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Wars of the Lord

This 255-page book gives 50 chapters of spiritual warfare experienced by Dr. Stephen Jones from 1981-2008.

Category - Long Book

Chapter 10

1993: The Warfare Begins

The year 1993 brought a number of issues to a head. On May 30, which was the feast of Pentecost that year, the Church reached its 40th Jubilee (49 x 40 = 1960 years from 33 A.D.) In other studies we have shown that this was the beginning of the end of the Church Age, as portrayed in the life and death of King Saul. Saul was the primary prophetic type of the Pentecostal Age, having been crowned on the day of the Feast of Weeks, later known by the Greek name, “Pentecost.”

The new prayer army being assembled did not have the authority to begin its work prior to the end of the Pentecostal Age. Thus, only after May 30, 1993 did God begin to reveal how and when to begin the warfare to which He had alluded in 1990 and 1991. From 2 Sam. 5:5 we learned that David was made king over the single tribe of Judah after the death of Saul, and he reigned over Judah for seven years and six months. At the end of that time period, David was crowned king over all the tribes of Israel.

This told us that at the end of the Pentecostal Age, there would be a transition of authority that would extend until Nov. 30, 2000. During this time, the overcomers (representing David) would learn how to use their newly-acquired divine authority. A big part of this learning process would involve the seven-year prayer campaign.

In the midst of all this, the Israelis and the PLO signed a peace accord on Sept. 13, 1993, causing a flurry of prophetic predictions about the beginning of the seven-year tribulation. I believe they are right about a seven-year period, but their view of “the tribulation” is based upon a faulty view of the book of Revelation. And so, the predicted mass destruction did not occur by Sept. 2000, nor did the “Antichrist” appear either in 1993 or in the middle of the “week” (April 1997), as many expected.

Even so, we did enter a seven-year period in 1993 that would culminate toward the end of the year 2000. We knew this in 1993, of course, but now that the full seven years have passed, we have absolute confirmation of this. The peace accord signed Sept. 13, 1993 fell on the 29th of Elul of the Hebrew calendar. Those peace accords totally fell apart precisely seven years later on the 29th of Elul in the year 2000, or Sept. 29, 2000 on the western calendar, after Ariel Sharon made his provocative visit to the Temple Mount just to prove that Jews have the right to go anywhere they want. This “in-your-face” attitude became the undoing of the entire peace process, and the Israelis soon rewarded him for his efforts by electing him Prime Minister.

The seven years, then, turned out to be a seven-year opportunity for peace, not a seven-year “tribulation.” No classic antichrist appeared on the world scene, no Jewish temple was built in Jerusalem, and no “rapture” occurred.

The opportunity for peace failed because today's Zionist leaders could not correct the problem created in 1948. Both the Zionists and the Palestinians are firmly entrenched in the belief that the land belongs to them. While many Jews and Palestinians would prefer to coexist peaceably, the religious sentiments are too powerful to be thwarted. In my view, the situation cannot be resolved apart from divine intervention. To me, the only hope is for all the disputing parties to come to know Jesus Christ and live according to His example, treating each other as equals under God.

I believe that the overcomers are the ones who will actually bring forth the fruit of the Kingdom and will be given the Kingdom of God. Because I believe this, I refuse to leave it to the Zionists to establish God's Kingdom. Because I do not believe all non-Jewish Christians will be taken off the earth in what is called “the rapture,” I cannot abdicate my responsibility and give this authority to the Zionists in hope that they will suddenly turn to Christ during “the tribulation.” Yet God is soon going to send forth a powerful move of His Spirit into the earth by the hand of the overcomers. In the midst of wars and the inevitable destruction of Jerusalem, God is going to do the greatest work ever seen in the history of the world.

The seven-year spiritual warfare that God's people fought from 1993-2000 was preparatory for this coming spiritual awakening. From 2000-2007 was a second seven-year period of warfare, but this time from a stronger position of authority. David’s authority was greater after he was crowned king over all Israel. Even so, the authority of the overcomers was greatly increased after Nov. 30, 2000. But that is a later story. Meanwhile, let us get back to 1993 and explain the significance of the Jubilee Prayer Campaign.

Our Jubilee Prayer Campaign in Nov. 1993 was the beginning of a seven-year period, and based upon two distinct biblical patterns.  The first pattern was based upon the overthrow of “Jericho” in Joshua 6. The second was pattern was based upon the overthrow of “Babylon” in Daniel 4.

The Battle of Jericho

In 1990 the Lord spoke to me in passing about the battle of Jericho, saying, “You have not yet fought that one.” Having been a part of numerous spiritual battles with the NOP in the 1980's, this Word made me wonder just what He meant. The obvious implication was that the day would come when I would be involved in a spiritual warfare that was patterned after Joshua's battle of Jericho (Joshua 6).

In the summer of 1993 the Lord told us to move to Seattle and issue a “call to arms” to anyone wanting to actively participate in the Jubilee Prayer Campaign. We understood from the start that this was based upon the battle of Jericho, and we related the seven days of Joshua's battle to the seven years of our own warfare.

As it turned out, we held a total of eight named prayer campaigns in the next six years (1993-1999). These were:

  1. Nov. 21-29, 1993—the Jubilee Prayer Campaign
  2. Jan. 27-30, 1994—His Fullness
  3. June 4, 1995—Occupy Till I Come
  4. Nov. 1-7, 1995—Know God as God
  5. Aug. 3, 1996—These Stones II
  6. Nov. 1-7, 1996—Love of God
  7. Nov. 22, 1997—He Delivered
  8. Aug. 19 to Sept. 2, 1999—Dragon’s End

As we entered the eighth prayer campaign, God impressed upon us that the seventh year was our Sabbath year, and we would not engage in spiritual warfare from Nov. 1999 to Nov. 2000. At first I wondered about this, because I took note that Joshua had been instructed to march around Jericho once each day for six days, but on the seventh day the army of Israel was to march around the city seven times. It appeared that Israel did seven times as much work on the seventh day as they did on the other days. So I wondered how the pattern would be fulfilled.

God then moved upon Sunny Day Roberts, an intercessor living in Wisconsin, to schedule meetings with certain ones that she was led to invite. These were discernment meetings where those in attendance were called to discern the voice of God and to issue divine decrees based upon that Word. Such decrees are typified by “trumpets” in the Bible. There were seven such meetings within the dates of our Sabbath year, but she did not consciously try to plan seven meetings. She only did what God told her to do.

I figured out what the Lord was doing in March of 2000, about a month after the second meeting. Of course, I did not tell Sunny Day, because it was important that God should lead her without my help. The first meeting was held in Wisconsin on the night of Dec. 22, 1999. The last meeting was from Nov. 28-30, 2000, covering the seventh anniversary of the Jubilee Prayer Campaign Nov. 21-29, 1993. Only then did we know how the fall of “Jericho” would manifest in all this. After all, the walls did not fall until the very end.

The revelation and decrees that went forth in these seven meetings fulfilled the pattern of the trumpets blowing in Joshua's day, as Israel marched around Jericho seven times on the seventh day. These decrees were not of a warring nature, but a building up of the body of Christ. In this way the Sabbath-year pattern was fulfilled.

One final word about Jericho . . . In 1998 I needed to know what type of trumpets the priests were blowing during their march around the city. The King James Bible says they were “rams' horns” (Joshua 6:4, 5, 6, 8, 13). Yet when I looked up the original Hebrew word used, I found that it was yobel, the Hebrew word for Jubilee. We understand, of course, that the priests were blowing rams' horns, but this is not the term that is actually written in the passage. Literally speaking, the priests were blowing the Jubilee.

It is also obvious that Israel was not conducting “conventional warfare” in the battle of Jericho. Marching around the city blowing horns might be considered to be psychological warfare, but it was really spiritual warfare. In other words, Joshua's siege of Jericho blowing the Jubilee rams' horns might have been called their Jubilee Prayer Campaign. It would seem that our own prayer campaign was appropriately named.

The Overthrow of “Babylon”

The second pattern of warfare that we knew was being fulfilled in the Jubilee Prayer Campaign was the overthrow of Babylon. The primary Scripture that God gave us as a pattern of Babylon was Dan. 4. In this chapter King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream in which he saw “the watchers” chop down a beautiful old tree. Daniel told him that Nebuchadnezzar himself was going to be chopped down and lose power in Babylon for “seven times.”

We believe this to be a prophetic picture of the overthrow of the rulers of “Mystery Babylon” as manifested in the modern world. We recognize, of course, that there is more than one application to the prophecy, for Mystery Babylon operates in a personal, individual realm as well as in the outward political arena.

In 1993 we thought, perhaps, that we might see the overthrow of Babylon manifested in an outward way by the year 2000, but we had no direct revelation of this. Daniel 4 mainly deals with Nebuchadnezzar returning to the throne with a new understanding of the sovereignty of God. In fact, by recognizing the God of Daniel to be sovereign, he was, in essence, declaring Babylon to be under God—i.e., a Christian nation. We believe that Jesus Christ was Daniel's God in His pre-incarnate form.

The fulfillment of this prophetic pattern will become more apparent in due course.

The Jubilee Prayer Campaign

I sent a prayer sheet to those who wanted to participate in the prayer campaign. This was to provide some prayer focus only. It was not meant to be a ritual, but to provide a basic model of prayer where all of us could be in unity, praying the same basic things, while ensuring the freedom to pray for additional things as led by the Spirit.

The year 1993 was the end of 70 + 10 years from the creation of Mystery Babylon’s financial empire in late 1913. (See our book, The Seven Churches, chapters 7 and 8.) The Federal Reserve Act was passed on Dec. 23, 1913 by a handful of Senators (after most had gone home for Christmas). President Wilson may have been blackmailed into signing the bill in February 1914, due to his love affair with Mary Allen Hulbert from November 1909 to February of 1910.

At any rate, the Federal Reserve Act put America under the captivity of “Babylon” in an economic and political sense. Every economist knows the independent power of the Federal Reserve Chairman, and news articles often call him “the almighty” and speak of the Federal Reserve headquarters as a “temple.”

The passage of the Federal Reserve Act occurred 2,520 years after the original city of Babylon became an empire in 607 B.C. after conquering the Assyrian capital of Nineveh. For those who are unaware of the importance of this time cycle, it is a period of “seven times” as defined in the Scriptures. A “time” is either 360 days or 360 years, depending on whether one is dealing with short-term prophecy or long-term prophecy.

Daniel 7:25 speaks of “a time, times, and a half a time” relative to the “little horn” prevailing against the saints of the Most High. This prophecy is enlarged and explained in Rev. 13:5 as “forty-two months,” which is the equivalent of 1,260 days (Rev. 11:2, 3). In short-term prophecy this is three-and-a-half years. The full seven-year cycle, then, would be twice this, or 2,520 days. In long-term prophecy, figuring a day for a year (Ezek. 4:5, 6), the cycle requires 2,520 years.

This can be rather complicated to those who are not used to such in-depth study of Bible prophecy. It is not our primary purpose to explain these things at any length, but we hope that this is sufficient to explain the connection between the rise of Babylon in 607 B.C. and the rise of Mystery Babylon in 1913. It is a historic parallel. To prophecy watchers, the New Babylon has risen again, but because it operates in relative secrecy, it is a Secret Babylon, or “Mystery” Babylon.

In 1981 I first began to wonder if perhaps this Neo-Babylonian economic system might undergo a change or a collapse in 1983 or 1984 at the end of 70 years. This did not happen. We did not yet have the revelation of the “Hezekiah Factor” explained quite thoroughly in my book, Secrets of Time, chapters 14 and 15. The Hezekiah Factor is a ten-day or ten-year delay factor, based upon the story of God turning the clock back ten degrees (or “ten steps” on the sundial of Ahaz). In the story of Hezekiah found in 2 Kings 20, God turned the clock back as a sign to the king of his healing. But hidden in the story is the fact that God was turning the clock back ten years by “legal time” in order to bring the calendar back to the Jubilee year in his day.

In short, by the Hezekiah Factor, the year 1993-1994 was actually 1983-1984. As in Hezekiah's day, God did things ten years “late” but made it precisely on time when He turned the clock back ten years. I know this must be confusing to those who have not read Secrets of Time, but there is no way for us to do a complete study of the Hezekiah Factor here. Those who want more details will have to read that book.

In our prayer campaign in 1993, we appealed to the Divine Court on the grounds that Babylon’s allotted time had begun to come to an end. By the Hezekiah Factor, the year 1993 was legally 1983, the 70th year of the Federal Reserve System. Our prayer was as follows:

“I thank you, Father, for your righteous judgments in the earth. I confess that You have done righteously in selling Your people into the hands of Babylon, for we did not render unto You the fruits of the Kingdom that You justly required. We have submitted to Babylon according to Your just verdict and now we acknowledge and declare that the time of our captivity has ended. We now hear Your Word to remove out of the midst of Babylon.”

Next, by prayer we filed a Petition against Babylon in the Divine Court as follows:

“Whereas the time of captivity of God’s people has now ended;

“Whereas Babylon has refused to let God’s people leave the servitude, but has kept them enslaved beyond the allotted time of the Law’s sentence [Jer. 50:33];

“Whereas the time has passed during which Babylon was responsible by divine Law to bring forth the fruits of the Kingdom, yet has not done so;

“We decree in the name of Jesus Christ and by the authority of His Law that Babylon be recompensed according to her work, according to all that she has done [Jer. 50:29]. Let her foundations be destroyed and her walls thrown down [Jer. 50:15]. We cast her up as heaps and destroy her utterly. Let nothing of her be left [Jer. 50:26], for their day has come, the time of their visitation [Jer. 50:27]. Further, we come against her from every quarter and open her storehouses [Jer. 50:26]. We decree a sword upon her treasures [Jer. 50:37], that all the wealth she has robbed come into the treasury of Jesus Christ and His people. She shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her [Rev. 18:8].

“We agree with God’s righteous sentence that Babylon will be cast into the sea [Rev. 18:21]. By faith we say unto this mountain, 'Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea' [Matt. 21:21].”

We then made a confession of Victory, knowing that God had indeed given us the victory. We prayed as follows:

“I thank and praise you, Father, that the kingdoms of this world have come under Your dominion and under Your Anointed One, who will reign for the Ages of the Ages [Rev. 11:15]. Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints [Rev. 15:3]. All nations shall come and worship before Thee, for Thy judgments are made manifest [Rev. 15:4]. You have been set far above all principality, power, might, dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come [Eph. 1:21, 22]. Thank-you for putting all things under the feet of Jesus Christ, so that God may be all in all [1 Cor. 15:27, 28].”

On the final day of the prayer campaign, Nov. 29, 1993, we had an additional prayer that read as follows:

“In the name of Jesus we call forth the Stone cut out of the mountain without hands to strike the Babylonian image on its feet. Let the entire image be crushed and ground to powder, and let the wind blow it away as the chaff of the summer threshing floor [Dan. 2:35; Matt. 21:44].

“We confess that we are Living Stones who have been fitly framed together into a holy Temple, built upon the chief Cornerstone, Jesus Christ [Eph. 2:20-22]. Let these stones become one stone, the body of Christ, the beginning of the Stone Kingdom that will overcome Babylon by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of their testimony [Rev. 12:11].

“In the name of Jesus we take the Kingdom by force of spiritual arms and proclaim Jesus Christ as the rightful King and heir of all things.”

“And the kingdom and dominion and the great-ness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him [Daniel 7:27].”

On the last night of our prayer campaign there was a lunar eclipse visible in all of North America, a sign of eclipsing Babylon’s power.