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The work of the house of Joseph, part 11

On October 21, 2002 the Tabernacles conference began in Orlando, Florida, where I had been asked to teach. Recall that the next day the tenth victim was shot and killed by the Washington sniper just before he was caught.

October 21 also began the two cycles of 76 days of cleansing for the new Prophetic Year. There are many ways of determining a year, each having a different beginning point. However, I learned many years ago that there is something that I call the Prophetic Year, which starts shortly after the feast of Tabernacles and reaches its climax a year later on the eighth day of Tabernacles.

The First Cleansing Cycle: October 21, 2002 to January 5, 2003

Each Prophetic Year begins with two cleansing cycles of 76 days each.

In this case the new Prophetic Year began on October 21, 2002, and the first cleansing cycle ended January 5, 2003, when two suicide bombers in Tel Aviv killed 23 people. The number 23 is the biblical number pointing to death and resurrection. In Hebrew, 23 is written as two letters, kaph and gimel. Kaph is an open palm, and gimel (literally, a camel) is to lift up. At death one’s spirit is lifted up to return to God, but it can also refer to resurrection from the dead.

(See my book, The Biblical Meaning of Numbers from One to Forty.)

So the day was marked by “death,” suggesting that the year 2003 would soon see greater manifestations of death. At the time, of course, America and its “coalition forces” were building up troop levels and preparing to invade Iraq on account of the bogus claim that Saddam Hussein had been amassing “weapons of mass destruction.” It was assumed that he would use those weapons against the coalition forces in “the mother of all wars.”

Of course, no such weapons were used, nor were they ever found. While it is possible to hide discoveries, it is more likely that they would have shown off such weapons to the world in order to justify the invasion. It was embarrassing to President Bush when they were unable to do that.

The Second Cleansing Cycle: January 5 to March 21

In a special report dated March 9, 2003, I wrote about these cleansing cycles and speculated,

“The second 76 days ends on March 21. It would be interesting if we saw the beginning of a military attack on Iraq on that date.”

The US military launched its Shock-n-Awe bombing campaign on March 21 (Iraq time zone), and the press showed pictures of fiery explosions in Baghdad. The Hebrew word which we spell Shekinah (as in the glory of the Lord) is pronounced shockanaw. Hence, this military campaign was named by someone familiar with the Hebrew language, and it portrayed the glory of a god of war. Nonetheless, fleshly counterfeits also prophesy of spiritual things, because counterfeits always counterfeit something that is real. Counterfeits foreshadow what God is about to do.

Ironically, March 21, 2003 was 490 days after the US House of Representatives passed a bill for National Reconciliation (November 16, 2001) in the wake of the Twin Towers demolition. The bill was passed by the US Senate on December 4, 2001, and 490 days later brought us to April 8, 2003. The Iraq war ended the next day, and Saddam Hussein’s huge statue was torn down, signifying the inevitable overthrow of Babylonian leaders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWxszYK6IPU

The war in Iraq can be viewed prophetically as the outworking of the third bowl of wine that was poured out upon the rivers, signifying judgment upon Jerusalem/Babylon. Prophetically speaking, the earthly Jerusalem is one of the manifestations of Babylon (Revelation 11:8). The original Babylon was located in Iraq. Hence, the attack on Iraq may be a prelude to a later attack on Jerusalem itself which Isaiah and Jeremiah prophesy.

On the other hand, this Shock-n-Awe campaign can also be viewed as a lead-in to the next bowl of wine that was poured out some months later at Tabernacles of 2003. As we will see, this bowl was poured out upon the sun, indicating the judgment of leaders. Hence, Saddam Hussein was driven from power in 2003.

Seventy Years: 1933-2003

President Roosevelt took office on March 3, 1933, and his first act was to suspend the Constitution in the name of an economic emergency, because we were in the midst of “The Great Depression.” On March 9, 1933 Roosevelt signed the Emergency Banking Relief Act, confiscating gold that was being “hoarded” (i.e., owned) by US citizens.

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/emergency-banking-act-of-1933

The Act also amended an early Act known as the “Trading with the Enemy Act” of 1917.

The Act of 1917 granted the government the power to license, regulate, and tax the business transactions of foreign nationals living in America, if they were working as commercial agents for foreign “enemy” nations. Roosevelt amended this to include US citizens, thereby presuming all US citizens to be “enemies” that could then be regulated.

The “Emergency” was to last until such time that the president lifted it. Of course, it was never lifted, because the underlying purpose of the Act was to declare America’s bankruptcy so that the creditors (bankers) could foreclose on the government and its citizens, who were the collateral.

Many books have been written about this, and I do not have the time or space to repeat what others have written. The bottom line is that this marked the start of the transition from our Christian Republic to a Socialist Democracy. Our wooden-yoke captivity to Mystery Babylon had begun twenty years earlier with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913, signed by President Woodrow Wilson. Under the Federal Reserve, America was bankrupted in twenty years, and Roosevelt put the final nail on America’s coffin.

Whereas Roosevelt’s excuse in 1933 was to bring “stability” to the financial markets, Bush’s excuse in 2003 was to bring “stability” to the Middle East.

The point is that this marked the start of a seventy-year captivity to Mystery Babylon, and in 2003 Iraq—the old land of Babylon—was overthrown by Shock-n-Awe. The invasion of Iraq set the prophetic pattern for the glory of God (Shekinah) to overthrow Mystery Babylon.

The Fourth Bowl

We held our annual feast of Tabernacles meetings in Chandler, Arizona on October 15-17, 2003 and poured out the fourth bowl of water and wine on October 17. Chandler is located just south of Phoenix in what is called the “Valley of the Sun.” Revelation 16:8, 9 says,

⁸ The fourth angel poured his bowl upon the sun, and it was given to it to scorch men with fire. ⁹ Men were scorched with fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues, and they did not repent so as to give Him glory.

The Shock-n-Awe (or Shekinah) theme in March 2003 was thus a precursor to the bowl that was poured out upon the sun. The sun speaks of the glory of God as well as leadership in general. In this case those leaders being brought to judgment refused the repent, though they “were scorched with fierce heat” from God’s “fire.”

The fire, of course, is a metaphor of the law of God, which judges all sin by the standard of God’s nature.  Hence, it is called the “fiery law” in Deuteronomy 33:2 KJV.

October 17, 2003 was also President Bush’s 1000^th day in office. The number 1000 is the biblical number for “glory.”

We poured out the fourth bowl of water and wine in a nearby parking lot of a local shopping center near the hotel where our conference was being held. As we gathered there, three security guards came running toward us. They told us we were on “private property,” no doubt to let us know that we were not allowed to riot or protest in that parking lot.

I politely asked the head guard if we could have just 15 seconds, and he agreed to that. After all, what sort of riot could happen in just 15 seconds? That is how long it took to pour out the bowls of wine and water and to issue a short declaration. We thanked the guards and left peaceably. The guards looked a bit sheepish, but they were relieved that they did not need to shoot anyone that day.

God's Shock-n-Awe Solar Flares

The Lord revealed to us that the “Reaping Angel” would pour out his bowl of wine upon the sun, and that we were bearing witness to this in the Valley of the Sun. Five days later, on October 22, a huge solar flare blasted out, striking the earth on October 24, which was United Nations Day. The UN probably represented the apex of world leadership in the eyes of most people. We took this as a sign that world leaders were to be brought into judgment unless they repented.

For the first time in history, astronomers photographed TWO sunspots on the sun at the same time. Pictures were published on the internet. Then another huge solar flare erupted on October 28, the third largest ever recorded.

Then on October 29 another solar flare erupted, sending radiation toward the earth at a speed of 5.6 million miles per hour—more than twice as fast as any solar storm recorded in the last 40 years.

Deborah Zabarenko of the Washington Post wrote an article about this on October 30, 2003:

Second Solar Storm Hits Earth

“A second huge magnetic solar storm hit Earth on Thursday, just a day after an earlier one hurtled into the planet in what one astronomer called an unprecedented one-two punch.

“It's like the earth is looking right down the barrel of a giant gun pointed at us by the sun . . . and it's taken two big shots at us, said John Kohl....

“Kohl, the lead investigator for an instrument aboard NASA's sun-watching SOHO spacecraft, said the probability of two huge flares aimed directly at Earth coming so close together, as they have this week, was 'unprecedented.... so low that it is a statistical anomaly'.”

On November 3, 2003, Senior Science writer, Robert Roy Britt wrote another news article:

Sun on Fire, Unleashes 3 More Major Flares

“The sun cut loose with three severe flares in less than 24 hours through Monday morning, bringing to nine the number of major eruptions in less than two weeks.

“Scientists have never witnessed a string of activity like this.

“I think the last week will go into the history books as one of the most dramatic periods of solar activity we have seen in modern time.

“No scientist can recall nine X-class flares ever occurring in a 12-day period. More major flares are possible this week, forecasters said.”

NewsMax later reported on November 17, 2003:

More Solar Fireworks Possible Soon

“There have been as many as 11 salvos since Oct. 19. And the fireworks could reach a new crescendo by Thanksgiving, the nation’s busiest holiday for air travel, just one of the things that can be disrupted…

“One explosion on Nov. 4 ranks as the most powerful solar flare to be recorded by orbiting instruments—although it was pointed away from earth….

“Beginning on Nov. 3, it triggered three flares over several hours. The final flare on Nov. 4 saturated the X-ray detectors on NASA’s GOES satellite, which produces a new image of the sun every minute. The satellite was blinded for 11 minutes.

“Luckily for Earth, the sunspot cluster was rotating off the sun’s face and out of view. Most of its fury was directed harmlessly into space. Officially, it is ranked as X28. But some researchers believe it might’ve registered an astonishing X40.

“Previously, the most intense flares were a pair of X20s….

“‘What is clear is that the latest flare is the strongest ever recorded,’ Brekke said.”

If God's Shock-n-Awe solar flares had shot their radiation directly at the earth, one wonders if any life would have been left on earth. An X-40 flare is twice as intense as any flare ever recorded in the past.

So once again we saw a great “coincidence.” The Reaping Angel poured out his wine upon the sun on Oct. 17, 2003 according to the prophecy of Revelation 16:8, and within five days a history-making series of solar flares began to occur. This is not to suggest that an angel poured out some literal wine on the sun, of course. It signifies the beginning of judgment upon leadership.

We viewed this prophetic event as evidence of divine judgment upon all Babylonian leadership, whether civil or religious. They will ultimately be replaced by the overcomers who will rule with the mind of Christ.