Chapter 2
1984-1985: The Manchild Aborted
As early as July 1984, while we were in a prayer campaign called “Operation Clean Sweep,” the Lord gave a mysterious word, saying,
“The purpose of this warfare is to revive the Church, My body. The heavens must be opened above Corpus Christi [Body of Christ] . . . If My body does not repent, I shall soon remove the candlestick of My presence from her. Pray for her revival, for this is the key to her survival.”
That particular prayer battle involved a considerable amount of revelation about the abortions taking place in America. God related it to human sacrifice. It soon became apparent that the battle for Corpus Christi on July 12, 1984 was really about the abortion issue. In fact, the next day, after the battle had been won, President Reagan announced that the Federal Government would no longer fund any organization that performed or promoted abortions. Planned Parenthood was understandably upset, but we perceived it as a sign of victory at Corpus Christi.
At the time, we were not fully aware of the underlying connection between abortion and the Church itself. While much of the Church had opposed abortion, we were yet to see that the world was only following the example of the Church. A year later we were to see that the Church had been aborting the Manchild for 70 Manchild generations, and that their condemnation of the world for permitting abortion was highly hypocritical. In fact, God was using the world to give opportunity for the Church to judge itself. Because the Church condemned the world for aborting babies, God would use her own standard of measure to judge the Church for aborting the Manchild.
And so the next phase of this story began on October 30, 1984 when some co-workers asked me to perform a wedding ceremony on November 2nd. His name was Robert Christian, and his bride was Darrah, a name derived from the Hebrew Dar, which means “pearl.” It is used in Esther 1:6, where it translated in the NASB, “mother-of-pearl.” (See Strong’s Concordance #1858.)
I then heard: “Christ will marry the pearl of great price.” The Lord told me to do it and to treat it like His marriage with Israel at Mount Sinai. He also said, “Watch them, for as they go, so goes the Church.”
In the ceremony itself, I addressed the groom saying:
“Know this, that it is God who has brought you together and who has purposed that you should be united in matrimony this day. Further, He has resolved that you, Robert Christian, should represent Christ and follow after Him with an unconditional love for your bride, as He did.”
To the bride, I said:
“And God has resolved that you, Darrah, should represent the Bride of Christ, His Pearl of Great Price, who shall soon be presented to Him in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle, holy, and blameless in His eyes.”
Two months later, in early January 1985 I received a phone call from a friend out of state who asked me to pray about holding a prayer campaign for our children. I prayed, and the Lord said to do so on Jan. 23, 1985 and to name it from Psalm 118:23. Hence, we named it "The Lord's Doing" Prayer campaign. It was to be effective on four levels: Our children, our spiritual children, the children of Israel, and the Manchild.
A few weeks later, the president of the company where I worked at the time heard from his attorney that a child had been born on January 23 who was eligible for adoption. My boss and his wife had been trying to adopt for some years, so they agreed to adopt the child born on the day of our prayer campaign for our children.
A month later, or about six weeks after the prayer campaign, it was announced to us at work that Robert Christian and “Pearl” were expecting a baby. I asked them about the due date and when they had figured that they had conceived this child. I was told the child was conceived on January 23, 1985. That, of course, was the day of our prayer campaign, and I knew immediately that this was a sign of the birthing of the Manchild in the Church.
I was ecstatic at this sign of the Manchild, for in those days I did not realize that the Church could not bring forth the Manchild through Pentecost, nor did I know that we were still in a Pentecostal Age that would not end until 1993.
A month later, on the evening of April 8, 1985, the Lord suddenly came strongly upon me with a disturbing revelation:
“Oh, My people, had you but listened to My prophets whom I sent to you. But now this day have I separated you from them. No more shall you hear their loving voice calling to you. You are cut off. You have cut yourselves off from them and from Me. They shall be fed and shall find pasture. You shall be left desolate with your house. Come ye out of her, My people. Be not partakers with her of her plagues.”
I wondered what had triggered this. The next morning Darrah miscarried. That was a shock, because I knew immediately what it meant. The Church had aborted the Manchild.
Yet as I contemplated this in the days ahead, I came to see that some Christians abort as a deliberate act by refusing the revelation and provision of the feast of Tabernacles. Others merely miscarry due to lack of strength, as Hezekiah said in 2 Kings 19:3, due to eating too much spiritual junk food that has little food value. With some, it is merely an unbalanced diet.
This event in 1985 is what taught me about the Manchild and how the Church had aborted the Manchild for 70 generations. This is how I came to see more clearly that this was the reason the world had permitted abortion on demand, and how the world only follows the rules and behavior established by the example of the Church. The Church had been given a very real authority, but yet when the world did what the Church had done, the Church hypocritically denounced the world for its behavior.
So on April 19, 1985, as I asked the Lord why He had separated His people from the Church, He said to me:
“In order that My people not be destroyed with the Church.”
“What of the Bride?” I asked.
“She is to you as one dead. She is guilty of murder and must pay the price. . . Henceforth are you My people. . . and I will give you what I had thought to give the Church.”
In other words, because the Church under Pentecost had aborted the Manchild for 40 Jubilees (70 Manchild generations), it was finally brought into divine judgment for “murder.” It was then that God separated the overcomers from the Church in order that the Manchild would be brought to birth in them. The blessing that might have come upon the Church under Pentecost will come to the overcomers instead.
As I reported these words to the head of the Net of Prayer, the Lord’s presence was yet strong upon me, and I wrote:
“There is soon to be a separation between the Bride and the Body. At present, they are one. But soon they must separate, in order that the body of Christ be not crushed, for not one bone must be broken.”
Four years later, in May 1989 I went to visit some friends out of state, and I got to talking with their daughter (about 21 years old). Something in that conversation later sparked a word from the Lord, as I was driving home. The Lord suddenly told me, “She has had an abortion.”
My immediate reaction was, “O Lord, why are You telling me this?” I was not comfortable with this knowledge and would not know what to do with it anyway.
He then said, “I want you to return later to lead her in a prayer of repentance.”
I did return a month later, and when I was able to talk with her alone, I asked, "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”
“Go ahead,” she said.
“Have you ever had an abortion?”
The look of shock and pain on her face almost made me regret asking. “How did you know? If my mother ever found out, she would kill me!”
“Don't worry, the Lord told me in order to lead you in a simply prayer of repentance.” Her tearful prayer of repentance was beautiful, of course. Yes, there is forgiveness after abortion. God's love does not change for His children. And perhaps more important, God's love for the Church has not changed either, in spite of aborting the Manchild 70 times.
I then inquired further about the timing of her abortion and discovered it had occurred on April 9, 1985. It was the same day that Darrah had miscarried! Then I understood why I had felt that the Church had not only miscarried, but had aborted the Manchild as well. These two signs had occurred on the same day.
For this reason, God separated the overcomers from the Church, putting them into two distinct groups. This fulfilled the law in Deut. 22:9,
9 You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seeds, lest all the produce of the seed which you have sown, and the increase of the vineyard become defiled.
God has a vineyard. It is His Kingdom. During the Pentecostal Age, this vineyard has been sown with both barley (Tabernacle overcomers) and wheat (Passover and Pentecostal believers). In 1985, during the 70th Manchild generation when God brought the Church into accountability, God separated the barley from the wheat, putting them into two “fields” in order that the barley company would not be held liable for actions of the “wheat” Church as they aborted the Manchild for the last time.
We are talking on a corporate level, not an individual level, of course. But in 1985 the issue was legally settled that the realm of Pentecost would NOT bring forth the Manchild. They were given ample opportunity to bring forth the Manchild, but aborted 70 times. Now God would work with a smaller group of people called Overcomers, pictured by barley (as I have explained in my book, The Barley Overcomers).
Hence, if any individual desires to bring Christ to full birth and become a manifested son of God, he or she must do so through the Feast of Tabernacles. One must go beyond Pentecost.