BLOG

The Success of the Kingdom: Part 1

Paul tells us in Romans 11 that Israel's failure, stumbling, transgression, and rejection did not mean that the promises of God had failed. In fact, it was part of the divine plan necessary for the salvation of the world.

In other words, when Jesus came to redeem Israel, He did so by dying for the sin of the whole world as well. In gathering Israel to Himself, He also gathers all others by the same path of justification and through the same Door, Jesus Christ.

Israel's failure was the great Equalizer. God uses failure to bring humility and discipline. He uses it to teach us to have no confidence in the flesh. Israel had thought too highly of itself and had taken for granted the promises of God. They had thought they could sin with immunity from prosecution on the grounds that they were "chosen." Such a carnal attitude needed correction, and God did so.

In Rom. 11:26 Paul says, "thus all Israel will be saved." He was probably referring to Isaiah 45:25, which says, "In the Lord all the offspring of Israel will be justified and will glory." That is a tremendous promise, but a few verses earlier the prophet had said that "every knee will bow." So Isaiah was not only concerned with Israel, but with the whole world as well.

Paul understood Isaiah very well and even quoted him in Phil. 2:10, 11, adding some commentary to it. So Paul was not being exclusive when he said all Israel would be saved. In fact, following Isaiah's example, he had already set forth the salvation of all mankind in Romans 5.

Paul says in Rom. 11:15, "For if their rejection be the reconciliation of the world. . ." Yes, the whole world is reconciled, and Israel with it, Paul says. Paul was in full agreement with Isaiah.

The establishment of America as a Christian Nation was one of the more recent opportunities that men had to manifest the Kingdom of God. But it occurred in the latter centuries of the Age of Pentecost, which did not begin to come to an end until 1993, its 40th Jubilee. Thus, while the divine mandate was there along with the opportunity, God had not yet given enough of the Holy Spirit to succeed. We cannot extract the American Experiment from its Pentecostal context.

Then in 1948, coinciding with the establishment of the Israeli state, came the Latter Rain movement through which God re-instated the revelation of the Feast of Tabernacles into the consciousness of the Church. This must be seen also in the progression of revelation that God had been giving to the Church during the Pentecostal Age.

First, God re-instated the revelation truth of justification by faith alone through Martin Luther and the other Protestant Reformers in the 1500's. This was like the Church in the wilderness under Moses that left Egypt on Passover.

Second, the Church crossed the Red Sea, representing the Holiness Movement through John Wesley and others.

Third, the Church came to Marah, as in Exodus 15:23, where the people learned that "I the Lord am your healer."

Fourth, the Church came to Elim, as in Exodus 15:27, the place of the 70 palms and 12 springs of water. This speaks of the 70 nations of the world which were to drink from the springs of living water. (There are 70 listed in Genesis 10.) This revelation spawned the great missionary movements of the 1800's.

Fifth, the Church came to Mount Sinai for Pentecost as in Exodus 19, and this was manifested in 1901-1906 through Charles Parham, William Seymour, and many others.

Sixth, the Church came to the border of the Promised Land (Num. 13) to spy out the land and make a decision whether or not to declare the Jubilee and enter the Promise at the feast of Tabernacles. This finds its re-enactment in 1948-1952 with the Latter Rain movement. As with ancient Israel, the Church was still lacking in faith, and so they did not see the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles. In fact, they gave away their birthright to unbelievers, calling them Israel.

Certainly, all of this was part of the divine plan, even as it was in the days of Moses. As I explained in Secrets of Time, it was God's WILL (thelema) that Israel enter the land on the 50th Jubilee from Adam (in Numbers 13, 14), but it was the divine PLAN (boulema) that they would enter the land 38 years later, when the iniquity of the Amorites was full.

So where are we today in our wilderness wandering? It is interesting that from 1948 to the 120th Jubilee from Adam in 1986 is precisely 38 years. This is the great hinge date of modern prophetic history. It marked the potential time when the Church might have entered the Promised Land. However, there were other factors that prevented this once again, and so the story contains much more drama with detours than the simple story in the book of Numbers.

In 1981 the Lord raised up a group of intercessors called The Net of Prayer with the promise that if the Church would commit itself to pray and intercede for 5 years, the Lord would do something. I was part of that group, as I explained in chapter 3 of my book, Hearing God's Voice.

To make a long story short, the Church would not respond to the call to intercede, and so that effort seemed to fail. We did not realize back then that those years were still within the jurisdiction of King Saul and the Age of Pentecost, which would not end until 1993. God hid this from us at the time in order not to discourage us from exerting every effort to do what needed to be done.

In 1986, as the 5-year call came to an end, the Lord told me to leave the organization and to "call the new Net of Prayer to prayer." I was revolted by that word and refused to leave. This put me on Cursed Time for 3 x 414 days from Sept. 2, 1986 to January 27, 1990. My situation changed after I finally did resign from the NOP on October 16, 1989.

Then on May 28, 1991 the Lord again brought back the word to me to "call the new Net of Prayer to prayer," and this began another 5-year call to prayer from 1991-1996 ten years after the original call to prayer. By the ten-year Hezekiah Factor, which I explained in Secrets of Time, God began this second intercessory work in 1991, calling me out from my secular job to do this work of ministry.

The Pentecostal Age ended on May 30, 1993, marking the time of the death of "King Saul." We then entered into the transition period into the Tabernacles Age. Even as "David" received his partial authority (2 Sam. 5:5), so also did the overcomers receive a partial authority for the next seven and a half years. Though partial, it was enough to declare the Jubilee in 1996--something that the Church under Pentecost did NOT do in 1986 at the 120th Jubilee from Adam.

We were able to do this ten years late, because in the biblical pattern, God turned the clock back ten degrees (i.e., years) in order to manipulate Time (2 Kings 20:10). Thus, 1996 by our calendar was actually 1986 by God's way of thinking after turning the clock back.

Because the overcomers were given the authority of David in 1993, and because the overcomers by definition are those who are in agreement with God, the revelation of timing was given, which had been withheld ten years earlier. I am convinced that if the Church had heeded the call to prayer from 1981-1986, the revelation of timing would have been given at that time, so that they would have known to declare the Jubilee in 1986. That was the divine WILL, but it was not the PLAN.

So the declaration of the Jubilee had to wait for 10 years, but it was done. However, even this was not the end. There was much more work to be done, which will be shared as we continue.