Kingdom of God Born

by John P. Pratt
5 Jan 2019, Trumpets (US), 1 Creation (M), 1 Chief (P), 1 Hes (UH), Tabernacles (UE)

©2019 by John P. Pratt. All rights Reserved.

Index, Home

Contents

1. Predictions 2. What is the Kingdom? 3. Covenant Conference 4. Star Witness 4.1 Fireside 4.2 New Witness 5. Conclusion Notes

The prophesied sign in Virgo in 2017 may have indeed heralded the birth of the Kingdom of God.

In 2017 there was hype among some Christian preachers that the great sign of the Woman, Infant Son, and Dragon prophesied in Rev. 12:1-6 would be fulfilled on that Sat 23 Sep.[1] When I attempted to write an article debunking that theory, it turned instead into one the strongest articles promoting the event as genuine.[2] Why? Because the evidence from sacred calendars was much stronger than what the other authors had been aware of. Figure 1, taken from my article, shows that the day was holy on nine sacred calendars and the holiest day of that year. The Star Calendars were not well enough understood at that time to include them, but it can now be added that the sign was also on two major holy star days: Tabernacles (Star) and Begin Summer (Uniform Star), so it was holy on eleven sacred calendars! Tabernacles (S) is especially significant because it represents birth and occurred on the star day named Damsel in Virgo (η Vir, 15 Vir).

Fig. 1. Sign of Birth of Kingdom of God.
(Click to enlarge)

This article briefly reviews the sign itself, how it has been interpreted, and then suggests that the prediction was indeed fulfilled in an unexpected way which was just understood this week.

Fig. 3. Council of Fifty title page.

While writing my 2016 article on the subject of the great coming sign of 2017, one thing puzzled me. Joseph Smith made an attempt to found the Kingdom of God with the organization of the Council of Fifty. The revelation to found it was given in 1842, but only actually founded in 1844 (see Figure 3).[3] The idea was that this would be the foundational council preparing a political kingdom that would indeed flower into the Kingdom of God which would rule on the earth during the Millennium. The Council lasted some forty years, but was a rather secretive organization which never seemed to amount to much and was finally disbanded. Most LDS members know nothing about it.

What puzzled me was that the sign of the birth of the Kingdom of God at that time occurred in the autumn of 1832 and apparently heralded the first general conference held in the place they called Zion, near Independence, Missouri. To me it looked like the sign was more about the birth of Zion than it was the organization of the political Kingdom of God.

Recently, the answer to this puzzle seems to have crystalized. In one sense, Zion and the Kingdom of God are nearly synonymous. That is, during the Millennium the city of Zion, the New Jerusalem, will be the capital of the Kingdom of God. So which comes first, Zion or the Kingdom? Is not the first requirement to have a people who are of one heart and one mind (Moses 7:18) who can be called Zion? Is not the first step to have a people actively seeking to build Zion as a community of people who have made a personal covenant with God, who then wish to build the city of Zion, which can then become the capital of the political Kingdom of God?

In other words, the reason the sign of the birth of the Kingdom of God was given in 1832 was that it heralded the community of people who were gathering to the land of Zion in hopes of building the city of the New Jerusalem. That was a decade before an actual council was formed to head up the government of the Kingdom.

Now it seems clear that I had been looking for the wrong type of event to have been noticeable as the birth of the Kingdom of God. If one follows the example of 1832, the event should be to find a people who are covenanting with God to keep the laws of the celestial kingdom, to be of one heart and one mind, and to care for the poor. So what is the Kingdom of God? Clearly one requirement is that it must be formed by people to begin with.

Thus, there must first be a covenant people before any other step can be taken. Then, the most likely second step would be for them to found a city called Zion, as was done in 1831 by Joseph Smith, and then a future step would be to actually organize the political kingdom. That step might await the actual return of the Lord to rule the Kingdom. Apparently the events in the days of Joseph the Seer were only a preliminary attempt which now serves to indicate the pattern of events to be expected.

So now the question becomes, in the year of the great sign of 2017, were there a people somewhere making a covenant offered to them by God, who were looking forward for building a city called Zion?

On Sat 2 Sep 2017 a conference of about 800 was convened in Boise, Idaho, with the express hope for each to make an individual covenant which God had offered them to become a Zion people.[4] Most were looking forward to help build the city of Zion in preparation for the Second Coming. That was held in the very month that the sign was given! This is the only such conference of which this author is aware, so it becomes a candidate to be the fulfillment of the sign which is worth considering in some detail.

The leader of the group was Denver C. Snuffer, Jr., who has already been noted in my articles as a good candidate to be the prophesied "David the Servant" (Ezek. 34:23).[5] That observation was based on his message to bring the saints back more to the teachings of Joseph the Seer, but also because his message came right during the seven year FEAST OF TABERNACLES on the Hebrew Calendar and now continues in that same feast on the Enoch Calendar. That time was indicated because it was the same for Joseph the Seer, except that his Zion was during the week of years called PASSOVER, not TABERNACLES. In fact, the date indicated for the birth of his Zion was on Passover in the year PASSOVER (Enoch), being Sat 6 Apr 1833 at the conference in Zion. In other words, the sacred calendars indicate that David the Servant should have already shown up on the scene by now.

Fig. 4. Covenant Offered and Accepted.

The actual covenant was offered on the morning of Sun 3 Sep 2017 at the Egyptian Theater in Boise, Idaho. It had been revealed previously so that those interested could study it carefully to determine whether they wanted to make such a serious commitment. Denver Snuffer read the covenant (see Figure 4) and about 800 people present accepted it. Another 200 accepted it via the live feed on the Internet, so about 1,000 saints formed a potential nucleus to become the people who, if they could truly become of one heart and mind, might be able to found Zion. Was this the birth of the Kingdom of God, prophesied so long ago in the Book of Revelation?

The covenant was basically to accept the scriptures given by the Lord, including those as accepted by Joseph Smith, meaning not only the Book of Mormon and a version of the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants as originally given to Joseph, as well has his Inspired Version of the Bible. It did not specify that all possessions be held in common, but only that covenanters should take of the poor among them, as in Enoch's city Zion (Moses 7:18).

4.1 Conference Fireside

On the evening of Sat 2 Sep 2017, a fireside was given at the Covenant Conference which was based on my research in sacred calendars. First, the sign of the woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, was discussed in detail because it would be given just three weeks after the conference. It was emphasized that it most likely heralded either the birth or rebirth of the Kingdom of God, which should be expected during that coming year, perhaps around Passover, just as discussed in my article on the subject.

Fig. 5. New and old versions of the Infant Prince.

Second, an addition to that article was presented. It was pointed out that not only is the constellation of Virgo giving birth to the planet Jupiter a sign, but also the constellation of the Infant Prince contains a sign. That constellation had been known to the ancient Egyptians, but it was either changed or lost by the Greeks. It shows a woman holding her infant son. The Egyptian version makes it clear that the mother is a queen because she sits on a throne and hence the son is a prince. The Persians about AD 800 also knew the constellation and identified the infant as Jesus Christ. The restored constellation is called the Infant Prince in my work (see Figure 5). In my article describing its discovery and restoration, no mention was made that the infant might represent the Kingdom of God, but rather only Jesus Christ as the Persians had said.[6]

The speaker at the fireside had more insight than was in my original article which had identified the Infant as Jesus Christ. He identified the Infant Prince as the Kingdom of God, born of the Church just as Joseph the Seer had explained about Virgo! That makes perfect sense because that constellation is a decan of Virgo, meaning its purpose is to explain that zodiac constellation. In this case, it clarifies that the Maiden (Virgo) is really a queen and that the Seed she holds is really her Infant Prince.

It seems appropriate to quote his words exactly from the conference transcript because his insight surprised me as this article was being prepared. To me it was a new discovery just this week that the Kingdom would be born at that conference. I had awaited for a year for some event like the Council of Fifty to be announced. Referring to my calendar calculations as his source and to an illustration like Figure 5, he stated:

The star for today is this little star in [the infant's] hand.... It represents the beginning of the kingdom of God. This one here [points to the bright star at the heart of the infant] is what represents the heart of the Kingdom of God.... This is not about the birth of Jesus; this is the birth of the Kingdom of God.

4.2 New Witness

Fig. 6. Infant Prince stars.

Just over a month ago a major revision was made to the Star Calendar. Three new rules were discovered which determine the precise order of the stars, which previously had been ordered only by longitude. One of those rules is that stars within an object must be on consecutive star days if they are close enough in longitude.[7] There are two "objects" in the Infant Prince: the mother and son. The reordering caused the two stars in the Infant to be moved slightly. The (hopefully) final correct ordering is that the star in the hand of the Infant (named Joy) was on the day before the conference, when some preliminary activities were held. The star day of the conference, from noon Saturday to noon Sunday, was the star named "Holy Son" in my work, the star at the heart of the Infant Prince! It is a fairly bright star which was identified in the fireside as "the heart of the Kingdom of God". The star is about as bright as those in the Big Dipper and it can be found near the center of the circle which would contain the Big Dipper handle (see Figure 6).

Thus, it now appears that my search for the event which was the actual birth of the Kingdom of God as heralded by the great sign in the heavens prophesied by John the Revelator was not correctly targeted. The required first event for the birth of the Kingdom of God was the creation of a covenant people who could then build Zion and the Kingdom. Thus, it is here proposed that the birth of the Kingdom of God occurred at the Covenant Conference held on the very day of the birth star of the Infant Prince!

Notes