San Francisco fires, defending the gate, and being fishers of men
Nov 17, 2018
On November 10 I reported that friends of mine were stuck in traffic while evacuating from Paradise, California as a deadly fire was sweeping down upon the city. I wrote:
“Meanwhile, California continues to burn. There are two major fires at the moment, along with many other less major fires. In the north, the Camp Fire is burning out of control between Redding and Sacramento. When it started, I received a phone call from a friend who asked for prayer because some people we know were evacuating from the area and were stuck in traffic. Their house was soon going to be burned to the ground.”
They are all safe, but the houses were burned to the ground. Interestingly enough, their church was unharmed, and it is now being used as a refuge center. We thank God for that.
The official death toll keeps climbing as rescue workers find more charred bodies in cars, homes, and other places. At this moment there are 74 confirmed deaths, which has already more than doubled the record toll for any fire in California history. It appears that 1000 are still missing, although many of them may have left town and have not reported their whereabouts. Most of the local jobs are probably gone and may take years to return, similar to what happened when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.
Remains of at least 74 people have been recovered so far in California. 71 of the victims are from the Camp Fire around the Sierra foothills hamlet of Paradise and three are from the Woolsey Fire near Los Angeles. Of the dead, 13 victims are yet to be identified.
The once picturesque town was home to nearly 27,000 residents before it was largely incinerated by the deadly Camp Fire on the night of November 8.
More than a week later, a team of more than 9,000 firefighters have managed to carve containment lines around 45 percent of the blaze's perimeter, up from 35 percent a day earlier. The powerful fire razed through more than 142,000 acres in a little over a week.
Nearly 12,000 homes and buildings, including most of the town of Paradise, were incinerated hours after the blaze erupted, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) has said.
Thousands of additional structures are still threatened by the Camp Hill fire, and as many as 50,000 people were under evacuation orders at the height of the blaze.
The air in San Francisco, downwind from the Camp Fire, is pretty bad. Breathing air for a week in San Francisco is like smoking 11 cigarettes.
San Francisco ordered its iconic cable cars returned to their stations as the Air Quality Index (AQI) soared to 271, comparable to Dhaka, Bangladesh and worse than Kolkata, India. The city's AQI means that breathing the air for 24 hours is the same as smoking 11 cigarettes.
'San Francisco's air quality has moved from red or 'unhealthy' to purple or 'very unhealthy' due to local wildfires and weather patterns,' the SFMTA transport authority said on its website.
'The Department of Public Health highly recommends that everyone stay indoors and avoid exposure to the outside air.'
This, combined with the stench of human feces from thousands of homeless people, probably makes the city a difficult place to live.
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-is-san-francisco-so-dirty-2018-2
Most of the problem is due to poor political policies supported by its congresswoman, Nancy Pelosi. The city’s politics need more housecleaning than the streets themselves.
San Francisco’s Prophetic Significance
In previous reports I focused more on the destruction of Paradise (as in “Paradise Lost”). But I am suspecting that there is a broader prophetic message in this, largely because of its connection to nearby San Francisco.
Back in 1981, when the Net of Prayer was first called into spiritual warfare, the revelation was that a demonic army had invaded America through an unprotected “gate” at San Francisco. The formation was pictured as a broken cross formation heading toward Corpus Christi, TX (i.e., the “body of Christ”).
I found myself caught in the crossfire at Las Cruces, NM, and this radically changed my whole life. One immediate result of the battle was that the NOP set me free from the broken cross system (i.e., a corrupt church system), which, in practice, resulted in being expelled from that church and from the general association of churches connected to it.
I joined the NOP on the first day of battle (November 12, 1981) without realizing it, and at that moment I received a phone call from a pastor of another church, accusing me of joining his enemies. Hey, all I did was join the Net of Prayer! He was obviously being used as a spokesman for the broken cross system—without realizing it, of course.
When I joined, my role was to help defend the "gate" at San Francisco. This life-changing experience was difficult, but it thrust me onto a different path, and my life has never been the same since. I wrote about this is the early part of my book, The Wars of the Lord.
From a spiritual point of view, this invasion was the start of the main problem leading to what we see today. The NOP engaged in warfare to break up the “spear” into pieces in order to weaken it and make the demonic attack less effective. We engaged in more spiritual battles in the following years, all made necessary by this original demonic invasion in 1981.
The problem originated in San Francisco, though technically, the problem came because the church had abandoned that spiritual “gate” for its atmosphere of sin. The enemy was able to walk into America unopposed. So who is blame? The sinners or the church? Both, no doubt. But what was done was done, and since that time we have had to deal with it in one way or another.
The church as a whole was prophetically fulfilling the role of King Saul, and his 40-year reign (40 Jubilees of the church age) did not end until Pentecost, May 30, 1993. So in 1981 Saul still ruled and was therefore responsible for the defense of the church and, in this case, America. I received my early training in the Net of Prayer, learning the principles of intercession and spiritual warfare.
The Net of Prayer
The Net of Prayer was named for the example in the New Testament where Jesus told the disciples to cast out their nets into the lake. The first time was when He was still calling His disciples at the beginning of His earthly ministry. They caught a lot of fish, but the net broke (Luke 5:6). The second time was at the close of His ministry in John 21:6, 11 and this time the net did not break.
As I see it, the NOP was limited and handicapped during the reign of King Saul. While it was indeed called and did mighty deeds, it could not complete its calling as “fishers of men,” for whenever they came close to winning, “church decision” prevented full victory. I remember very well the frustration in those days, being called to do a great work but not having the full authority to complete it. It was like David doing the work of Saul but not yet having the full authority to fully defeat the Philistines.
So in 1986 I received a prophetic word instructing me to “call the new Net of Prayer to prayer.” I resisted that word for years, but finally the Father brought it to pass on May 28, 1991. Two years later, after the death of “Saul,” we received instructions to begin the work by holding the Jubilee Prayer Campaign. Only when Saul died (May 30, 1993) did the reign of “David” begin, and even then, as the Scriptures say in 2 Samuel 5:4, 5, David received authority incrementally over a period of 7½ years.
So we discovered that the “David” company received a portion of authority in 1993 to get the new work started, but it was not until November 30, 2000 that full authority was given. This allowed us to complete the work successfully, whereas the first Net of Prayer had fallen short.
The Jubilee Prayer Campaign did not fully end until October 7, 2006 when we gathered in Babylon, New York to declare, “It is done!” (Revelation 16:17).
After this, we entered into a new work, transitioning from “Elijah” to “Elisha” and from “Moses” to “Joshua.” That revelation came from 2007-2009, and the actual Elisha work was launched on April 12, 2009 at a Passover conference in Manassas, Virginia.
That is how the present work started.
Called to be Fishers of Men
In Matthew 4:19 Jesus called certain fishermen to follow Him, and if they did, He would make them “fishers of men.” In the end, we find in John 21:11 that the disciples caught 153 fish. The numeric value of “the fish” is 8 x 153, and the numeric value of “the nets” is also 8 x 153. The mathematics built into the very text of Scripture paints the prophetic picture for us.
The number 153 is the numeric value of “sons of God” in Hebrew. To be a fisher of men is to be a son of God. So essentially, both the Net of Prayer and the NEW Net of Prayer were called to bring in the “sons of God.” Furthermore, in 1991 the worldwide web (inter-NET) was invented (by Al Gore, presumably). As it turned out, our ministry is largely an internet ministry, by which we are able to reach out to people around the world with relatively little cost and effort.
Our ministry so far has been largely limited to searching for “sons of God,” rather than the masses. We have worked to train disciples, as it were, for a greater ministry yet to come. This has taken a long time, but we are now in the final stages of preparation for our online Bible School. A dozen teachers and facilitators are preparing themselves for this type of ministry.
The curriculum will always develop further as I write more books. However, the main courses (Modules) have been established, based on the five-fold ministry in Ephesians 4:11, 12. The curriculum is divided into five Modules, one for each of the five-fold ministry. The teachers themselves will probably have to be the first students in the coming year, and then they will have the experience to teach others.
It may be that everything will be ready about the time of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That outpouring is the only factor that will ensure our success as “fishers of men” on a large scale. I believe that this will occur, and we want to be ready. We prepare today because we have faith that God will pour out His Spirit shortly.
Recently, we had a generous donation that allowed us to replace some old computers that were proving to be inadequate to the present task. These are being formatted and programmed this week end and will allow us to better do our job.
Australia-New Zealand Trip
A week ago Darla and I got plane tickets to fly to Brisbane and Melbourne in February for two weeks, and from there to New Zealand for another week in March. Meetings are being scheduled, and I will give more details later. It is always nice to get out of Minnesota for a few weeks in the winter and go down under where it is summer.
We thank God and thank you too for your support that makes this ministry possible. I am always grateful that so many have caught our vision and participate in the ministry through prayer and finances. We are all in this together, and every contributor will be rewarded equally. I will not receive any reward greater than the least of you (Matthew 10:40, 41, 42).