Aug 06, 2008

As we approached the end of a 5-year call to prayer (1981-1986), God did something unexpected on April 8, 1985. The Lord suddenly came upon me, and began to reveal a great separation from the Church.

I had already known the distinction between the Church and the overcomers, but did not really understand much about it, other than Revelation 2 and 3 makes such a distinction in the messages to the Seven Churches. But later I came to see it as the separation of David from Saul and as the distinction between barley and wheat.

The law says that we are not to sow diverse seed in one field. Spiritually speaking, as long as the overcomers (barley) were in the same "field" as the Church (wheat), this law was not being fulfilled. But April 8, 1985 began this separation and distinction in order that the overcomers would not be implicated in the wrong decision of the Church.

I wrote about this particular event in more detail in my pocket size booklet, The Prophetic Roots of Modern Abortion. But even so, it was not until 1991 that I began to really understand it.

Even as King Saul was given a full 40 years to rule--and David had to wait, even though he had been anointed and was called to be king--so also the overcomers had to wait until the reign of Saul was completed before they could be given authority to bring in the next phase of the Kingdom. For this reason, representatives of the overcomers were called in 1981 to issue the call to the Church to seek God, intercede, and engage in spiritual warfare. When the Church refused, God made this separation, even as David had to separate from Saul in order to survive the spear attacks.

Then, after the non-declared Jubilee of 1986, God began to work more specifically with the overcomers to prepare them in their character and to reveal the divine plan so that they would be able to declare the Jubilee in 1996, according to the Hezekiah Factor.

God knows, of course, who is part of this barley company. He knows whose heart is for David rather than for Saul. These are the overcomers that God has called, and their spirits have been actively engaged in spiritual warfare in the heavens, even if they themselves were not conscious of this. Not everyone needs to know the details of the divine plan, but every overcomer must have a heart for Christ ("David").

And so from 1991-1996, instead of calling the Church to intercede, God called the overcomers instead. They responded. Keep in mind, of course, that in both 1981-1986 and again in 1991-1996 the Lord used a cross-section of these companies to manifest the heart of the entire bodies of people. It would not be possible to conduct a world-wide poll, but God pointed out certain ones by whose responses we would know the heart of the ones they represented.

It is not too different from modern polling companies today. They ask a random sample of people of their opinions and can come up with a fairly accurate picture of the whole. So it is with God. This method makes it possible for God to have many overcomers all over the world without having to put them all into a single organization.

Too many have made the mistake of thinking that their particular organization or church is "the true Church," and that in order to have status with God, one must join that exclusive club. But this is far from the truth. In fact, most such exclusive churches end up acting more like King Saul than David. God looks at the heart, not at a membership role.

Meanwhile, the Saul Church reached its 40th Jubilee on May 30, 1993 (dated from Pentecost of 33 A.D. mentioned in Acts 2). That is the day "Saul died." It began the transition from Saul's reign to David's reign. That primary transition extended 7 1/2 years according to the pattern of 2 Sam. 5:5.

The overcomers thus received full authority on Nov. 30, 2000, even as Saul had been crowned earlier (in Acts 2).

This set us up for the intense spiritual warfare in the year 2001, which parallels the time of David's conquests to secure His kingdom. In our modern context, it is apparent that God is working to overthrow Mystery Babylon and to establish His Kingdom in its place.

The transition time (1993-2000) correlated with the Jubilee Prayer Campaign, in which we marched around "Jericho" for seven years. Afterward, the warfare correlated with the seven bowls of water and wine poured out upon Jericho from 2000-2006/7. It also roughly correlated with the Haggai Ministry, completing the corporate "Temple" by 2006. We are now in the time of building the vessels and furniture in this long work, and we are looking at the year 2009-2010 as a possible endpoint for this phase of work.

Meanwhile, God has planted "barley" in a field separate from the "wheat" field. He is working with the overcomers and the Church in different ways. When barley is harvested, it is winnowed. When wheat is harvested, it is threshed. When grapes are harvested, they are trodden under foot. Each field is treated differently, according to the work it takes to remove the chaff or flesh.

The judgments of God come by means of the Holy Spirit. In the case of the barley, it only takes "wind" to remove the chaff. In the case of wheat, it takes more effort. The Latin word for threshingfloor is tribulum, where we get the word "tribulation." But either way, the purpose of tribulation is to extract the life (seed) from behind the chaff. He will do what it takes to accomplish this good purpose.

The purpose of treading the grapes is to extract the new wine for God's communion table. Without it, God's communion would be pretty dry. Though grapes require the most intense form of judgment, the divine purpose is to obtain these non-believers to a place of faith and life as well. When the plan is completed, His glory will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.