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The delayed calling, part 9

Having finally resigned from the Net of Prayer, I came into obedience to the word of the Lord given to me in July 1986. This would allow me to leave Memphis (“Egypt”) a short time later, ending my Egyptian bondage experience.

Recall that a year earlier (1988) I had been given the word that I would return to Arkansas soon and that it would come from a quarter that I was not expecting. The word said that I would receive a telephone call from “My servant” (i.e., a believer) who was to offer me a job.

Later, when I asked about leaving Egypt, I also received the revelation to “call your son,” even as God had called His son (Israel) out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1)—and again when Joseph and Mary took Jesus from Egypt back to the land of Judea (Matthew 2:15). That word also confirmed the eight-day cycle from November 21-29.

This was actually fulfilled a year later on November 29, 1989, when a former co-worker called me on the telephone and offered me a job in Leachville, AR. Derek was a graphic artist in Batesville when I was a typesetter at the same printshop. We had lost touch with each other when he moved away to another job and when I moved to Memphis.

I was literally waiting expectantly for the phone call on November 29, 1989, because it was very clear to me that someone would call that day. Even so, I was surprised to hear Derek’s voice. He explained that the company he worked for in Leachville was in need of someone to manage their graphic arts department and to teach its employees how to set type. He apologized for not thinking of me earlier, not realizing that God had blinded him until the appointed time.

I knew immediately that I should accept this job, and so I went for an interview on December 4, which was the anniversary of the day that the elders had demanded my resignation in 1981. In other words, in 1981 I lost my job as a pastor, but eight years later in 1989 I was given a job. That was an interesting parallel to me.

It took more than a month to find a place to live in Leachville. Meanwhile, I rented a room in town and commuted to work from Memphis, returning on weekends to see my family. Finally, I was told of a house that was for sale, which perhaps the owner might be willing to rent to me. When I talked to him about it, he decided to rent it out, since it had been on the market for a long time with no buyers in sight.

We then moved on Saturday, January 27, 1990, and the address was Rt. 2, Box 76, Leachvile. For the next nine months I worked at Printers and Publishers, owned by Redbook Florists, whose headquarter was in nearby Paragould, MO.

My Jubilee Rest

I worked long hours as the manager of the graphics arts department. Our main job was to typeset ads for Redbook’s 2400-page telephone directory, which was published every two months. We had four typesetters who worked in 12-hour shifts 24 hours a day. With had another dozen paste-up artists as well.

The company was far behind in its work when I first arrived. The typesetters needed training, because my predecessor had not understood the art of typesetting. There was much built-in redundancy, which I soon streamlined to make more efficient. In a monthly meeting of the department managers, they asked me for a report, and so I told them what I done to streamline the work.

But I did not realize that my predecessor was the wife of the vice-president. He was not pleased with my report, as it made his wife look bad. Nonetheless, he said nothing (to me), because the company needed me badly to catch up on the backlog of work.

On August 20, the Lord spoke to me and said, “The work of Restoration is ready to begin.” I was unsure of the meaning of this word, since I was working feverishly to catch up on the work by the end of September. (The company published an extra telephone directory for another florist company once a year in September, creating a double work load for us.)

On August 25 the Lord spoke to me again, saying, “I have redeemed you and have released you from bondage to the world.” I knew then that my job would soon end, and I began to train the typesetters so that they would no longer need me to instruct them. “I won’t be here forever, you know,” I told them.

On September 24 I wrote in my notes: “Decision to move soon. Now know I will not be here beyond one year.”

On September 27, as I was getting the final pages of the telephone directory out the door to the printing department, the boss came to my desk and said, “When you finish up, come to my office.” When I came to his office, he gave me a pink slip, which terminated me. On the slip was written the reason: “Inability to conform to company policies.”

What?? The real reason, I believe, was that the vice-president resented me but was forced to wait until we had fully caught up on the backlog of work. So when we finally finished, that was the end of my job.

But the boss was generous enough to pay me for an extra day of work to finish out the week. I was paid through Friday, September 28. That evening was the start of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and I realized that God had redeemed me and released me on Yom Kippur, the same day that the Jubilee trumpet was to be blown in biblical times.

I had been given my Jubilee “from bondage to the world.”

I continued to look for work, as required to get unemployment checks, but there was nothing available. The art of typesetting was changing. I knew how to operate four different brands of phototypesetting equipment, but desktop publishing was the future. So my career as a typesetter ended just as new technology was arriving. The timing was perfect.

Creation’s Jubilee

Since I could not seem to find another job, I threw my energy into writing Creation’s Jubilee in my Foundation For Intercession bulletins. I had begun writing this monthly bulletin in April 1988 in order to lay foundations of teaching in preparation for These Stones prayer campaign.

Having been given a revelation of the Jubilee in August, I was led to write a series of teachings on the Jubilee. The first of the Creation’s Jubilee series was sent out in late September, just as I was about to lose my job. So I believed that this was what God had assigned me to do, now that I had much more spare time.

I knew that my 12-year training would not end until November of 1993, but I also knew that “the work of Restoration is ready to begin” (August 20, 1990). God had given me a year of hard work therapy to get readjusted and stabilized after the trauma of resigning from the NOP. I assumed that I would get another job, but that was not to happen. Instead, I began to prepare for full-time ministry work.

In February 1991 I decided to work hard to finish the series on Creation’s Jubilee, writing many FFI bulletins ahead of time. (The Gulf War was then being fought in Iraq.) I also began to format these studies into book form. I finally finished on March 14, 1991, and on the same day a check arrived in the mail for $2,000 that was earmarked for printing expenses.

So the next day I drove to Jonesboro and talked to my former boss, Preston Williams, who owned the printshop where I had worked for a season in late 1987. He agreed to print 1,000 copies of Creation’s Jubilee for $2,000.

That same day, I watched Barbara Walters’ interview with Normal Schwartzkopf in his underground headquarters in Saudi Arabia. The war had ended two weeks earlier. It was reported then that his headquarters was called “the dungeon,” and the general was called “the bear.” When he smiled, I saw his gold tooth and remembered the visions I had seen in 1986 of a dungeon in Saudi Arabia and a bear-like beast (the Prince of Persia) with a gold tooth.

This confirmed the visions and gave me understanding of all that I had seen.

On March 16 I received my final unemployment check.

On March 31 I finally received insight that the spiritual battle between Chuck and me in October 1989 was directly connected to the events of the Gulf War in February 1991 by a 490-day cycle. The war had ended on February 28, precisely 490 days after I myself had come into a position of “rest” on October 26, 1989. When our battle concluded, the Gulf War ended 490 days later.

The 490-day cycle also suggested that I was coming into Blessed Time.

When I received another $2,000 check on April 3, 1991, I made the decision to drive to California to visit Lalo Cadona and to learn what he knew about Cursed Time, Blessed Time, and Judged Time. This launched my second project after Creation’s Jubilee, and the following year I was to published Secrets of Time in prophecy, which was later expanded in a larger book called Secrets of Time.

Meanwhile, we published our first edition of Creation’s Jubilee in June of 1991. It became the foundational teaching of God’s Kingdom Ministries.

An Unexpected Early Copy

In January 1991, when I had written about a third of Creation’s Jubilee, Carlos and Shelly received an early copy of the book. I was not to meet them until April of 2000, but in 1991 they were doing music ministry in a church in Champaign, Illinois. A man walked up to Shelly and offered her a book. She took it and (as was her custom) looked at the copyright date. It read, 1994, being the second edition of Creation’s Jubilee. When she looked for the man who gave her the book, he had disappeared.

She rolled her eyes and said, “What kind of a two-bit operation is this? They can’t even get the copyright date correct!” She gave the book to her husband, Carlos, who took it to the office but never read it. They finally moved to a south suburb of Minneapolis in 1999, and I met them a year later.

We shared the idea of the Restoration of All Things with them for the next few months. Finally, in August, Shelly was in her kitchen praying: “Lord, I’m just one of your stupid kids. I really believe this message of Restoration, but I have been fooled before. Please give me some sign or confirmation that this is really true.”

A few minutes later, Carlos came up from the basement, where he had been unpacking books. He came up the stairs looking white as a sheet, holding the book Creation’s Jubilee, which had been given to them in 1991—and which they had never read. Shelly freaked out, realizing that she had received that book more than nine years earlier.

It happened that I came to visit them about a half hour later. She told me the story. Well, of course, my first question is always, “When did this happen?” Timing is my fetish. When she told me that she had received the book in late January of 1991, I told her that I had not even finished writing the book at that time. The first edition was printed in June 1991, and the second edition was published in 1994.

Does anyone else suspect some angelic activity here?

I have heard the story many times and have seen the actual book that the man gave to her in 1991. But I could never tell the story as well as she can. She is the Drama Queen, and we never tire of hearing her tell the story as only she can.