Having observed the revelation of Passover this past month, it is clear that the Moses-Elijah company has now been commissioned to prepare the way (in a final sense) for the coming of Christ and the manifestation of the Sons of God. The word was so spoken in Manassas, Virginia, with the usual confirming signs following.
We understand also that since we live in the time of the second work of Christ, there is actually a progression of ministry from Elijah to Elisha, and from Moses to Joshua. So in that sense, we are entering a time of the ministry of Joshua-Elisha, rather than simply Moses-Elijah.
As you are no doubt aware, Joshua succeeded Moses, and Elisha succeeded Elijah.
The commissioning of Elisha is recorded in 2 Kings 2:9-13 when Elijah’s mantle fell upon Elisha with the double portion of his spirit. Hence, while Elijah performed eight miracles, Elisha performed sixteen.
The blessing (mantle) fell upon the Elisha company on April 12, 2009. There was no dramatic moment with chariots of fire, of course, so most people will have to see how this actually works out in the months and years ahead in order to believe by seeing. Meanwhile, we function by faith, not by sight.
The first thing that Elisha did was to cross the Jordan to return to Jericho. Most of you will recall how he struck the waters of the Jordan River with the mantle, and how they parted to allow him to cross over without getting wet. That was his first miracle. But his first actual restoration work was to heal the waters of Jericho with salt (2 Kings 2:21). Apparently, the water had been quite bad in that area until Elisha healed the waters (2:19).
22 So the waters have been purified to this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spoke.
I find it interesting that Joshua’s first work was to conquer and destroy Jericho after crossing the river on dry ground. Elisha’s first work was to heal the waters of Jericho—again, after crossing on dry ground.
From 1993-2006 we fought modern “Jericho” (or Babylon) in the Jubilee Prayer Campaign. That appears to have been a “Joshua” work to conquer the world system that has been oppressing people for a long time. Now it is time to heal the waters in order to make the world a better place to live in the Kingdom of God.
The Salt of the Earth
In Matthew 5:13 Jesus said,
13 You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.
When Elisha healed Jericho’s waters with salt, he did a prophetic act that is significant to us today in the present Elisha ministry. We are the salt of the earth. Salt is a preservative, of course, but more than that, it makes food tasty. Eating would be much less pleasurable without salt. This was what Jesus focused upon in Matt. 5:13 above.
The religion of his day had become as tasteless as old salt that had lost its flavor. This had happened because the religion had misused, misapplied, and misinterpreted the laws of God. The traditions of men, which claimed to be the true interpretations of the law and the character of God, were actually their carnally-minded religious views that destroyed the law. Jesus said to them in Mark 7:6-9,
6 And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me.’ 7 But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men. 8 Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the traditions of men.” 9 He was also saying to them, “You nicely set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.”
This is how salt loses its taste. What was originally meant to give taste to food then becomes worthless. This was spoken in terms of Judaism in those days. But today the word is applicable more to the Church under the rule of prophetic “Saul,” which has again cast out the law in order to uphold Church traditions. To the extent that they have done this, they misrepresent the character of God.
In early March (if I recall), some friends of ours received a word from the Lord that we were to have a meeting of a group called the Salt Company. This group of eight was formed on Oct. 31, 2007 precisely 490 years after Martin Luther nailed his famous “95 Theses” on the Church door at Wittenberg, sparking the Protestant Reformation.
It was primarily about the misuse of money, due to the sale of indulgences, by which the Church claimed the right to sell heaven to people on the open market.
On the same day 490 years later in 2007, Meredith Whitney published her report about Citibank, which exposed the insolvency of the entire banking system. This is when the current banking crisis rose to the surface. Again, it was about the misuse of money.
There is no doubt that the date of Oct. 31, 2007 was extremely important in modern prophetic history.
When eight of us met to pray and seek the Father’s will on Oct. 31, 2007, we did not know what to expect. But the revelation came that we were to wash each other’s feet with water with SALT in it. It was for this reason we began to call this the Salt Company.
Even so, we had no further revelation about this until now. When the word came in early March to call another meeting of the Salt Company, we again had no particular knowledge of the purpose of this gathering. It was not until the night of April 12, 2009, after the Elisha company had been commissioned, that it occurred to me that Elisha’s first work involved salt.
I then came to see that this was another prophetic marker that was similar to so many that we have seen over the years. Just as the blessing was spoken in Manassas, Virginia on April 12 to commission the Elisha company on the wave-sheaf offering after Passover, so also the beginning of the actual work of healing the nations appears to be the next event on our prophetic calendar.
The meeting is to be held May 8-10, 2009, which happens to be the time of the Second Passover described in Numbers 9:9-14. So the two Passovers are both emerging as prophetically significant this year.
The Prophetic Feasts
Each feast day in Scripture was prophetic. Passover prophesied of the Lamb of God (Jesus) who was to die on that day in His first appearance on earth. The wave-sheaf offering the following Sunday prophesied of Jesus’ resurrection and (more particularly) His presentation to the Father in the Temple of Heaven as the living Son of God.
Pentecost, of course, was fulfilled in Acts 2 with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
The autumn feast days speak of Christ’s second coming, beginning with Trumpets on the first day of the seventh month (Hebrew calendar). Trumpets prophesy of the (first) resurrection. The “ten days of awe” leading to the Day of Atonement on 7/10 speak of a time of great repentance that the resurrection will spark.
Finally, the Feast of Tabernacles will be fulfilled as the Sons of God who are “alive and remain” (1 Thess. 4:17) will be “changed” (1 Cor. 15:51) so that they can become unified with those who have been raised from the dead two weeks earlier on Trumpets.
The eighth day of Tabernacles is the time prophesied for the presentation of the Body of Christ to the Father in Heaven. This cannot take place until that Body is complete in all of its parts, and for this reason the dead must be raised and the living overcomers must be changed so that they can truly become One New Man. Then the Head must be joined to the Body some time between the first and the eighth day of Tabernacles, because a headless man is not yet qualified to be presented to the Father.
This is the basic sequence of prophetic events foretold by the two sets of feast days. The first set speaks of Christ’s first coming, while the second set of feasts prophesy of the events surrounding His second coming.
These feast days also teach us how to progress in our personal relationship with God. Passover speaks of Justification by faith in the blood of the Lamb (Jesus). Pentecost speaks of the infilling of the Holy Spirit, which empowers us to be led by the Spirit and thereby learn obedience to His law (i.e., His will—whatever He says).
Whereas Pentecost speaks of obedience, Tabernacles is the point of full AGREEMENT with God. Here is where the relationship is no longer of a servant obeying his Master. It is instead a son who is in agreement with his Father and does the Father’s will without needing to be told. The son does so as a natural outworking of character and needs no command as such.
The Prophetic Second Passover
The second Passover prophesies about a second oppor-tunity for people to be justified by faith. As such, it speaks of the Great White Throne, at which time every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus Christ (Phil. 2:10, 11). This will be done “to the glory of God the Father,” Paul tells us. There is no glory in forcing a man to make such a confession. The glory is in the fact that God has succeeded in showing His ability to fulfill His purpose for creation, as expressed to David in Psalm 8:6,
6 Thou hast put all things under His feet.
Paul expounds upon this in 1 Cor. 15:27, 28, saying,
27 For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. 28 And when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all.
God has no intention of being all in some, or some in all. He will be “all in all.” In other words, all will be filled with the fulness of God (Eph. 2:18).
But it is obvious that this has not taken place yet. The vast majority of people on earth have not even been justified by faith in Jesus Christ. Many know Him as a great teacher or as a prophet, but most do not have faith that He is the Passover Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world (John 1:29). Anything less than this kind of faith is insufficient to fulfill the feast of Passover on a personal level of faith.
Fortunately for us, death does not end all opportunity for justification, although most Christians have been taught otherwise. I too was told this as a child. Heb. 9:27 was quoted often:
27 And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.
I was told that this means there is no more opportunity for justification once men come into judgment at the Great White Throne. But Paul does not say this. He merely tells us here that after death, one must come into judgment. Yes, of course. I agree with Paul completely.
I also agree with Paul that “every knee will bow” in that day. I agree with Paul that every tongue will confess Jesus Christ in that day. I even agree with Paul’s statement in 1 Cor. 12:3,
3 . . . and no one can say “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
That means when every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, it will be done by the Holy Spirit, not by putting a knife to their throats.
This will be the time of their Second Passover. It will be their second opportunity to be justified—and all will be justified by faith at that time. They will all repent at that time. There will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12), not because they are being tortured, but because they will regret not being justified by faith earlier.
But look at the law of the Second Passover and see how it prophesies of that time. In Numbers 9:6 there were some men who had buried someone just before the Passover. They were unable to keep the Passover because they were unclean, having touched a dead body. Yet God had commanded them to keep the Passover. What were they to do? So they came to Moses, who prayed for revelation to know how to resolve this difficulty.
9 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 10 Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, If any one of you or of your generations becomes unclean because of a dead person, or is on a distant journey, he may however observe the Passover to the Lord. 11 In the SECOND MONTH on the fourteenth day at twilight, they shall observe it; they shall it eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
Notice that it does not only say, “they MAY observe it.” It says, “they SHALL observe it.” I see this as a prophecy of all those standing before God at the Great White Throne. “They SHALL observe it,” because “every knee will bow” and every tongue shall confess Christ.
Also see that this Second Passover is for those who touch a dead body and are not eligible to be justified by faith at that time. We are all mortal. The dead body that we touch is ultimately our own. When we confess Jesus Christ, the next step is baptism, by which we go through a symbolic gesture that signifies passing from death to life, that is, from mortal to immortality.
Secondly, God added another reason to keep the Second Passover. If a person “is on a distant journey,” he was to keep the Second Passover. This speaks prophetically of all those who are far away from God. They are yet on a distant journey, but even so, there is a Second Passover for them when they are all brought near to God in order to stand before Him at the Great White Throne.
The idea that there is no second opportunity to be justified by faith is a Church tradition unsupported by Scripture. Such a teaching puts away the divine law of the Second Passover. Church traditions are stingy when it comes to the salvation of the world. God’s law is not.
Putting It All Together
The Elisha work that lies ahead begins with the healing of the waters of Jericho, after Jericho’s destruction at the hand of Joshua. I am reminded of Hosea 6,
1 Come, let us return to the Lord, for He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. 2 He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day that we may live before Him.
The purpose of divine judgment is not to destroy utterly but rather to bring correction, followed by healing. This is true whether God was judging Israel or other nations. God’s judgments are impartial. Revelation 22 shows us the purpose and goal of the healing of Jericho, because Jericho represents Babylon, and Babylon is the world system that includes all nations. The NASB reads,
1 And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. And on either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
In essence, Elisha’s jar of salt healed the waters of Jericho, in order to prophesy of the greater healing of the nations yet to come. It is the pure water coming from under the throne of God that brings life to the nations, and the leaves of the tree of life bring healing to the nations.
3 And there shall no longer be any curse . . .
When Joshua conquered Jericho, he laid a curse upon it, recorded in Joshua 6:26,
26 Then Joshua made them take an oath at that time, saying, “Cursed before the Lord is the man who rises up and builds this city Jericho; with the loss of his firstborn he shall lay its foundation, and with the loss of his youngest son he shall set up its gates.”
This curse was literally fulfilled in 1 Kings 16:34 just as Elijah was about to come on the scene (in the next verse).
34 In his days Hiel the Bethelite built Jericho; he laid its foundations with the loss of Abiram his first-born, and set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun. 1 Now Elijah the Tishbite . . .
So Joshua laid a curse upon any future builder of Jericho, and it was fulfilled in the time of Elijah. It is fitting that both of these events are associated with the Joshua-Elijah ministry.
On the other hand, the healing of Jericho took place in the days of Elisha, who is associated with the second work of Christ in healing the nations at the end of the age. And Rev. 22 confirms this, saying, “there shall no longer be any curse.”
God led Joshua to lay the original curse upon Jericho, and because He was the Author of the curse, He also had the right to remove the curse. We should not think of God’s curses as being permanent. They are all subsets of the “curse of the law” (i.e., judgments for disobedience), which are meant to correct us and cause us to repent, so that the curse can be removed from us by the blood of the Lamb.
It is evident that God does not hate people and nations who are unbelievers. He intends to save all mankind in the end. He intends to do so lawfully, and the law itself lays down the rules and prophesies about how He will do this. Those rules bring into question God’s ability to fulfill His intention. Most people do not believe that God is capable of saving all mankind by overruling their “free will” or by revealing Himself to those who never had opportunity to hear the name of Jesus.
The first time God’s ability was questioned came through Moses in Numbers 14. When Israel refused to enter the Promised Land, God tested Moses’ heart by offering him and his descendants exclusive rights to be chosen. Moses responded saying in verses 15 and 16, that the nations will say “the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which He promised them by oath.”
God’s response in verse 21 is:
21 but indeed, as I live, ALL THE EARTH will be filled with the glory of the Lord.
In other words, God has the ability not only to bring Israel into the Promise, but also to fill the entire earth with His glory. We know that Israel’s entry into the Promised Land was only a small type and shadow of a much greater salvation that He had planned for all nations. It does not matter how many Churches teach that God is incapable of doing such a thing. He will do it in spite of them.
This is the work that lies ahead. It appears that the word will be spoken prophetically May 8-10, 2009 that will mark the beginning of Elisha’s salt that heals the nations.
