell the real meaning of the tribal camp arrangement, but somehow it depicts the same significance in the church of today. Schaeffer defines church this way, “our churches must be real communities, with orthodoxy of doctrine there must be orthodoxy of community. Our Christian organizations must be communities which other see what God has revealed in the teaching of the word.”(Schaeffer, 1982). The orthodox church is a centripetal force which built people up, emboldened one another and who are willing to lay down their lives for the cause of truth and Christ. The church must be a reflection of God’s glory so that the people may know God; this I believe is the purpose of church. “There could be but one church and this is the church of God expressed itself in the unity of the believers. However this unity was not something formally imposed or outwardly sustained; it was a reflection in concrete experience of the true nature of the church.”(Ladd, 1993) Ladd here points out “a reflection in a concrete experience of the true nature of the church”, what is this nature of the church? It is important to realize that the church is the people of God set apart for God’s very own purpose, to be his people alone and that every tribe and tongue may come to know and worship him who called us for that very purpose.

The Israel as a nation was chosen by God for himself, liberated them and edified them for himself. The church in almost the same manner was edified by God and chose them “to be royal priesthood… a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9) not to be an exclusivist movement rather to be universal channel in which people from different walks of live and all ages may come to see the Father’s glory and be with him. This is the significance of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20. The church is to go forth to every nation from the north to the south, from the east to the west to declare the glory of the Lord. Israel was chosen by God not because of favoritism, the election was not a matter of favoritism in the sight of God, it is a way of choosing a vessel which will be used by God to transform the whole earth for his own glory as it was intended in eternity past. “The church is not the kingdom but its anticipation.” (Kärkkäinen, 2002) The church in mission greatly anticipates this kingdom to come when the reign of Christ is established. “The missionary church celebrates the festival of freedom, anticipating the joy and the new creation” (Kärkkäinen, 2002), wherein all those who belong to God will be one.

In Ephesians 3:10-11, Paul stresses God’s intentions for the church, “his intent was that now through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms according to the eternal purpose which accomplished in Jesus Christ our Lord.” Therefore “the church is the church of Jesus Christ, subject to his lordship alone.” (Kärkkäinen, 2002) It is also bound in the history and destiny of our Lord. “The church is the mature and responsible congregation that is consists of committed discipleship in the service of the kingdom and fellowship and freedom and equality, mutual acceptance and care and solidarity with the poor and the oppressed.” (Kärkkäinen, 2002) In these words it is very clear that the church is not an elected organization bound to be exclusive for them but an organism built in the foundation of Christ’s life and death.

The church is the seed of God’s promise with Abraham in which God fulfilled in Christ Jesus our Lord. It must therefore be God centered, moving and directed toward the society, injecting a way of transformation for the purpose of glorifying God.

6

Conclusion

The church did not emerge mysteriously out of vacuum. God had been moving among the people for many centuries before Christ. The Old Testament is the promise and the expectation, the new is the fulfillment and the completion. Pentateuch is the preparation for the battle of t he Lord while the New Testament is the triumph and the victory of the Great High Priest, Jesus Christ the crucified one. What is written in the Pentateuch may not be what we understand it to be but it didn’t change the fact that in many ways we can say that it is the dawning of the truth that the New Testament has proclaim.

The church is not Israel nor is it the kingdom rather it is the expectation and the anticipation of what God had promised for his people. The church is not an institution or an organization but it is an organism that moves about in all the earth, declaring God’s glory and redemption. The church is the continuation of the old covenant. It was modeled after the way God chose Abraham, to the emancipation of his descendants from Egypt, to their entering at the Promised Land.

God did not call and elected Israel for a national solidarity or an organizational oneness nor as a super ecclesiastical unity but in a universal sense, “to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth.” It has a resemblance for the church, Christ build the church through his disciples, “to display God’s manifold mysteries for all the people.” As Abraham was chosen to be a source of blessing to the community so in Christ the church is to be a source of blessing for the community. The church is to be a city on a hill wherein the glory of God will be visible in the whole earth

Bibliography

Alexander, P. et.al. 1976, The Lion Encyclopedia of the Bible. England: Lion Pub.

Barclay, W. 1960, The Daily Study Bible: The Letters of James and Peter. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press

Cragg, K. 1986, The Christ and the Faiths. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press

Durham, J. et. al. 1987, World Biblical Commentary Vol.1, 2, 5. Texas: World Books

Eaton, M. 1995, How to Enjoy God’s Worldwide Church. England: Sovereign World

Erdsman,C. 1956, The Gospel of Matthew, An Exposition. Philippines: CGM

Evans, W. 1912, Great Doctrines of the Bible. Philippines: OMF Lit.

Goldingay, J. 1981, Approach to the Old Testament Interpretation. Illinois: Inter Varsity

Jensen, I. foreword by Schultz, S. Jensen’s Survey of the Old Testament. Chicago:Moody Press

Kärkkäinen, V.M. 2002, An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, Historical andGlobal Perspective. Illinois: Inter Varsity Press

Ladd, G.E. edited by Hagner, D. 1993, A Theology of the New Testament. Michigan:Eerdsman

McGee, V. 1975, Exodus Volume 1. California: Thru The Bible Books

_________ 1975, Leviticus Volume 1. California: Thru The Bible Books

_________ 1975, Numbers. California: Thru The Bible Books

Robertson, O.P. 1980, The Christ of the Covenants. New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co.

Saucy, R. 1972, The Chruch in God’s Program. Chicago: Moody Press

Schaeffer, F. 1982, The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer Vol. 4: A Christian View Of The Church. Illinois: Crossway Books

Haines, L. 2000, “The Biblical Concept of the Church” http://www.bibleviews.com/

This is a not-so-difficult question to answer of course. Shopping mall offers almost every pleasure people need in life: comfortable movie theaters to sleep into; trendy clothes and beauty products for the fashion fanatics; and of course, food courts and fast foods and cuisines for the food lovers; playhouses for the innocent little ones and the “feeling little ones” and a bustling suburbia of noise and sounds for the weirdest folks in town. These and many others are the drives that attract and urge people to this “big world.”

The antipodal paradigm of this extreme is the church. The religious fanatics may hate me for comparing the church to a shopping mall. Well it is your freedom as much as it is my freedom to express what my soul dictates. I am speaking not merely about a specific church or denomination but the universal Christian church, not the building per se but the people like us. I think it is about time for us to face the challenge of secular and global transition and keep out of our intense and overly naïve orthodoxy and conventional tradition that isolate us from the impetus of our modern culture— the supposedly seat of Christianity and its mission. Churches nowadays are like a bee looking for a flower to sip its nectar but find none. They are running out of “guests and visitors” because of the averse philosophies that creep into our very soul. We no longer listen to the cry of the community we call “unsaved”. Churchgoers now are bombarded with strange philosophies which are all a by-product of the socio-political shadow of the past and a mercantile of both radical and conventional biblical interpretation rather than the “unheard echo” of the “VOICE” that mercifully authored it. Is the church really aware of this? If so, why we could we not keep the “fishes inside the nets”? Why the pews are empty and the melody of the choir is nothing but a mantra of umbrage. Why are the people bumping each others shoulders inside the shopping malls on Sundays while the churches are “enjoying” the solemnity of its liturgy in front of an empty pew?

The church is not to be a lone ranger in a desert faraway. It should be like a city on a hill wherein its surrounding communities will receive its light. The church should not look only for the compensation of its loyal members but also, which I believe is the primary— the salvation of the lost wanderers roaming in servitude and nothingness. The church is to be a “mall” that brings comfort, healing and correction to the malady of the society where we belong.  It is to be the newspaper that brings good news to the poor and perishing soul. The church is to be the scion of whom the rudiment of truth is to be revealed rather than confined. The reflection of the Cross and the empty tomb of Christ— the Christ who reigns from eternity to eternity. Are we fulfilling the mission in order that the “shop-a-holic” community may also emerge into a “church-a-holic” covenant community? And the dying to receive the life which is sublime and eternal?

 ”I live in the other side of the world which is also a part of the big world— the church… and this maybe one of the best things I could do to serve not only the world where I live but the “big world” as a whole.

   the country is now groaning in pains, despair and anxiety because of what is happening in the political and societal arena. whether you turn on your television or simply read a newspaper all you can see are politicians throwing stones of malady and virulent words against each other. some are busy trying to fit in their robes of hypocrisy like the Pharisees of old just to cover their vulgar nakedness and indescent motives. the knave are trying to conceal their true identity behind the eloquence of their thoughts while the common people the what i called “cradle of societal apathy” is groaning like a pilgrim in a deserted region. christians says it is a spiritual battle, a battle against the dark forces of the world, the atheist call it a norm in a godless society and the activist call it social injustice, a tyrant’s malicious acts. but i call it man’s hunger for power, hunger that kills and destroys the weak and the innocent… it entices those who desires for it to crave for more…

 Power. “it is a forbidden fruit, the lust of mankind, the ultimate aphrodisiac and the alluring quality that makes and inconsiderate man some kind of inexplicable authority” (Seay, 2004), that’s why humankind crave for it. the prestige it bequeath and the pleasure it gratifies instigate men to desire it… more of it. but it is not what God had purposed from the beginning rather it is man’s vile impulses and selfish ambition that drives him crazy for it. this is such a striking phenomena but it is not new for it is the same desire that the first human being have had, the desire to rule and dominate to the extent of destroying the perfect design of God for the universe. and as long as the world doesn’t see the reflection of the Celestial Power from above, humankind’s quest for power will be a pattern of life, a vicious and malignant cancer that will continue to creep and ruin our veins. unless humankind shift their focus into the power that heals, unites and redeem a forlorn wanderer and an obstinate nation; the universe will forever walk and wander under the shadow of this dark and evil world.