The work of Elisha, part 6

On June 4, 2009 my wife and I began driving west toward Seattle, Washington (our 42^nd state). We understood that we were to deal with the two bears in the third sign of Elisha. In 2 Kings 2:24 the two bears “tore up forty-two young lads.” So we had made the connection to the 42^nd state.

Years earlier, in 1993 we had moved to Washington shortly after President Bill Clinton was sworn in as our 42^nd president in Washington D.C. Washington state, we knew, was a spiritual type of Washington D.C. By observing signs in Washington state, we were able to gain insights into spiritual events going on in Washington D.C.

For this reason, dealing with the first “bear” in Seattle, Washington was designed to help resolve a spiritual problem in the federal government in Washington D.C. as well as in Bethel, the “house of God” (i.e., the church).

Opposition

We expected to run into some sort of opposition, because that had been Elisha’s experience with the mockers/persecutors. So when the car broke down in Miles City, Montana late in the first day of travel, it was not a surprise. We spent the night in a hotel and the next morning the car was towed 150 miles to Billings for repairs. The repair shop had to order parts, which were not delivered on schedule.

To keep our own schedule, we had to finish the trip with a rented car. It is always amazing how physical circumstances reflect spiritual conditions. Yet even opposition, though inconvenient, always becomes an ultimate blessing. God knows how to work all things together for good (Romans 8:28). Being members of AAA, the cost of towing the car was paid for us, and by renting a car in Billings, we put 2,000 miles on the rental car, rather than our own. The rental was newer than ours, so our trip was that much more comfortable.

Little Big Horn

After checking into the hotel in Billings, we were led to drive south to Little Big Horn, the site of a famous Indian battle in 1876. In that battle, General Custer’s regiment was destroyed by the Indians led by Chief Sitting Bull. We had just enough time that afternoon to visit the location and to pray for reconciliation.

In my family history, compiled by my great-aunt Jenny in the 1970’s, she included a picture of General Custer, because one of his mistresses was the sister of my great-great-great grandmother. Custer had come from Germantown, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia. Our oldest daughter was born in Germantown, while we worked for the Christian Literature Crusade in nearby Fort Washington. The phone book for Germantown included pages of Custers.

While at the battlefield museum, a video mentioned that on June 5, 1876 Chief Sitting Bull had a vision at a Sun Dance, in which he saw white soldiers and some Indians in a cloud of dust. The soldiers’ heads fell into the camp, and the old chief heard the words, “I give you these because they have no ears.”

Was it just a coincidence that on June 5, 2009, precisely 133 years after the vision, we began our trip to deal with the two bears? Was it a coincidence that our car broke down and that we had to spend an extra night in Billings, which gave us just enough time to visit Little Big Horn?

On June 25, 1876, just 20 days after Sitting Bull’s vision, General Custer disobeyed orders and ran into more Indians than he could handle. He and his regiment of 263 men were all killed in the battle. General Custer had no ears.

In the background, there was another cause as well. Gold had been discovered in Western Montana, and various Indian tribes stood in the way of the miners with gold fever. They too had no ears (to hear God’s voice and to be led by the Spirit).

When the Indians resisted the miners’ encroachment on their territory, the army was sent to put the Indians onto reservations. Those who refused joined with Sitting Bull for a final showdown. Custer’s 7^th Cavalry attacked them without realizing the Indians outnumbered them 10:1. Only 24 Indians were killed in the battle.

It is interesting that Sitting Bull’s vision did not attribute his victory over Custer’s regiment to his own fighting skill, nor even to the righteousness of his cause. His victory was due to the spiritual deafness among the white men who had no ears.

Our prayer of reconciliation asked God to give us ears to hear His word. To hear is also to obey. When men lack the understanding of God’s word—especially the New Covenant gospel—they cannot possibly obey God in the manner that God prescribes.

Praying for the Children

On June 6, 2009 we rented a car in Billings and drove to Boise, Idaho, where a meeting had been scheduled. We were able to rest for a few days and to visit with Richard and Sharon Nelson. Recall that they had been married at the conference in Champaign, Illinois at the start of our Tabernacles conference in 2000, where we poured out the first bowl of wine and water.

On the morning of June 10, we received a word from the Lord regarding “children.” We did not understand this word, other than that we connected it to the 42 “young lads” in 2 Kings 2:23. Just before leaving Boise, the Nelsons suggested that we should stop in Pendleton, OR to see a Native American museum. They said that it included a wall-size picture of Native children in uniform, who had been forced to attend a church school to be trained in white culture. The children were even beaten if they dared to speak to one another in their own language.

We had just enough time to stop at the museum. When we arrived at the wall picture of the children, we were led to repent on behalf of the country and the church, asking for forgiveness and reconciliation. Knowing that Elisha's curse upon the children had expired, we prayed to remove the curse upon the children. I then heard the word of the Lord quote from Matthew 18:5, 6,

⁵ And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; ⁶ but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

In Elisha’s time, the 42 children paid the price for the sins of their fathers. If their fathers had respected Elisha, their children would have followed suit. But when the parents heard about Elijah’s ascension, they did not believe it had happened, and their conversations, no doubt, were heard by their children. Hence, when Elisha arrived, they mocked him, and the children paid for the sins of their fathers.

The same principle is seen in the great abuse called abortion. Millions of children have paid for the sins of their parents. Today, reports are surfacing about child abuse that is even worse—literal child sacrifice, torture, and cannibalism has been going on for a long time without people’s knowledge. Some of the children have been chosen to perpetuate the practices and were trained to kill and torture other children.

But God has caused some of those children to escape, and they are now testifying of the things that they have personally witnessed. I believe that our prayer of reconciliation in 2009 spoke into this situation, combined with the prayers of many others, and that we are now seeing these abuses uncovered.

The Millstone

From Pendleton, we crossed the Columbia River at the McNary Dam, because we were led to bless the river and the land on both sides of the river. The Lord said to find a certain stone at the McNary Dam and carry it along the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, where we were to cast it into the sea. The stone was obviously to represent the “millstone” in Matthew 18:6.

Most of the stones in the area were volcanic and very rough. But then we found a smooth stone in the shape of a fat cigar. It looked like it might have been used in the past to grind things in a bowl. One might call it a miniature millstone. We took it with us and began the long drive to the ocean, blessing the river and the land along the river to remove the curse from the land.

It occurred to me that Babylon itself was a millstone around America’s neck (Revelation 18:21). It had been placed as a yoke upon the nation and the church, in part, because of their offense against the children.

We consulted the map (atlas) to see if there was a town at the end of the Columbia River. We found the town of Astoria, named after John Jacob Astor, who had monopolized the fur trade in the early 1800’s. He was not a nice man, but many scoundrels have been memorialized and honored over the years—especially if they were rich.

The advantage of driving is that it provides me with time to ponder and pray. It occurred to me that we had been following the Lewis and Clark Trail virtually the entire trip so far. In Montana we had followed the Yellowstone River, then the Snake River, and now the Columbia River. Lewis and Clark had explored these areas from 1804-1806.

The Columbia River forms the border between Washington and Oregon to the Pacific Ocean. We were led to follow this trail and cast the “millstone” into the sea at the town of Astoria. This ended the Columbia River phase of the work, where we removed the curse on the land and river by speaking the blessing of God. With this preliminary work completed, we then drove north on Interstate 5 from Portland, arriving in Seattle on the evening of June 11, 2009.