The Gathering Principle, Part 1

Texas Gathering, Part Sixteen
The Gathering Principle, Part 1

I thought since we just sang about the gathering and we’re gathered here I’d talk some about the Gathering Principle. I’ve written a book on it called “The Gathering of Lights.’ How many people have read that book? Great, a number of you. What did you think of that book, Larry? Larry, what would you say is the principle of gathering? How would you state it in a few sentences?

Larry: The general idea, as I understand it, is that there are all these people on the Earth who are the lights. As they come together, closer and closer together, instead of being individual little lights hidden by the dark, they start to coalesce into a brighter and brighter light. Everybody has their light. When we coalesce into this light we set an example to the rest of humanity.

Elly: Jesus is the light and I am. I am so we are. We are because Christ is in us.

JJ: A lot of people don’t realize it but Jesus attempted the Gathering. The Gathering is actually talked about more in the scriptures than just about any other principle – all throughout the scriptures, Assaf might realize that a little. Have you noticed that the gathering is talked about a lot in the Jewish scriptures?

Assaf: I’m not so familiar with it. Remind me where.

JJ: Okay, the first great gathering was Moses. Moses gathered the children of Israel out from the land of Egypt. When he gathered them together out of the land of Egypt the Pharaoh didn’t want to let them go. When I first saw the movie, The Ten Commandments, when I was a kid I wondered “what is the Pharaoh’s problem?” Just let those people go! Why wouldn’t he let them go? I couldn’t understand this. The plagues came and even after this he still wouldn’t let them go. Then after he lost his only son, or his first born, he still wouldn’t let them completely go. He still went after them. Why did he want those Hebrews to stay with him? They seemed to be a thorn in the side from what I could tell. Why did the Pharaoh not want to let his people go?

Audience: Inaudible.

JJ: Right, free labor. Let’s suppose the same thing happened today. Let’s suppose the hard-working, tax-paying people of the country decided to gather out and go somewhere else and all the people living off the tax payers had to work for themselves. Do you think the same thing would happen? Do you think the new Pharaoh might say, “I’m not letting you guys go!”

Audience: Inaudible.

JJ: It’s interesting, in the book of Isaiah it’s written, “Behold, my people are sold again into slavery but this time they were sold without money. They went freely.” They went freely into slavery and they are sold without money. In the old days slaves were sold for money. You got money out of going into slavery. If you sold a kid into slavery, you got money for him. But Isaiah says it’s peculiar in this coming age. He says people will be sold into slavery but they won’t get any money for going into slavery. They’ll go on their own free will.

Audience: Inaudible. Laughter.

JJ: A labor of love isn’t slavery though. Where you’re forced to work for somebody else or do what you don’t want to do, that is slavery. Right now the average person has to pay about 50% of his money in taxes if everything is added up. Now a lot of it is subtle things. Larry bought some wine for us and paid a bunch of tax on that. You buy gasoline and you pay tax on that. You buy cigarettes and pay taxes on that. There are lot of subtle taxes that even people below the poverty line, that don’t pay income tax, pay taxes on. Plus the lottery is geared against us for the lower income people. They pay a lot of money to the state on that. It would be a lot better odds to go play poker with your friends.

Audience: Unless you live in a state where the lottery money really goes to the schools.

Audience: Inaudible discussion.

JJ: Overall the average person pays over 50% of what he earns to the government. Even in the worst times, in ancient times, very few people paid over 25%. In ancient times a lot of people in slavery got to keep over 50% of what they earned. Lots of times a guy would have a slave who had a side business on his own and he’d have to give 40 or 50% to his boss but the boss let the slave do what he wanted with the rest of it. If the average person pays 50% of his money to the government now–the only advantage we have now over ancient times is that there is more money in circulation. But as far as the percentages go, many other nations are worse than the United States. In some foreign countries it’s more than 50%. France is terrible for taxation.

Assaf: I find it interesting that a slave should be set free after seven years. He shouldn’t remain as a slave after seven years. If he chooses to remain slave… (Talking about Jewish tradition)

JJ: Was that among the Israelites though? I don’t think the Egyptians let them go after seven years.

Assaf: No, in Moses’ time.

JJ: Yea, they even had slaves among the ancient Israelites, didn’t they?

Assaf: But if the slaves chose to remain after seven years, their ears were to be pierced as a sign that he chose to remain a slave.

JJ: Let’s suppose we had a society where people were free to take their surplus money and use it in a way that they saw fit to help humanity. Do you think you could make better use of 50% of your income than the government could? That way you wouldn’t have to have $100 toilet seats bought by the government when you could buy it for $5, right?

Audience: Inaudible.

JJ: Here is what happens in the history of the world. In the history of the world a civilization springs up, whether it be Atlantis, Lemuria or many smaller civilizations in between. They spring up and the authorities squeeze their people tighter and tighter and tighter until finally people begin to gather out from that system. They gather out from that system and they create a better system. When they create a better system the old system begins to fall apart. The old system is always against the new system beginning. So, Moses was commanded to gather out the people from Egypt and the Pharaoh resisted very strongly because these guys were their bread and butter. All the Egyptians were taking it easy and the Hebrews were doing all the hard work. If we compare it to our time it’s like the Hebrews are the big tax payers and the modern day Egyptians are those who are having the easy life living off of them and the government bureaucracy. So the modern day Egyptians are the government bureaucracies. The modern day Hebrews are the small independent business people who are struggling and working like crazy to make ends meet while paying the taxes.

Keith: A scripture that’s related to taxes-I think it is because governments and churches have always used it as an excuse to tax people-that is “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” I don’t know exactly what it is that belongs to Caesar.

JJ: The powers that be are the modern Caesar. If Christ were to be here among us He would tell us the same thing, “Render to Caesar, the things that are Caesar’s.” We live in a system where we are taxed. Because we live in the system and operate under the system we should pay our taxes. So, that’s why I pay my taxes, because I render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. On the other hand, it would be nice to be able to legally get out from under all the burden of the taxes in the system and the powers that be and the authorities that boss us around and lawmakers who make all sorts of laws that are not necessary for us because we don’t need all the laws. We could take 90% of the laws that all the nations have and dump them in the ocean and be a lot better off. Do we need to be commanded on every little detail in our life? Whenever there is a problem the government passes a couple hundred new laws and nobody can even remember what they are until they want to go after somebody. Then they can find some law to give rebels some grief.

Audience: I just want to make a quick point. Most of us are in this system don’t realize it but we have voluntarily contracted to be in that system and do that. It’s very interesting when you start to research it and see what you find out.

JJ: In the IRS handbook it does say taxes are voluntary but eventually they’ll probably pass something to do away with that voluntary aspect. A number of people try to get out of them and usually wind up in trouble. It’s not really worth it so because of that I pay my taxes. I attempt to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s but I also like the idea of moving somewhere else, another sphere or space, where I’m not subject to Caesar. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Eventually the kingdom of God will be established here upon this earth. The kingdom of God will be in this world but not of this world until the world conforms to the kingdom of God then the kingdom of God and the world will be one. The will of God will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.

So, I’m going to talk about the principle of gathering and the basic idea behind this. Like I say, the governments rise up and put the squeeze on the people. The people become more and more like the Hebrew slaves of ancient times and the time of Moses. Then something happens and the people who see the clearest, the lights, are gathered out. Then a correspondent of the Pharaoh rises up and he tries to stop this. He’s unable to stop it and eventually a new kingdom is born. Then the new kingdom flourishes eventually begins to disintegrate and turn into the same type of bureaucracy the old kingdom. When this happens the lights are gathered out again and a new kingdom is born. This keeps happening over and over on various levels. The greatest gatherings, though, have been the gatherings for spiritual purposes. The most prominent one we know about from history is Moses. Moses gathered out the lights based on the guidance of a higher power.

Delivered by J.J. Dewey Sunday, May 26, 2002 Wimberly Texas

Copyright By J J Dewey

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