BLOG

The work of the house of Joseph, part 32

When Israel began their final journey to the plains of Moab, from which place they were to cross the Jordan and enter Canaan from the east, they had to make a lengthy detour around Edom. The Edomites would not allow them to pass through their territory, which would have been a much shorter route. God told Israel to take the longer route and to respect Edom’s demand.

On October 19, 2005 an arrest warrant was issued in a Texas court for the Speaker of the House, Tom DeLay, charging him with money laundering and conspiracy to violate elections laws. He denied the charges, but temporarily stepped down from his duties as House Speaker. On January 7, 2006 he permanently and formally resigned from his position, and on April 3, he announced his retirement from politics.

We saw this as a prophetic sign of Revelation 10:6 that “there will be delay no longer,” and we applied this to the delay that Israel had experienced when Edom forced the Israelites to take the longer route around Edom. Numbers 20:20, 21 says,

²⁰ But he [Edom] said, “You shall not pass through.” And Edom came out against him with a heavy force and with a strong hand. ²¹ Thus Edom refused to allow Israel to pass through his territory, so Israel turned away from him.

This delay prophesied of a greater delay toward the end of the church’s wilderness experience. It began properly in 1948 when Edom, known to most people as Israel, became “chosen.” The Jewish Encyclopedia tells us that “Edom is in modern Jewry,” having been absorbed in 126 B.C. Hence, the Israeli state is actually the state of Edom, and its formation in 1948 brought about a delay in our journey toward the Promised Land.

(See The Struggle for the Birthright for the full history of this.)

Tom DeLay’s resignation was a sign of the end of this “delay.” In other words, we had arrived at the Jordan River and were getting ready to cross over and camp in the plain of Jericho. This sign occurred while we were preparing to pour out the seventh bowl upon Babylon/Jericho.

Ariel Sharon’s stroke on January 4, 2006 occurred just three days before Tom DeLay resigned on January 7. The coincidence provided a double witness, because both of these men never again functioned as political leaders.

Divine Judgment on Edom

I flew to Sacramento on March 23, 2006 to see what the Lord would do. God gave us good discernment each day, and we were led to make prophetic declarations for the next few days.

Then on March 27 the revelation focused upon Edom and the Red Sea, which is actually the Sea of Edom. The Sea of Edom was so named, because Edom’s territory extended all the way to the Gulf of Aqaba, which was on the east side of the Sinai peninsula.

In Psalm 60:8 God gives an obscure prophecy: “Over Edom I shall throw My shoe.” Few people understand this, unless they are acquainted with the law in Deuteronomy 25:5-10. It is the law of the Manchild, which I explained in chapter 14 of The Laws of the Second Coming. If a man refuses to take his brother’s childless widow and raise up a son to inherit his property, he must give up his shoe. In Psalm 60:8, God makes an interesting negative application to this law, saying, in effect, “I would rather lose My shoe than marry Edom and raise up the Manchild through her!”

So we were led to walk down the hill to the nearby pond at the edge of the property where we were meeting. The pond was overgrown with hyacinth. We took note that it was like “the Sea of Reeds.” When we reached the pond, we noticed that one section of the pond was clear of hyacinth. It was bright red, due to algae that turns red in the sunlight. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the pond looked literally like a Red Sea, or the Sea of Edom.

We were led to throw a shoe over the Red Sea. We then walked around to the other side and picked it up, in order to signify that God would refuse Edom (counterfeit Israel) but choose true Israel to bring forth the sons of God so that Christ would not lose His inheritance in the earth.

Then we continued walking around the pond. As we did, we noticed all the flecks of gold in the sand and dirt. After all, this was Sacramento, the place of the Gold Rush (1849). Some years earlier, a young man had panned for gold in that very spot and had made enough money to put himself through college.

The next day, March 28, 2006 new elections took place in the Israeli state, and April 3 Tom DeLay announced his intention to retire permanently from politics. On April 3 the prophetic word was spoken to the true Bride of Christ, saying, “YOU have been chosen.” This chosen status, of course, was based on Paul’s statement in Romans 11:7, “those who were chosen obtained it [the promise], and the rest were hardened” (or blinded).

Hence, the blind Edomites, along with all others who are blind to the revelation of Christ, are not God’s chosen people. Blindness is the evidence of NOT being chosen. Of all the biological Israelites in the days of Elijah, only 7,000 were actually chosen to be part of the remnant of grace.

Crossing the Jordan

Once the true Bride had been confirmed to be chosen and had finished her detour around Edom, Israel crossed the Jordan at the Passover season. In 2006 this was marked by the Stone Kingdom Ministries’ Passover Conference at Philadelphia April 14-16. I was led to speak on Sonship, because our “crossing” had to do with coming into Sonship.

We stayed in the Philadelphia area for a couple of extra days to do some sightseeing and to give our sons (Joel and Jonathan) a little historical field trip as a home school project. On the 17^th we visited Lancaster and dodged Amish horse-drawn carriages. On April 18 we drove into the city of Philadelphia itself and spent the day seeing Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and the Betsy Ross house, where the US flag was first made.

On the way back from the Betsy Ross house, we walked past a church with an old cemetery and realized that this was where Benjamin Franklin was buried. I wanted to read his epitaph, so we paid the $5 apiece to go in and then decided to stay for the tour of the cemetery. The tour guide was named Joshua, and he told us that Ben Franklin had been buried there exactly 216 years ago on April 18, 1790. My ears perked up, of course, because what are the odds that we would visit Franklin’s grave precisely on the 216^th anniversary of his burial?

Here we were, shortly after Passover, being guided by Joshua across the Jordan River (death), that is, through the cemetery. The number 216 is interesting also, because the name “Joshua” appears 216 times in the Bible. Furthermore, the moon has a diameter of 2160 miles, and Jericho means “moon.” Also, April 18, 2006 was the 2006^th day from Oct. 21, 2000, when we were led to pour out the first bowl of wine upon Babylon. When we are led by the Spirit, we find ourselves on an amazing journey.

Ben Franklin was a printer and editor by trade. He wrote his own epitaph, comparing himself to “an Old Book” that was in need of repair at the resurrection. The epitaph was engraved in bronze on a plaque next to the grave itself:

The body of

B. Franklin, Printer

(Like the Cover of an Old Book

Its contents torn Out

And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding)

Lies Here, Food for Worms.

But the Work shall not be Lost;

For it will (as he believ’d) Appear once More

In a New and More Elegant Edition

Revised and Corrected

By the Author.

His epitaph was all about resurrection. The Jordan River, like baptism, is a symbol of death resurrection. That is the real message of Israel’s crossing into the Promised Land. So the fact that we “chanced” to visit Ben Franklin’s grave on the only day in history where all these factors would line up told me that this was a divine marker of great importance to us.

We knew then that we had just crossed the Jordan and (prophetically speaking) we were in the plain of Jericho making preparations to take the city.

Jericho’s Restaurant

We barely returned home, and immediately attended a conference at the Days Inn in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, organized by Sunny Day Roberts. The conference was held on April 22 and 23.

When we got there, we discovered that their restaurant where we were meeting was called “Jericho’s.” Of course! Having crossed the Jordan, we were now confronted by Jericho. This was a time marker, of course.

I have taught for years that the seven days of the Jericho march was meant to portray the seven days of Unleavened Bread which began on Passover. In this case, the Jericho march seems to have begun with the meetings in Philadelphia and ended the following weekend (April 22) at “Jericho’s” in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

The next time we saw Jericho’s restaurant a few months later, it was being torn down. Jericho’s restaurant ceased to exist.

Conquering Jericho

In early 2006 we began to see many signs about the Red Sea, crossing the Jordan River, and Jericho. These were all signs pointing to the overthrow of Babylon in different ways, because Jericho is an Old Testament type and shadow of Babylon. When the Israelites conquered Jericho under Joshua, it established the pattern for the overthrow of Babylon in the book of Revelation.

When the Israelites marched around Jericho blowing trumpets (Joshua 6:3, 4), the pattern was set for the seven trumpets in Revelation 8:2. Under Joshua, the Israelites marched around the city walls once on each of six days and then seven times on the seventh day. In the book of Revelation, the seventh trumpet saw seven bowls of wine poured out before Babylon fell.

The trumpets that were blown in the Jericho marches were “seven trumpets of ram’s horns,” or literally, “seven shofars of the jubilee” (Joshua 6:4). Knowing this, we can interpret the seven trumpets in the book of Revelation as Jubilee declarations.  We understood that it would take Jubilee declarations to overthrow Mystery Babylon, even as it had taken “seven shofars of the jubilee” to overthrow Jericho.

Only the priests were told to blow the shofars in the time of Joshua. The people themselves were not required to do this. So also, in our time many prayer warriors have engaged in the Battle of Jericho over the years, most of them having no particular revelation of the law of Jubilee. All of them participated in this battle and were important, but the battle would not have been won except for the few who had received revelation of the Jubilee and how it proclaims the cancellation of all debt and the restoration of all things.

We should also note that Joshua (also called Hoshea) was of the tribe of Ephraim (Numbers 13:8). So it is clear that the house of Joseph, led by Ephraim, was to take the lead in overthrowing Jericho/Babylon in preparing the way for the second coming of Christ.