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Note: This blog post is part of a series titled "The Work of Elisha." To view all parts, click the link below.
With the third and fourth signs of Elisha completed in June 2009, we began to focus attention on the fifth sign in 2 Kings 4:1-7. This sign was where Elisha encountered a widow who was so poor that she was being compelled to sell her two sons into slavery to pay her creditors. Elisha told her to gather up as many empty vessels as she could find and then fill them from her last small jar of oil. The oil multiplied, and she was able to pay her creditors.
Of course, we had no idea how or when God would fulfill this sign. Yet we were reminded that we were soon to finish the 3½ years of building the temple vessels after the completion of the Temple on March 15, 2006.
Building and Consecrating Temple Vessels
Recall that March 15, 2006 was precisely 2,520 years (“seven times”) from the completion of the Second Temple in the days of Haggai the prophet. The Second Temple was completed on March 15, 515 B.C. (Ezra 6:15).
As early as 1998 I had taught that we would see Haggai’s Temple prophecies fulfilled on March 15, 2006. All this time, God has been building the Third Temple, described by Paul in Ephesians 2:20-22, and I believed that this would take 2,520 years.
Many in the church have adopted the Jewish view that the Third Temple will be another structure built in Jerusalem on the same Temple Mount as the originals. But that place was cursed by the prophet (Jeremiah 7:11, 12, 14), because the priests had turned it into “a den of robbers.” For this reason, the glory departed from Jerusalem, even as it had previously departed from Shiloh.
Jesus confirmed this as well when He overthrew the money changers (Luke 19:46). God was to build a new temple made of “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5). Each of us is a temple (1 Corinthians 3:16), but collectively, we are also being built into a temple (Ephesians 2:21). It is this collective temple that was completed on March 15, 2006.
So on that date, Lori—a prophetic type of the Third Temple—was set free from the spirit of bitterness, and this also marked the point where the temple vessels would be constructed in the next 3½ years. In Solomon’s temple, the vessels were built after the temple itself was completed.
God was thus preparing us as temple vessels, which we understood to represent the 10 callings that had been defined more particularly in our Salt Covenant meetings on October 31, 2007.
The Dawn of a New Year
The new Hebrew year began on Rosh Hoshana, September 18, 2009. This date also happened to be the 216th anniversary of the day the builders laid the Cornerstone for the Capitol building in Washington D.C. in 1793. The number 216 is highly prophetic, as it is connected to Joshua and Jericho. Joshua’s name appears 216 times in Scripture. Jericho means “moon,” and the moon has a diameter of 2160 miles.
Likewise, the new American president that year was Barack Obama, a senator from Illinois who claimed to be born on August 4, 1960 in Honolulu. August 4 was the 216th day of the year. Honolulu is located at 21.6 degrees latitude. However, the zip code of his Illinois address was 60606, and when he won the presidency on the night of November 4/5, 2008, the Illinois lotter drew #666 the next day (November 5).
Obama’s followers seemed to make him a Christ figure, as if he were Joshua (Yeshua) overthrowing Jericho-Babylon. But his address and the lottery sign, I believe, was closer to the truth.
On September 28, 2009, the Day of Atonement, we were led to proclaim a Jubilee, applicable to those temple vessels whom God was raising up for His purposes. The feast of Tabernacles fell on October 3-10. Our Tabernacles conference was a week late, as this was the only time that could be arranged at the hotel in Sweetwater, TN.
Filling the Temple Vessels
We left home a week early to visit people as we worked our way toward Sweetwater. After visiting family in Arkansas, we drove to Loxley, AL, not far from Mobile, to visit the Baldwins. There we met his friends, Tom and Vinnie, who had been invited to discuss the Restoration of All Things. That meeting took place October 12, 2009.
Brother Vinnie then invited us to attend his home meeting the following evening in Pensacola, Florida. It was about a 45-minute drive from Loxley. We agreed to go, and on the way there, I prayed to know what to expect at the meeting. (I often pray this way before a meeting, since I find it helpful to know what to watch for.) It then occurred to me that we might see the next sign of Elisha in some way.
I was not disappointed. He preached on 2 Kings 4:1-7, the widow whose vessels were filled with oil. The main lesson was that we ought to be vessels filled with the oil of the Holy Spirit. At the end, he opened up the meeting to those who needed prayer.
My normal practice in attending other people’s meetings is to remain quiet and observant to see what God is doing. I prayed and asked God if I should step forward and ask to be filled as a vessel in God’s Temple. But the Lord reminded me that in the story of Elisha, the vessels did not present themselves to the widow woman to be filled. She asked to borrow the vessels from her neighbors, and the vessels were then brought to her. So even though I was sure that I was seeing the fifth sign of Elisha, I waited to see what would happen.
Nonetheless, almost immediately, Vinnie called me up to pray for me, and I immediately stood to my feet and said, “I am a vessel that wants to be filled.” He prophesied accurately about my calling and then prayed that I would be filled with the oil. He then asked me to say a few words, so I explained to the group a summary of how the fifth sign of Elisha had just been fulfilled in the big picture. This was the start of long-term friendships with Vinnie and with Tom.
Note: This blog post is part of a series titled "The Work of Elisha." To view all parts, click the link below.