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Day of Atonement report

I had a meeting yesterday from 10:00 a.m. to noon, which ended well after 1:30 p.m. This was followed by a lunch discussion, which took up the rest of the work day.

During the morning meeting, someone mentioned an Elijah prophecy, in regard to "the valley of decision" (Joel 3:14). Of course, this was Joel's prophecy that makes reference to Elijah's showdown with the prophets of Baal, applied to the great Holy Spirit revival of the nations in the latter days.

At that point, I received a text message from Mike and Kathy, saying,

"We are to tell you there is an appeal placed [in the divine court] against the Overcomers that needs to be answered. Would you please check on this. The scripture given was 1 Kings 18:24--the day of decision--which God will you serve? Call if we be of any help."

1 Kings 18:24 says,

²⁴ And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, "It is well spoken."

This was Elijah's challenge to the prophets of Baal and to the people to choose which God they would serve. Scripture says that Elijah won that showdown.

And so, while discussing this very prophecy of Elijah, we received the word from Mike and Kathy that we were to answer this appeal to the divine court. Of course, they knew nothing of the meeting, as I had not told them. So I read the message to the group and explained to them that it was time for them to exercise their authority to speak on behalf of the Overcomers. We went to the divine court by prayer and stated for the record that we unanimously decided to follow Yahweh--Jesus Christ.

In effect, this was patterned after Elijah's challenge in 1 Kings 18:39, where the people shouted, "Yahweh, He is the God."

I then explained to them what I had written in chapter 6 of my book, The Laws of the Second Coming entitled, "The Feast Days in Elijah's Story." There I showed how the autumn feast days follow a progressive pattern in Elijah's story toward the end of the three-year drought. I explained that we had been in the time of Elijah (and Elisha) since April of 2009, and that the 3-year, 6-month drought (James 5:17) should end in October of this year.

In the story of Elijah, he spent much of his time in Phoenicia during that drought, before being led to return to Israel to face King Ahab and his prophets. His return followed the pattern of the autumn feast days.

First, he raised the son of the widow woman from the dead (1 Kings 17:23). The first autumn feast day is Trumpets, which prophesies of the resurrection of the dead.

Next, Elijah returned to Israel, where he had his showdown on Mount Carmel. This "Decision Day" reveals prophetically the Day of Atonement, a day of repentance, fasting, and mourning.

Then Elijah prayed seven times for rain (1 Kings 18:43). This follows the prophetic pattern of the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles. In Elijah's seventh prayer, the first sighting occurred with a small cloud rising from the sea (verse 44), and then the rain came. I believe that the rain indicates the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, at least in its ultimate fulfillment, and that its timing was meant to show us the fulfillment of the eighth day of Tabernacles.

This is what Jesus also prophesied in John 7:37-39 on the last great day of the feast that was identified in John 7:2 as Tabernacles.

Our "decision" in the divine court yesterday was therefore linked directly to Elijah's showdown wherein he called the people to decide which God to follow. It was the second feast day, the Day of Atonement.

What Happened at Trumpets?

Trumpets occurred on September 17, 2012.

When I went to the meeting yesterday, I learned that some of the people at the meeting had been led by the Spirit to travel to New York City on that day. They were led to go to the top of the Empire State Building and blow the shofar while reading certain Scriptures. There was some opposition from the guards, who thought that their shofars could be used as weapons. (They were right.) Nonetheless, one shofar got through the check point. Some guards came running when that shofar was blown, but the group assured them that they were just praying.

After all, they were not trying to blow up the building. They were only destroying the Babylonian system of death that has enslaved the people for so long.

They reported that one of their group was a man in a wheel chair, lame in his feet, who was healed. This, of course, reminded me of the story in Acts 3, when Peter and John healed the lame man who was begging at the Gate Beautiful.  They said to him, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk" (verse 6).

A crowd gathered around Peter and John, and they took opportunity to tell the people about Jesus and how He had been raised from the dead. Then the Sadducees came to stop them. We read in Acts 4:1 and 2,

¹ And as they spoke unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, ² being grieved that they taught the people and preached through Jesus the resurrection of the dead.

The Sadducees denied the doctrine of resurrection, and they were in charge of the temple in those days. So they strongly objected to the testimony of Peter and John, who were using the lame man's healing as a platform for teaching the resurrection of the dead. In other words, the lame man's healing was a sign of resurrection--not only Jesus' resurrection, but ours as well. Jesus was raised on the wave-sheaf offering, but we will be raised on the Feast of Trumpets.

The man had been lame in his feet. In terms of timing, we are the foot company at the end of the age.

Hence, at Trumpets this year these people at the meeting saw a sign of resurrection that was comparable to the story in Acts 3.

The next feast day was yesterday, the Day of Atonement, where we saw the second sign manifest in the group's decision to follow Jesus Christ.

We now await Tabernacles to see what sign may occur at that time. I anticipate some kind of outpouring of the Holy Spirit to occur at our conference in St. Louis October 5-7, 2012.