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The rise of the house of David, part 4

In the months leading up to the Jubilee Prayer Campaign, God said to issue a call to muster the troops for spiritual warfare. In doing this, the Lord instructed me to require a half shekel silver coin from all those being numbered for battle, which, as we will see shortly, was required in the law of God.

Moses numbered the Israelites twice. He took a census when the Israelites first came out of Egypt (Numbers 1:2) and again after forty years, just before Israel was to cross the Jordan (Numbers 26:2). This is why this book of the Bible is called Numbers. It is not a book about the meaning of numbers but is about numbering the people (twice).

A biblical census was not about numbering everyone but about numbering the men of war from  age twenty to fifty. In the first census (Numbers 1-2) we are given more details of this, which, when read with New Covenant eyes, laid down the principles which we followed in 1993 in our own census of spiritual warriors. Just as Moses numbered the men of warrior age toward the end of Israel’s forty years in the wilderness, so also were we led to do the same at the end of the church’s forty Jubilees in the wilderness.

The main prophetic pattern that we followed was found in Numbers 26:1, 2,

¹ Then it came about after the plague that the Lord spoke to Moses and to Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, saying, ² “Take a census of all the congregation of the sons of Israel from twenty years old and upward, by their fathers’ households, whoever is able to go out to war in Israel.”

Hence, at the start of the Jubilee Prayer Campaign, we required a registration of spiritual warriors, “whoever is able to go out to war in Israel,” along with a half shekel of silver. To understand this law and how it applies prophetically, we must look at the law more carefully.

Protection from the Plague

The first thing to note is that Moses’ second census “came about after the plague” (Numbers 26:1). The plague in question came upon the Israelites in the previous chapter, where 24,000 died (Numbers 25:9). The cause of the plague was seen in Numbers 25:1-3,

¹ While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. ² For they invited the people to the sacrifice of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. ³ So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the Lord was angry against Israel.

The plague was the divine judgment in that case, and the census in the next chapter was to deal with that plague.

The law of the census is actually found in Exodus 30:12-16,

¹² When you take a census [rosh, “head, poll”] of the sons of Israel to number [paqad, “muster”] them, then each one of them shall give a ransom [kofer, “covering, atonement”] for himself to the Lord, when you number them, so that there will be no plague [negeph, “plague, stumbling”] among them when you number them. ¹³ This is what everyone who is numbered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as a contribution to the Lord. ¹⁴ Everyone who is numbered, from twenty years old and over, shall give the contribution to the Lord. ¹⁵ The rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less than the half shekel, when you give the contribution to the Lord to make atonement [kafar] for yourselves. ¹⁶ You shall take the atonement [kafar] money from the sons of Israel and shall give it for the service of the tent of meeting for the sons of Israel before the Lord, to make atonement [kafar] for yourselves.

This is one of the laws of atonement, which literally means “covering.” In fact, this is one of about 5,000 Hebrew words that have been adopted directly into English. Kafer is to cover.

The “plague” is negeph, which carries the word picture of a strike against one’s foot, which causes a person to stumble. We see this applied prophetically to the Babylonian image when a stone hits its feet in Daniel 2:34. John describes this in terms of a “plague” coming on Mystery Babylon, the great harlot, in Revelation 18:4,

⁴ I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues.”

The Old Testament prophets too condemned Israel and Judah for participating in the sinful practices of their foreign neighbors. Their plague was seen in the “stone of stumbling” (Romans 9:33), which was Paul’s interpretation of Isaiah 28:16. That stone was Jesus Christ, who was not only the stone hitting the Babylonian image on its feet but was also the foundation stone of Kingdom government (“Zion/Sion”) and the temple (Ephesians 2:21).

We cannot give a complete study of this here, but this is sufficient to see the double meaning of negeph, “plague, stumbling.” In the days of Moses, Israel stumbled when they attended the Moabite festival to Baal Peor. The “plague” then killed 24,000 of them. The same type of spiritual harlotry has been seen in the church during the Age of Pentecost, as prophesied in the book of Revelation.

Hence, John calls the people of God to come out of Babylon so that they do not participate in her sins and thereby receive of her plagues (Revelation 18:4).

The biblical way to be protected from this plague is through the law of the census, where the half shekel of silver is the “atonement money” that covers and protects the people when the stone hits the Babylonian image on its feet.

The Census in 1993

Because we were called to number the spiritual warriors in 1993 who were going into battle in the Jubilee Prayer Campaign, we were led to require a half shekel of silver from all who were eligible for battle. A half shekel of silver is very close to a quarter of an ounce, which is the size of a quarter (U.S. coin).

It so happened at that time that God raised up someone to mint half shekel coins. He minted these just prior to our call to spiritual arms, and so he had no way of knowing how his leading fit into the big picture. But I was led to purchase hundreds of those half shekels for $4.90 apiece (plus mailing costs). I then asked all those being numbered to send me $5 to buy the coin from me to put into the treasury.

On November 29, 1993, the last day of the prayer campaign, we received the last half shekel registration (with $5). The total census on that day came to 414 prayer warriors.

The number 414 is, of course, the number associated with Cursed Time. In a positive sense, it also means the end of Cursed Time, much like the 414^th day, which ends Cursed Time for those who have repented. As I see it, the 414^th half shekel covered the prayer warriors for any sins of the past, whereby they may have participated in the sins of Mystery Babylon.

His Fullness Prayer Campaign

As we know, whenever we reach the end of a Cursed Time cycle (414), we then enter a time of cleansing (76) in order to reach Blessed Time (490). The Lord then revealed to me that we were to prepare for a second prayer campaign to bring us fully into Blessed Time. The 76 factor was not seen in a count of days but in the number of prayer warriors that participated.

The second prayer campaign was called “His Fullness,” and it was dated January 27-30, 1994. From the start of the first campaign on November 21, 1993 until the end of the second campaign on January 30, 1994 was precisely 70 days. This seemed appropriate, in that 70 is the number of the restoration of all nations, which involves the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit that is yet to come.

The prayer campaign itself was based on Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14-19,

¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, ¹⁶ that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Between the two prayer campaigns, some people dropped out, and others joined. By the end, we had 490 prayer warriors. This meant that we added 76 prayer warriors to the 414 who had been numbered by November 29, 1993.

This was, of course, a representative number. The 490 who were numbered in our census represented all who would join us later. The pattern for this is seen in Moses’ census. The census numbered only the men of war, but it covered their families as well. Furthermore, many others came of age (20) later, but they did not need to be numbered in order to benefit from the census.

Next, I will share how the story of King David and his census factored into our prayer campaign.