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Cosmic warfare, Part 2

The earth orbits the sun like a cosmic carousel. If we are observant, we, as riders, may observe our surroundings with each circuit. Each time that we return to the same place, we see many of the same people, but many of them have shifted their position. We see the same baby crying, the same boys fighting or competing, and those who are just walking past us disappear from view and are replaced by others.

I have found that this is a good way to explain spiritual warfare. It explains why so many events in spiritual warfare seem to repeat about the same time of the year. Yet there are also shifts and changes as new people pass by the carousel. Each time we go around, we find ourselves repeating a pattern with certain changes that reflect a progression of events. Or we find ourselves in another spiritual battle that continues the previous one that we had fought earlier on the same battlefield.

Sometimes we see the same battle, but from a different vantage point, as if we were able to fight the same battle in two different locations at the same time.

It is strange, because it requires us to think outside of the box. To understand it, we must develop the ability to think outside of time and space and to see multiple events as if they were all happening at the same time and in the same place. In other words, the original spiritual battle in 1981-1982 is the same battle that was seen in later years on the same dates.

It is not an easy task to train our minds to see things in this way. It is even more difficult to translate spiritual events into the earthly, and vice versa. When we see a spiritual event, we must look for its earthly manifestation. When we see an earthly event, we can often understand it according to what we see occurring in the spiritual or heavenly realm—either at the same point in time, or linked by a revealed time cycle.

This is what God thrust me into 31 years ago. Each time we find ourselves in the same pattern as in previous years, we are able to obtain another fragment of the big picture. It has taken many years to gather fragments of these spiritual events and to piece them together.

My introduction came in 1981 with the first warfare of the Net of Prayer, which lasted from November 12, 1981 to January 27, 1982. It lasted 76 days and later became my first known example of the 76-day cycle of cleansing that we see every year. To me, that first 76-day cycle brought me into death and despair, and a year later the same cycle repeated, but reversed the pattern, bringing me into resurrection life.

Of course, there were key dates within those 76-day periods which marked progressive steps in the overall purpose of the cycle.

In 1985-1986 we saw the same cycle play out again, as the carousel of history rolled around to that same time of the year. This time, Pastor Red Thomas walked out the pattern. It was so obvious by the first of December 1985 that I was able to predict that on December 30 he would resign from the church that he pastored. This was easy, because we had left the church in Las Cruces on December 30, 1981, physically leaving town.

Likewise, I was able to predict that Pastor Thomas would receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit on January 27, 1986, because that date in 1982 had marked the end of the prayer battle. I even knew the pastor who would lay hands on him to receive the Spirit, because I had already anointed him with the authority to raise the dead at the beginning of the cycle, November 10, 1985. Thus, when he came to town, I knew that we were supposed to have a meeting and to invite Pastor Thomas to receive the Holy Spirit. He came, and he did receive this baptism, which he had resisted all of his life up to that point.

The main difference between him and me was that my death spiral took a full year to accomplish, because I did not experience resurrection until the same dates a year later. Pastor Thomas’ experience crunched death and resurrection into a single cycle, for he “died” in late December 1985 and was “resurrected” by the Holy Spirit a month later on January 27, 1986.

In 1994 we had a prayer campaign called “His Fulness” on January 27-30, 1994. It was a prayer to receive the fulness of the Holy Spirit, according to the pattern seen with Pastor Thomas on the same date in 1986. Paul tells us in Romans 8:11,

¹¹ But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.

In other words, it is the Holy Spirit who gives life, whether it is applied to the soul (as in the baptism of the Holy Spirit) or the body (as in resurrection).

All of this is important, because we are currently walking out the same cycle. My eight-day green juice fast from November 6 through 13 prepared me (and all of us) for this. Green signifies life, resurrection, and regeneration. Likewise, November 13 was the 318^th day of the year, which connects it to the 318 men in Abraham’s household of faith (Genesis 14:14).

On December 1^st, the woman went missing, as I explained in the previous weblog. It was one of the key dates from past years, so it did not take long to make the connection. What was new was to see its connection to Revelation 12:1 (or, 12/1 on the calendar). We made the connection on the night of December 9, when we were led to go before the Divine Court and inquire about what to do. God said to dispatch Michael for her protection (and for our protection as well). Later that night I realized that we were seeing the Revelation 12 pattern emerging, and that this meant we would “overcome” on December 11. Why? Because Revelation 12:11 says,

¹¹ And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even to death.

My contact emailed me this morning to let me know that the woman called him on the 12^th, but actually, she had returned on the 11^th. She was just too busy to contact him until the 12^th. So that pattern turned out to be exact.

There are other watch dates ahead, but I do not expect this warfare to end until January 27, 2013. Keep in mind that even after the victory in Revelation 12:11, the war continued. Verse 13 says,

¹³ And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child.

However, we then read in verse 16 that “the earth helped the woman.” I am not sure which portion of the earth will provide help, but it will probably be in the place where the woman is located (not in America). It is also possible that we might see this pattern extended into Revelation 13. I do not know yet, but spiritual history tends to adopt the patterns written in Scripture.

One of the original historical patterns was seen in the time surrounding the birth of Christ. He was, of course, the primary “Manchild” that the woman brought forth in Revelation 12. In the Nativity story, Mary played the role of the woman, Jesus was the son, and King Herod was the red dragon.

Herod was half Edomite. Edom means “red.” He attempted to “devour” the child as soon as He was born. That is, he killed the children of Bethlehem shortly after the wise men arrived on December 25. Jesus was already about three months old at the time. The wise men were warned in a dream to return home by another route. Joseph too was warned in a dream to escape to Egypt until the death of Herod.

We know from history that Herod died January 28, because the people established that date as a festival for a short period of time. Not long after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, a Jewish document was written, called Megillath Taanith, “Scroll of Fasting.” It mentions two semi-festival days on Kislev 7 and on Schebat 2. The first corresponds to December, while the second corresponds to January.

An early Jewish commentator who probably lived in the seventh century wrote a brief remark to Kislev 7 (December 5^th): “The day of Herod’s death.” However, M. Moise Schwab felt that it was really the second of the days, Schebat 2 (January 28^th) that was the actual day commemorating Herod’s death.

[The Star that Astonished the Word, Ernest L. Martin, p. 151 of the second edition]

This date coincides almost precisely with our own time cycle, which ought to end January 27, 2013. This may provide confirmation that the red dragon might be fully overcome on January 27 or 28.

Herod’s death allowed Joseph and Mary to return to Judea for Passover. No doubt they remembered that Passover was when Israel had come out of Egypt under Moses (Matt. 2:15).

There is no doubt that the biblical patterns keep repeating, even in our own day. Recall that on October 29, 2012 we entered into the first of two cycles of 76 days each. These will end Saturday, March 30, which is the day between Good Friday and Easter (wave-sheaf offering). So we are still in the early days of the current cycle and will have to wait until we see how things unfold. This is a progressive revelation, so we are still functioning with an early view.