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My journey into the prophetic realm, part 8

In February 1985 Chuck (of the Net of Prayer) received revelation that he was to bring into the world that which had been won in the heavens in Operation Clean Sweep the previous July. To do this, he was to drive to the earthly cities over which we had fought in the heavens, from Chicago to Corpus Christi. God called this “The Greater Work.”

The first order of business was to remove from the earth those who had opposed the coming revival in the heavens.

When I read this in a newsletter, I knew immediately that if something did not change soon, the pastor in Phoenix was in grave danger and could even die. The fact that his health was not good added weight to my sense of dread.

Chuck’s trip was delayed for a few months, due to lack of funds. We know, of course, that God always provides for that which He commissions, and so it was clear that lack of funding was His way of delaying the trip to the appointed time. If we understand this, we are able to submit to the sovereignty of God with patience and learn to rest in Him, rather than blame the people for not giving enough to the ministry.

The delay continued into the month of May. Meanwhile, we held two prayer campaigns. In April we held the “My People prayer campaign,” and in May the “Nail and Hammer prayer campaign.”

Nail and Hammer

The Nail and Hammer prayer campaign was actually held on June 5 but made effective on May 25. This was an unusual prayer campaign, because we saw the results (on May 25) before we actually held the prayer campaign (on June 5). It was my first real experience in seeing how God could manipulate time to accomplish His will.

Chuck had received revelation of a hurricane (or cyclone) that would devastate the land and kill thousands of people on May 25. However, in those days there was no internet, so communications were slow. In that case there was no time to alert the prayer warriors before the actual event. So God instructed Chuck to hold the campaign on June 5 and make it retroactive to May 25.

God had not given the NOP full authority to deal with these problems, because the church alone had the authority to deal with those problems. We were like David fighting the battles of Saul while Saul was still king. The “Saul” church was still alive, because Saul did not “die” until May 30, 1993—the 40^th Jubilee of the church since the day of Pentecost in Acts 2.

The 40-year reign of Saul was a prophetic type and shadow of the church’s 40 Jubilee cycles under the Pentecostal anointing. Recall that the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul, making him a type of Pentecostal (1 Samuel 10:6, 10). Then he was actually crowned king on the day of “wheat harvest” (1 Samuel 12:17), which was later called by the Greek term, Pentecost.

Because the NOP had limited authority, we knew that we could not stop the hurricane, nor could we prevent many from being killed. We could only divert it. So on May 25, a great cyclone hit Bangla-desh, which killed 40,000 people and left a quarter of a million people homeless. We then held the actual prayer campaign on June 5, having already seen the results earlier.

Funding for “The Greater Work”

Chuck’s mission trip to Corpus Christi was called “The Greater Work.” On April 12 a few from the company where I was working as a typesetter drove to Chicago to attend a printing show, as the president intended to buy printing presses and other equipment to set up a print shop. Chuck lived in Chicago, so we met with him that evening.

Chuck had been led to purchase a few lottery tickets that day, based on his revelation that April 12 was 4-12, and that 412 (by his revelation) was the number of divine intervention. The Illinois lottery that evening drew the number 1412 in its “pick four” drawing. Chuck won $21,600, which I see today as significant with the number 216. (I have written many times in past studies about this number.)

Such large winnings, however, could not be collected from the individual store where he had purchased the tickets. He had to wait for the state to send him checks. He finally received the money on May 22^nd. Hence, by divine intervention, The Greater Work was funded just prior to the Nail and Hammer prayer campaign.

God then gave him the date to leave on that trip: June 6, the day after the prayer campaign. Chuck immediately sat down and wrote a newsletter informing the NOP of this plan. When I heard of it, I then knew that the Phoenix pastor’s life was in danger on June 6. I prayed often, hoping for a last-minute solution, but in this matter, the heavens were as brass.

Taking a Holiday

I knew that I would not be able to focus on my typesetting work, so on June 6 I took a vacation day to a town in the Ozarks called Mountain View. It was only about 30 miles from Batesville, and they were having a music festival that day. My wife and I spent the day walking around the shops and listening to the folk music in front of many shops.

Finally, toward the end of the afternoon, we decided to take a tour at Blanchard Springs Cavern on the north side of town. We arrived just before 4 pm and were told that the last tour group was just then walking toward the cave. We hurried to join them and walked with them deep into the earth. At the bottom, at 4:20 pm we stopped next to a huge boulder that had fallen from the ceiling thousands of years ago. There the tour guide turned off all the lights so that we could experience total darkness for a minute.

Then the tour group lined up next to the rock and sang a song called Under the Rock. As it turned out, the group we were following was actually a church choir. Their song was about the Rock that was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4). It was a song of comfort, that no matter what troubles we may experience, our Rock is unmovable. It was 4:30 pm.

I did not immediately understand the prophetic significance in this event or in this song, but I discovered it the next day.

The Beginning of The Greater Work

While we were in the cavern in Mountain View, Chuck was in Chicago making final preparations to begin his trip. He finally left the house at 4:20 pm and drove to a nearby Circle K to officially begin his trip. There he prayed (as instructed) to remove from the earth those who had opposed the coming revival. Then he struck the earth with his staff at 4:30 pm (CST), got back into his car and began driving out of Chicago toward St. Louis.

The Phoenix Pastor

In the next few weeks, we learned that three pastors died that day, who had opposed the Holy Spirit. I only knew of one. I learned that he had died of a heart attack while being treated for cancer in Mexico. The heart attack, I was told, occurred at 3:20 pm in Mexico, which was 4:20 pm CST. He then died ten minutes later at 3:30 pm (or 4:30 pm CST).

I then understood the song in the cave. My interpretation is that God had led us deep into the earth to simulate a grave. The darkness at the bottom seemed to portray the hopeless condition of death. But when the lights came back on, the song Under the Rock was sung by the church choir. It was a message of hope.

The message of hope to me was that the Phoenix pastor was Under the Rock, that is, he was under the care of our Rock, Jesus Christ. Moses wrote in Deuteronomy 32:31,

³¹ Indeed, their rock is not like our Rock, even our enemies themselves judge this.

Six years later, when I learned about the laws of time, I began to see how Cursed Time (414 days) had affected me from December 5, 1981 to January 23, 1983. That was how God dealt with me for being in a calling that was not mine. But the principle also works in reverse, for people can also be placed on Cursed Time for standing in the way of someone’s calling.

In this case, I had heard that the Phoenix pastor had vowed to see to it that I would never again be in the ministry. Apparently, he thought I was incorrigible, an opinion that is held by some to this day. In those days I was young and certainly made many mistakes. But I always knew that God was with me, and that I would rise again. God disciplined me quite severely, and I paid my dues. Psalm 40:2, 3 says,

² He brought me out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and He set my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm. ³ He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord.

God works with each of us in a unique manner. God certainly authorized the pastor to expel me from the ministry. Yet he went too far by vowing to keep me from fulfilling my calling. In doing so, he came against God Himself. In standing in the way, and, in that sense, in taking authority over my calling, he took responsibility upon himself for my calling. Hence, he took upon himself a calling that was not his, and this is what proved to be fatal.

Recall that I arrived at my place of exile in the wilderness (Wisconsin) on January 11, 1982. The pastor died 3 x 414 days later on June 6, 1985. Coincidence? While I was disciplined and repented during my 414-day cycle, events prove that he did not.

When I discovered this time cycle in 1991, it helped to explain the events of the past, and I was able to learn more about the function of Cursed Time. It not only applied to me being in a calling that was not mine, but it also applied to those who would take responsibility for another man’s calling by becoming a spiritual block to the will of God.

So ended the first half of the outworking of Operation Clean Sweep. The second half of the story began almost immediately, involving the second pastor, whose identity God had caused me to forget.