Introduction
     Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a very important figure in the civil rights movement during the 1950’s and 1960’s in America because he, among many others – some who paid the price for their efforts with their lives – sought to break down barriers among peoples of different racial cultures. In Dr. King’s August, 1963, National Monument speech in Washington D.C., he expressed his aspirations for a unified people in his “I Have A Dream” address.
    Many people thought Dr. King’s work only a civil rights endeavor to encourage and uplift African-Americans, but Yahweh was also using him to prepare the process for people in every culture and tongue to receive the Kingdom of Yahweh.
    Though King may not have fully understood what he espoused, he desired to see the dissolution of the “difference in nature” character of religious institutions … and the day, on which we as a people would one day join hands in the spirit of unity and in the bond of peace and sing with one voice, the words of that old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, thank Yahweh Almighty, we are free at last” – a freedom for which our Savior Yahshua, like Dr. King in 1968, offered His life as the Supreme Sacrifice.

Unity Characterizes Yahweh’s People
     From before the creation of the world, Yahweh had predestined some whom He has called and chosen (Rom. 8:29-30) to reveal through His Son, Yahshua the Messiah, His magnificent. He sent His Son, and all will believe in Him and obey His Commandments are become by covenant, a special, peculiar people whom also, He will conform into the image of His Son – a special, peculiar people, set apart for His specific purposes.
    Bought with the price of Innocent Blood … the shed blood of Yahshua, Who was obedient even to death; Who manifested Yahweh’s love for a sin-ridden world; and Who became an acceptable atonement for man’s sin, this special, peculiar people are set apart by their faith in, and obedience to, His Word and are set to emulate Yahshua’s example in word, behavior, love, spirit, faith, and purity … as a light shining in a dark place, and are determined both to save themselves and whosoever would call upon His Name.
    These same special, peculiar, set-apart people are united with their Savior, through denying themselves; suffering the loss of all things, if necessary, in order to gain the excellency of the knowledge of their Savior; and, moreover, they have these two additional things in common: (1) in striving for the masteries, they’ve reckoned themselves to be dead to continuing in sin, declaring the life they live, they now live by the faith of the Son of Yahweh; and (2) they’ll not seek their own, but every one the other’s prosperity, each making supply of his abundance to meet the need of those in want that there might be equity with the outcome that the whole body is furnished by that which every member provides.
    Indeed, this last attribute so characterized the first Assemblies, that the Body of Messiah made increase of itself by the mutual love each had for the other, so that the Sovereign Head of the Body added daily to its membership such as should be saved.

Ecumenicity, not Synonymous with Unity
     In the Savior Yahshua’s Gethsemane prayer (John 17), He prayed no fewer than three times, that His disciples, then and now, would be one even as He and His Father are One – Oneness, in mind, in speech, in judgment.
    However, only a few years after His death and resurrection, doctrinal strife among members of the first Assemblies compromised this undertaking for unity. And the last two millennia have witnessed a proliferation of false apostate ways under the guise of denominations, well exceeding the 10,000 instructors-in-Messiah given by the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 4:15) and which have corrupted, deceitfully handled, and made private interpretations of the Word of Yahweh so that what we have to today, in Catholic and protestant Christianity, scarcely resembles that which was inaugurated on that solemn Pentecost when one-hundred twenty were assembled with one accord, in one place (Acts 2:1-4).
    And though some have sought ecumenicity among themselves, this undertaking has largely been unsuccessful as the parties thereto, continue to agree to disagree on non-negotiable, core doctrines – disagreement which has produced the unintended outcome that some who might, as they who inquired of the Apostle Paul,
    “Thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. … May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?” (Acts 17:20, 19, the King James Version used throughout).
    withdraw (as well they should), their curiosity dampened by confusion as the others different by nature, but united in mission, profess themselves all, having come out of the same Book, but “how could that be?”
    At the root of this schism is self-righteousness, mixed with damnable heresies and doctrines of demons thrown in with the hypocrisy of them who think themselves somewhat in conference with Almighty Yahweh; of them who exhibit a form of piety, but who privately deny the power thereof. Better, had they in a pure conscience, held the mystery of the faith that was once delivered to the saints and not treasured to themselves the revelation of the righteous judgment of Elohim.

Self-righteousness
     Self-righteousness is a form of idolatry, because such who are self-righteous rob Yahweh of the reverence which is His due. In ancient times, Israel was called to be a witness among the nations which were wholly given over to idolatry – defined as a blind and excessive devotion to a material deity (ies). Israel was also called to exemplify the righteousness of Yahweh through their obedience to Covenant Law; to illustrate the blessedness that comes from serving the one, true Elohim; to preserve the Divine revelation; and, to become messengers for Yahweh among the nations.
    Today, in the 21st century nothing has changed. Very many are given over to blind and excessive devotion to material deities … e.g., technolatry ~ (“What’s in your hand?”). Nevertheless, the special, peculiar, set-part people are still being called to separate themselves from the cares and chaos of this world and the affairs of this life, and from such which distract and bring them into bondage; to exemplify the righteousness of Yahweh through their obedience to Covenant Law; to illustrate the blessedness that comes from serving the One, True Elohim; to preserve the Divine revelation; and, to become messengers among the nations for Yahshua: the Way, the Truth, the Life and the Head of the corner and Creator of a special, peculiar, set-apart people.
    And all this while, until the consummation of all things which have been prophesied to come, a special, peculiar, set-apart people are discharging their commission, the self-righteous continue to position themselves at enmity against the Law of Yahweh and make themselves to become, therefore, aliens from the commonwealth of the Kingdom and strangers to the Covenant of Promise.
    These are the same whom Master Yahshua upbraided as hypocrites and blind guides, teaching the traditions of men for the commandments of Yahweh, and thus making the commandments of Yahweh of none effect by their traditions.
    Ironically, they, disobedient and lawless, and asserting the Law’s been blotted out, taken out of the way, and nailed to a cross (Col. 2:14), are exactly the same for whom the Law was made. (Read 1 Timothy 1:9-10.)

The Seven “Ones”
     There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Sovereign, one faith, one baptism, one Elohim and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in you all, Ephesians 4:4-6

    and about Whom, we may say further, changes not; is sure and steadfast, an anchor to the soul and with Whom there is neither variableness, nor shadow of turning; Who ever abides true and faithful, the same yesterday as He is today, and Who will likewise be the Same tomorrow and by Whom, the special, peculiar, set-apart people of Yahshua’s Body, are exhorted to walk worthy of the vocation to which they’ve been called; with all lowliness and meekness – exactly the opposite of being puffed up with knowledge – with longsuffering (patience) forbearing one another in love (that singular barometer by which those outside of this Holy Fraternity will know His disciples), always endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit (oneness, in mind, speech, judgment, 1 Cor. 1:10) in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:1-3) and thus, precluding that any should ask, “How many churches did Yahshua die for, anyway?”
    Oh, if men of religion would behold how good and how pleasant it could be to dwell together in the Oneness of Yahweh and Yahshua – oneness, free of contention and striving about words to no profit and the envy and tumultuous swellings that follow – then they might just be transformed from being strangers and foreigners to becoming fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of Elohim.

Conclusion: The Day is at Hand
     Martin Luther King, Jr., came with a message of unity, and looked toward the day, when the Negro would not be judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. And though the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the result of his, and many others, too, some who, like King, spent and became spent, what was accomplished by legislation could not be said to have fully achieved unity.
    Why? because unity, or in Scriptural parlance, oneness in mind, speech, and judgment can only be realized by a people, any people, yielding and submitting to a Spiritual work in which one is renewed in the spirit of his mind; a Spiritual work in which a man’s thoughts and a man’s ways are one with Yahweh’s thoughts and Yahweh’s ways.
    Today, therefore, Yahweh is speaking the same message He spoke three millennia ago:

    “Today if ye will hear His voice, harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My work. … (For He saith … ‘behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation’ ”) (Psa. 95:7, 8, 9; 2 Cor. 6:2).

    While the world knows not its day of visitation, neither the beginning of sorrows, Yahweh’s special, peculiar, set-apart people are forward-looking … for the joy that is set before them, they await, anticipating the times of refreshing come from the presence of the Sovereign; anticipating the time of the restitution of all things; anticipating the time of reformation, when former things are past, and all things become new and a people can sign with one accord,

“Free at last, thank Yahweh El Shaddai, we are free at last.”