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The meat of the word, part 9

As we have shown, the book of Hebrews introduces the meat of the word with the comparison between Joshua and Yeshua (Jesus) in that Joshua was a type and shadow of the Messiah bringing us into the Kingdom. Joshua himself was of the tribe of Ephraim, not Judah, so his role as a prophetic type is limited to the second coming of Christ. As we all know, Christ came the first time of the tribe of Judah, not Ephraim, and His calling at that time was different.

Judah was called to bring forth the ruler, the Messiah (Genesis 49:10; 1 Chronicles 5:2). Ephraim, however, being the heir of Joseph, was given the birthright, the right to bring forth and manifest the sons of God.

In keeping with Joshua’s prophetic role, we also see that the Canaanites played a prominent role as well. In those days the Canaanites were the idolaters who were occupying the Promised Land until the true heirs were ready to displace them. The Israelites, on the other hand, were delayed for a long time. God told Abraham in Genesis 15:13 that there would be a 400-year delay, during which time the Israelites would be oppressed in Egypt.

There was then another 40-year delay while the Israelites were tested in the wilderness. There was then another short delay when Edom refused to allow Israel to cross their territory to enter the land of Canaan. This detour around Edom prophesied of the detour from 1948-2024 when we see how the Edomite state of “Israel” stood in the way of our entry into the Promised Land. I wrote about this in Book 1 of my commentary on Deuteronomy.

Only after this was Joshua allowed to bring Israel into the land of Canaan. All of these delays were pattern setters that prophesied of end-time world events and conditions leading up to Christ’s second coming and the manifestation of the sons of God.

The Canaanites Today

The Canaanite tribes in Joshua’s time were prophetic types of the nations of the world today, who labor under the oppression of the beast systems spoken of in Daniel 7. The main focus, of course, is on the nations in our time at the end of the age. According to Revelation 17:15-17 give us a glimpse of today’s nations and the Babylonian “harlot” that oppresses them:

¹⁵ And he said to me, “The waters which you saw where the harlot sits, are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues. ¹⁶ And the ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh and will burn her up with fire. ¹⁷ For God has put it in their hearts to execute His purpose by having a common purpose, and by giving their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled.

Few, it seems, have comprehended the significance of this, because they tend to think of the nations as God’s enemies. It is true that the “ten horns” have warred against God’s Kingdom for a long time, because they were doing the bidding of the “harlot” that rode them. So when these beasts turn on her and “eat her flesh” and “burn her up with fire,” it is hard for Bible teachers to make the switch in their minds. In other words, they fail to see that God and these beast nations have “a common purpose,” which is to overthrow the Babylonian oppressor.

These same beast nations today were represented in Joshua’s time by the Canaanite tribes, or nations. The main difference is that in Joshua’s day, only the Gibeonites submitted themselves to the authority of Joshua, whereas in our time, all of the world nations will submit to Christ. The underlying difference is that Joshua was limited by the Old Covenant which held sway in his time, whereas today Yeshua-Jesus is the Mediator of the New Covenant. Hence, there are very different methods and outcomes.

The Two Swords

When God came down upon the Mount and spoke the Ten Commandments to the Israelites, they all heard His voice, but their hearts were too fearful to “hear” His voice (Exodus 20:18-20). If they had been able to hear God directly, they would have received the law written on their hearts. Instead, they sent Moses up the Mount, and he returned with the rest of the law to tell them what God had said.

In other words, they were willing to hear Moses but not God, so they established an indirect relationship with God, which is characteristic of the Old Covenant. Likewise, Moses found it necessary to write the law on tablets of stone to give them a written record of God’s word. The problem at that point was how to internalize the external law, for this could be done only by the Spirit of God.

In the big picture, God’s voice from the Mount offered them the benefits of the New Covenant, where the law would be written on their hearts. The word of God is the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17). God was offering them the sword of the Spirit, which is the weapon of the New Covenant. However, the people refused this sword and were left with only a carnal, physical sword by which to conquer the Canaanites.

If the Israelites had entered Canaan with the power of the sword of the Spirit—the revelation of God—their mandate would have been radically different. Because they refused the spiritual sword, we can only imagine what the outcome might have been. In fact, we must turn to the New Testament to see the outcome, because the 120 disciples in the upper room broke the pattern of the Old Covenant and took up the sword of the Spirit.

The point is that we today, being New Covenant believers, are not to follow the bad example of the Israelites under Moses who remained under the Old Covenant. They were told to commit genocide against the Canaanites, using their Old Covenant, physical sword. We are called to wield the sword of the Spirit and conquer the nations by teaching the word of God. What is death in the Old Covenant is life in the New.

So it is of interest to us today to watch the Old Covenant Israelis committing genocide against the Palestinians, using carnal weapons of war. They are not equipped with the word of God, and so they engage in an outdated method of conquest. Unfortunately, Christian Zionists do not understand the types and shadows either, so they support this Old Covenant genocide, thinking that this is the will of God. But it is not.

In my view, if the Israelites had been equipped with the sword of the Spirit, they would have had the faith to enter Canaan from Kadesh-barnea in the south. They would have conquered Canaan as manifested sons of God, and the Canaanites would have been awestruck at the manifestation of God’s glory upon them. The Canaanites would have repented and submitted to Joshua, and they would have gladly become Israelites according to God’s invitation in Isaiah 56:6-8.

It was Israel’s failure at Mount Sinai that was the underlying problem—not the sins of the Canaanites. It is the same today. The real problem does not lie with the ungodly nations but with the church that has failed to manifest the nature of Christ to them. In large part, this is because the church has not understood the difference between the two covenants, and this is also the underlying reason for their support of Old Covenant genocide.

The Year 2024

The year 2024 is 70 Jubilees since Joshua crossed the Jordan River and began the war against the Canaanites. This year is of critical importance, because it is as if we have been in a 70-Jubilee captivity to Old Covenant thinking, even as Judah experienced a 70-year captivity to Babylon.

But 70 is also the number of nations in Genesis 10, where we are given the list of nations from Noah and his sons. There are 70 original nations listed. So now, after 70 Jubilees, God is again visiting the nations. A new work is beginning this year, and it will be empowered at some point by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. God is calling all New Covenant believers to this work of conquering the nations by the sword of the Spirit, which is His revelatory word.

I believe that the key to being an active high-level participant in this conquest is to come fully under the New Covenant, whether it is in our view of salvation or our view of prophecy. This is strong meat for most people, but those who have been reading that which I have been explaining will understand and not choke on it.

All of this correlates, in some way, to the beast nations turning against the great harlot and burning her with fire. The rulers of darkness, the occult rulers of this world, are hereby put on notice that they should repent before the nations revolt against their oppressors.