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The rise of the house of David, part 10

In June 1996 we drove to Minneapolis, spending a week there, teaching and visiting friends and family. We spent one day at a lake, visiting relatives, and my wife remarked, “It feels like home.” Little did we know that God would soon move us to Minneapolis.

We returned to Lynnwood, Washington on Wednesday, June 26, and held our usual house meeting the following Sunday, June 30. Our custom in those days was for the group to meet all afternoon from 1-5 p.m., but usually, some people would stay to pray or fellowship for a few more hours.

This time was no exception. Two of the ladies wanted to pray for us after the meetings, and when they did, the Lord spoke to me, telling me that we were to move. My wife and I did not have an opportunity to discuss this until later that night after everyone finally left the house. When I brought up the subject, my wife then told me that she had received the same word.

Though it was confirmed, we decided to give ourselves another week to see if it would grow in our hearts or disappear. The word remained clear and grew more specific.  On Monday we knew that we were to move to Minneapolis. On Tuesday a prophet from Australia was in Minneapolis and gave the word: “It’s time,” and that the overcomers need to operate in God’s timing, not the world’s timing.

On Friday, July 5, as I was looking through my notes, I noticed that ten years earlier, on July 5, 1986, I had received a revelation: “My people on the move.” In those days I often received words from the Lord which answered my questions in later years. For this reason, if I sought answers or confirmation, the first thing I did was to consult my records to see if God had given me the answer before the question arose. Very often, I found His answers that were given in a past year on the same date as when the question arose.

On Sunday, July 7, I announced to the gathering that we would be leaving in a month. We physically left Lynnwood on August 5, 1996. This was 980 days from the Jubilee Prayer Campaign (November 29, 1993), and, of course, 980 is 2 x 490, the “Blessed Time” factor. The timing indicated that the timing was set by God’s calendar.

A Final Mission

As we were preparing to leave Washington, we were led to take a ferry ride to Vancouver Island to visit Margaret Price. She had called me on July 11, and so we arranged to make the trip from July 15-17. We took the ferry on July 15 and spent the next day as tourists in Victoria, not realizing until later that this was a sign of Victory. After all, we did not even realize that we were in a spiritual battle, so the idea of being victorious did not occur to us at that time.

The evening of July 16 we finally arrived at Margaret’s house to spend the night. She then told us that since the last time we had communicated, a spirit of Python had attacked her feet. This spirit is mentioned in Acts 16:16, where the KJV translates the spirit of python as the spirit of divination. It was apparent that God had led us to take a short vacation in Victoria in order to entice us into a spiritual battle. God often has ulterior motives that He hides until later.

I then remembered the revelation of hydra and python which had come against Jimmy Swaggart. Python’s attack upon Margaret Price gave us legal cause to come against this spirit. We discerned that the story in Revelation 12 was being re-enacted through Margaret Price. The red dragon was attacking the woman clothed with the sun. Margaret means “pearl,” and she was representing the Pearl of Great Price (Matthew 13:46 KJV).

Feet often represent the “foot company” in prophecy. For example, the feet of the image of gold was smashed by the great stone in Daniel 2:35, representing end-time events. So the attack on Margaret’s feet indicated an attack on the overcomers in our time at the end of the age.

In the broader picture, this conflict traces back to the divine judgment upon the serpent in Genesis 3:14, 15,

¹⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life; ¹⁵ And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel.”

This prophecy was a direct reference to Christ Himself, but the Apostle Paul applied it to us as well in Romans 16:20,

²⁰ The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet....

If that is so, then it is logical that the serpent would also bruise our heel, for that is the price of victory. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 3:18,

¹⁸ But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory…

We become that which we behold, whether we behold the glory of Christ’s face or are mesmerized by the serpent. The principle is related to the adage, we are what we eat. To become like Christ, we must remove the Old Covenant veil from our face and behold Him face to face.

We came against the spirit of python in Victoria and overcame him by the blood of the Lamb. But this was not to be a single event, as we soon discovered. It turned into a three-year warfare, which we later dubbed the Dragon War.

The Snake River Decree

We returned home from Victoria on the evening of July 17, and two days later we drove to Clarkston, Washington, located on the Snake River which was on the border with Idaho. A few weeks earlier I had been invited to attend a conference in Clarkston.

Along the highway to Clarkston, we began to notice signs advertising Hells Gate Canyon. Having never been to Clarkston, I did not realize until then that the city stood at the north end of the deepest gorge in North America through which the Snake River flowed.

When we arrived at the conference, we saw many people having problems with their feet. One was even on crutches. It looked like a war zone. There were indications everywhere that the dragon had bruised the heels and feet of the believers. Yet this also suggested a great victory for the body of Christ, under whose feet Satan was to be crushed.

At that conference, we met a group of prophetic women from Wasilla, Alaska. Together, we went to the Snake River, anointed it with oil, and decreed judgment upon the serpent. Since the prophecy itself seems to combine the “woman” theme with “her seed” (Christ and the sons of God), it was appropriate for the women to do the main work and for me to support that work. We all had a stake in the outcome of this war.

As it turned out, these were just the opening battles of a three-year time of warfare (1996-1999).

Signs in the Heavens

In September of 1996 an unusual astronomical event occurred for the first time in history. The moon passed through the womb of Virgo, the Virgin, and moved down to her feet, while the sun was positioned behind her. The moon was like a child being born and laid at her feet.

The constellation, Virgo, is portrayed in the heavens as the virgin who would bring forth the Manchild. She is portrayed having a crown of twelve stars over her head, which is the constellation referred to as Bernice’s Hair, or Coma Bernice.

In other words, the heavens actually portrayed what is written in Revelation 12:1-5,

¹ And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; ² and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth . . . ⁵ And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron; and her child was caught up to God and to His throne.

In September 1996 the sun was behind Virgo, and the moon passed through her, traveling from the womb area to her feet. They say that this was the first time in known history that this has happened. The moon did the same thing in September of 1997 and 1998, each time coming into a more perfect position. The most perfect positioning of the moon traveling from womb to feet occurred in September of 1999.

Greg Killian described this sign in 1996:

“Draco is poised above the woman, waiting to snatch the manchild. The moon is poised in the 'birth canal' of the virgin who is lying down with her feet in the air . . . The constellation of Coma Bernice is the crown of twelve stars above the virgin's head.”

Again, he wrote:

“Those who celebrate Rosh Chodesh (the new moon) have learned that Messiah is represented by Lavanah (“moon). The celebration of Rosh Chodesh, the new moon, includes the announcement of the new moon with the words: 'David, King of Israel, lives and endures!' Lavanah, the moon, represents Messiah in this unique astronomical event. This particular positioning of the mazzaroth (constellation) Bethulah, the virgin, about to give 'birth' to the moon (the Messiah) has never occurred before, and will never again, due to the precession of the equinoxes.”

Revelation 12:6 and 14 tell us that the duration of the red dragon battle is 1,260 days, or “a time, and times, and half a time.” A time in Bible prophecy is 360 units of measure. In long-term prophecy it is 360 years; in short-term prophecy it is 360 days or a year in general. So it is generally understood that a time, times, and a half a time signify three and a half times, or 1,260 years (or 1,260 days). Generally speaking, in long-term prophecy the cycle is precisely 1,260 years, but in short-term prophecy it is often three and a half years, rather than a specific count of 1,260 days.

As I said, this sign occurred four years in a row, and the greatest precision of all came in the fourth year—September of 1999. This was Jesus' 2000th birthday, which we celebrated on September 11, 1999 (Rosh Hoshana). But the first occurrence was in 1996, the month we declared the Jubilee.

This was a major astronomical sign of the birth of the Manchild which, in some way, was being birthed in our day. It began with the Jubilee declaration and ended in 1999 with Jesus' 2000^th birthday, after “two days” prophesied in Hosea 6:2,

² He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, that we may live before Him.

In the war against the red dragon, we were dealing with short-term fulfillment of the prophecy at the end of the Pentecostal Age.