Isaiah 16:5 prophesies, “And in mercy shall the throne be established: and he shall sit upon it in truth ….” This is not just another throne—it is “the throne.” This is the only throne of God on Earth! The title king is not used in this context. But the Prophet Micah does use the word king—and it is the only place in the Bible that uses this term specifically in connection with the pcg.
“I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of their fold: they shall make great noise by reason of the multitude of men. The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them” (Micah 2:12-13).
Verse 13 specifically links the “breaker” with the “king”
who is leading God’s people in the place of safety. The king and the breaker are the same person.
Lange’s Commentary explains: “They break through, pass into the gate, and go out through it. And their king passes on before them, for no other than the king, out of the house of David, can be that ‘breaker’ ….” This is talking about the house of David and
THE NEW THRONE OF DAVID
the throne of David. How could anyone in God’s Church become a king? There has to be something new to even make that happen.
This man breaks the way to the place of safety through a gate.
There is a “gate” to the place of safety. God provides a strait and narrow gate that we must go through to get to the place of protection. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament says this about the word gate: “The root idea is ‘to split open’”—like parting the waters. It says, “Two other words are sometimes translated ‘gate,’” and one of them “means ‘entrance,’ from the verb meaning ‘to open.’”
Somehow, God uses this king to be a breaker and to open the way—to protect the kings and priests of God’s very elect.
There is structure and government here. We cannot do anything haphazardly. God lays it all out about how we will do it: He says a breaker will open the gate and lead His people to the place of safety. We must follow God’s structure if we are to go to a place of safety. Follow the system where Jesus Christ is the Head! If people don’t like God’s government, then they will not be there.
There is a way it must be done. After all, God is leading us!
Christ—our Stone, our Rock—is “on the head of them”! It is not some man! What man could possibly do something like this?
God Himself is at the head, leading the whole procession! God Himself brings about this new stone and new throne of David.
This prophecy is dated: It is specifically about going to the place of safety with the new throne of David. We had to break away from the lukewarm Worldwide Church of God. God is focusing our minds on the place of safety, and also on conducting ourselves like King David did.
This prophecy shows not just a leader going to that place, but all of God’s faithful people going there together. Daniel 12:8-11 paint a similar picture. We are all in this together; we leave together and are taken to a place of safety together. Verse 11 says, “And from the time that the daily [the Work of God] shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.” Subtracting the 1,260
THE NEW THRONE OF DAVID
days we are in the place of safety from this 1,290 days indicates we have 30 days to get to a place of safety, and all of us go together.
And notice verse 10: “Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried ….” God wants us to be purified. I think that has a lot to do with us having the new throne of David. God wants a purified throne and a pure people when He arrives!
Verses 12-13 talk about the wonderful ending of all this: It is leading right into the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, when He receives the throne of David!
Amos 7 tells us when we go to the place of safety. There you see a priest, Amaziah, telling the king, Jeroboam, about God’s prophet. There is a confrontation, and the priest does the dirty work. He tells God’s prophet, “O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there”
(verse 12). This is spiritual Antiochus—Satan incarnate!
All indications are that this is how the nobility of Israel will go:
We will be outcasts, sent to a cave! But we have the very throne of David! We don’t look to things or to people—we look to God!
It doesn’t matter where we go as long as God is directing us!
In its account of the history of Jeremiah rescuing Zedekiah’s daughter to transplant the throne, the Bible never mentions him taking a stone. We know he did because it is a symbol of David’s throne. Jeremiah had to have the coronation stone—after all, he was taking the throne of David to Ireland! Mr. Armstrong proved from Irish history that when Jeremiah came to Ireland with Tea-Tephi, he had an ark, David’s harp and a stone called lia-fail.
But these last three items were not mentioned in the book of Jeremiah when it discusses the king’s daughters. The same is true in Micah: It mentions a king but doesn’t say anything about the stone. As with Jeremiah, that is covered elsewhere. But we need the symbol of David’s throne, and we need somebody to rule from it!
We must spiritually nurture the throne of God that is in our presence in every way we possibly can! God has given it to us to care for it and to be responsible for it.
THE NEW THRONE OF DAVID
Realize that God has made a major change! We are not an insignificant remnant. Soon we will be sitting on David’s throne with Christ! That is our future!
God has just said, I am going to lift you to a higher level. I want you to recognize that and take on this responsibility. He wouldn’t give it to us if He didn’t think we could do it! This should tell you a lot about who you are!
We cannot overemphasize how great this is—and how wonderful that God would honor us with this opportunity!
Surely as a result, God will empower us more and more in a very short span of time.
‘IS THERE NO KING IN YOU?’
Later in Micah there is another proof about the king: “And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem. Now why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no king in thee? …” (Micah 4:8-9). This is speaking to God’s lukewarm people. There is no king among them!
But realize: The Laodiceans do have access to the pcg—the door is open if they would just take the strait and narrow path, and enter the gate here. In the pcg, there is a king who is led and directed by God! That is what makes it all happen: The king is nothing apart from God. Not one of us is! But God is telling the Laodiceans that they have access to a king—if only they would accept it!
Sadly, 95 percent of God’s people want nothing to do with that. What is going to happen to those people? “[P]angs have taken thee as a woman in travail. Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion … and thou shalt go even to Babylon …”
(verses 9-10). They are going to experience a cauldron of nuclear fire! Why? Because they won’t follow God and the king.
It is not easy to follow God. But look at the calamity that will befall those who don’t want God to guide and direct them! God
THE NEW THRONE OF DAVID
is telling them, If you won’t follow my government, you will not be going to Adullam, and you won’t be protected!
Again, in Micah 2:13, there is “their king … and the Lord on the head of them.” The Head of all this is Jesus Christ, not some man. But you don’t see Jesus Christ. You do see a king, or a human leader whom God is using, and you follow him as he follows Christ. The Laodiceans are not willing to follow, and they will suffer horrendously as a result.
When Mr. Armstrong was alive, many people in God’s Church looked to him—not God. Then, when he died, they didn’t know what to do. You had better be sure that doesn’t happen to you.
You must not look to a man.
Remember, God’s ministers are “compassed with infirmity”
(Hebrews 5:2)—and that includes evangelists and apostles. We struggle just like you. We are surrounded by problems and difficulties. We fight the same battles that you do. In that way, we are all in this together! You had better not look to one of us because we are not going to get you anyplace—unless we are following Christ, and then we’ll be a great help to you! But it is your responsibility to know if we get off track. If you look to a man, something could happen to him, and you could be misled.
But if you look to Christ, and something happens to the man He is using, you just carry on following Christ! We all must learn this lesson deeply!