The work of the house of Joseph, part 13

Our fifth grandchild, Evan, was born on January 23, 2004. We drove to Arkansas the next day shortly after our daughter came home from the hospital. We had expected the baby to be delivered in the first part of February, but because of some high blood pressure problem associated with the pregnancy, they had decided to induce labor prematurely. Being a nurse herself, Erin had the baby at the hospital in Jonesboro where she worked.

As we drove to Arkansas, I had time to reflect on this event, and I began to connect the birth with a “Children’s prayer campaign” that we had held 19 years earlier on January 23, 1985. We had prayed for children on various levels: our physical children, our spiritual children, the children of Israel, and the Manchild (i.e., the overcomer company).

The prayer campaign was timed to coincide with the fateful Roe v. Wade court case which led to the legalization of abortion in America on January 23, 1973. This was comparable to the decree of Pharaoh to kill the male babies born to the Israelites in Exodus 1:22, where the underlying spiritual motive was to prevent the deliverer (Moses) from being born.

The same motive was behind King Herod’s decree to kill the children of Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16). Herod simply wanted to prevent the Messiah from replacing him as king, but the spiritual entity behind the scene was the red dragon who wanted to prevent the Messiah from delivering the whole world from the power of sin (Revelation 12:3, 4, 5).

The legalization of abortions in America and around the world is the third great manifestation of this attempt to prevent the world’s deliverance. Perhaps the main development in this round is that the Deliverer is not just Christ Himself but Christ united with His body of overcomers. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod, He came as the Heir of the throne of David to fulfill the prophecies of the tribe of Judah and David in particular. But in our time, He is fulfilling the prophecies of Joseph.

The Joseph Application of Prophecy

The Joseph connection appears as a secondary theme in the biblical story of Christ’s birth. Not only was his earthly father named Joseph, but He was also buried in the tomb of his great-uncle, Joseph of Arimathea (Matthew 27:57-60).

Again, when Joseph and Mary took Jesus to Egypt for His protection, Matthew cites a prophecy from Jeremiah 31:15 that foreshadowed the slaughter of the children in Bethlehem. We read in Matthew 2:17, 18,

¹⁷ Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: ¹⁸ “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; and she refused to be comforted, because they were no more.”

Jeremiah and Matthew were referring to the story of Joseph as he was being taken to Egypt. The book of Jasher 42:29-40 gives a very interesting account of this. We are told that as Joseph was being taken to Egypt, they passed by the grave of Joseph’s mother, Rachel.

²⁹ … And the men proceeded on the road, and they passed along the road of Ephrath where Rachel was buried. ³⁰ And Joseph reached his mother’s grave, and Joseph hastened and ran to his mother’s grave, and fell upon the grave and wept… ³⁷ And Joseph heard a voice speaking to him from beneath the ground, which answered him with bitterness of heart, and with a voice of weeping and praying in these words: ³⁸ My son, my son Joseph, I have hard the voice of thy weeping and the voice of thy lamentation; I have seen thy ears; I know thy troubles, my son, and it grieves me for thy sake, and abundant grief is added to my grief. ³⁹ Now therefore my son, Joseph, hope to the Lord, and wait for him and do not fear, for the Lord is with thee, He will deliver thee from all trouble. ⁴⁰ Rise up my son, go down unto Egypt with thy masters, and do not fear, for the Lord is with thee, my son. And she continued to speak like unto these words unto Joseph, and she was still.

Neither Jeremiah nor Matthew acknowledge the book of Jasher as the source of this story, nor do they tell us that it was part of Joseph’s experience. Yet is provides evidence that this was more than just a reference to the slaughter of the children in Bethlehem. It also prophesied of the end of the age, when the slaughter of the innocents would again occur. Christ’s second coming as Joseph was to be preceded by another time of weeping—Rachel weeping for her children—before the time of deliverance from “Egypt.”

Children’s Day

On January 23, 1985 we saw an early sign marking the Children’s prayer campaign. We lived in Arkansas at the time (1985), and a couple in our local group had wanted to adopt a child. Their daughter was born on the day of our prayer campaign, and they were informed of that birth a few weeks later and then adopted her.

Nineteen years later Evan was born on the same day that the adopted daughter was born. The coincidence showed that these births were related prophetically. We often see how prophetic patterns are established, and then the theme recedes into the background, only to reappear many years later on the same dates. It is as if the intervening time does not exist, and part 2 of the story picks up where part 1 ended.

In this case, part 2 occurred in 2004, as we began to prepare to pour out the fifth bowl of wine upon “the throne of the beast” (Revelation 16:10). The throne had to be judged in order for the Manchild to replace the beast on the throne. It was for this reason that Evan was born on January 23, 2004 as an extension of the Children’s prayer campaign of January 23, 1985.

In that Evan was birthed by Erin, “Peace,” it suggests “the Prince of Peace,” one of Christ’s titles in Isaiah 9:6, as opposed to the violence and bloodshed of the Pharaoh/Herod type of rule. Those who promote abortion are supporting the spirit behind Herod and Pharaoh, and this is evidence that they are not overcomers unless they repent.

This also brings us back to Jacob’s prophecy in Genesis 49:10,

¹⁰ The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

The word Shiloh means “peace.” It comes from the same root as shalom. This is a prophecy of Christ’s coming through the house of Joseph to bring forth His peaceable Kingdom. These prophetic events send forth the call to put on the mind of Christ and the character of Shiloh, for God will empower His lions of Judah only if they have the heart of peacemaker lambs. Like Jesus.

Will the Real Messiah Please Stand Up

As I was driving to Arkansas on January 26, 2004, the Lord spoke to me, saying,

“The people of the earth have believed many false messiahs who have promised them liberty. But they have only led them into more violence and destruction. Bring them before Me, and let us manifest to them the true Messiah. Propose to the people that they submit their cases to Me and appeal to Me to decide their cases.”

This intrigued me greatly. I pondered the implications of such a proposal and discussed it with my wife. In asking the Lord when to do this and how to proceed, He told us to go before the Divine Court on February 4. And so we did. In essence, this was to be on the order of an “Elijah showdown,” where the proposal would be made that the God who answers by fire, let Him be God. Except that this was to manifest the true Messiah and expose the false messiahs.

On February 3^rd we went into prayer to get final details. He said that we were to call forth the ministers and their congregations before Him in the Divine Court. These were to include both Christian and non-Christian religious groups. We did this, and when their spirits were all assembled before the Court, we were told to speak the Word to them and issue the challenge, because each group believed in different messiahs (deliverers, apostles, “true prophets,” etc.). They were challenged to present their case before the Divine Court and let God decide who was truly called.

It is doubtful if any of these representatives were consciously aware of what they were doing. Their spirits appeared before the Divine Court, whether their souls were aware of it or not. When they all agreed to present their cases, then I presented the petition to the Divine Court. It was really on behalf of all of these religious groups (and some not so religious). I petitioned the Court to reveal whose Messiah was the One sent by God to rule His Kingdom. The Lord took the case and said that He would manifest the true Messiah to them through His people.

What the Father actually revealed to us during the hour prior to the Court case was that Christ would be manifested in the sons of God, and they would be sent out into the world to show and demonstrate by the power of the Spirit the works and character of the true Messiah. When this happens, there will be a tremendous outpouring of the Spirit in the world that will bring large numbers of people into the knowledge of His glory and His Kingdom. Those who accept Him will be those who accept these manifested sons (overcomers), for they represent Him in the earth.

Realms of Light and Darkness

However, there will also be some opposition at this time. Not everyone will accept the overcomers yet, because we are still speaking of a time prior to the actual Great White Throne judgment, when all of these disputes will become moot. We are talking here of the manifestation of the sons of God in the Age of Tabernacles for the next thousand years.

As large numbers of people come to Christ and proclaim allegiance to the true Messiah as their personal King (Isaiah 2:2, 3), this will also translate into more “national” movements. That is, the people will collectively demand that Jesus be proclaimed King of their respective nations. They will demand that their laws be changed to reflect the true justice and righteousness of the divine law, which, of course, is based upon Love and Truth.

Some will oppose this. For example, some might object to laws against homosexual behavior, not wanting to be healed from this condition that is “unnatural” (Romans 1:26). Others might object to laws making adultery a crime. Or curtailing their “freedom of speech” to publish pornography. Or their “freedom of religion” to do human sacrifice.

Such people, Jesus said, will be cast into “outer darkness” (Matthew 8:12). This is not “hell,” as is usually taught. It is any place outside of the Kingdom of Light. Those who love darkness will have to live outside the Kingdom of God, where they are free to live in countries that permit such things.

During that thousand-year Age of Tabernacles, the earth will still be divided into two parts—those who live in outer darkness and those who live in the Kingdom of Light. Only toward the end of that Age will the final war take place (Revelation 20:7-9). The people known prophetically as “Gog and Magog” will attempt to conquer God’s Kingdom, but the result will be that Christ conquers them and takes over their territory.

Only then will God’s Kingdom, pictured as a “stone” (Daniel 2:35), fill the whole earth, as the prophet said. This will fulfill also the calling of Joseph to rule Egypt, because Egypt is a type of the world as a whole. When Christ is the undisputed Ruler of the whole earth, and all things are put under His feet, then the calling of Joseph will be complete.