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Opposition to the New Jerusalem

The transfer of Kingdom authority, applied to our time, signified two things on different levels. First, there was a transfer of authority from the Church under Pentecost (i.e., "Saul") to the overcomers under Tabernacles (i.e., "David"). Secondly, however, a more extensive transfer of authority was made as well, insofar as God is concerned--the transfer of authority from Babylon to the Kingdom of God.

Both of these are going on at the same time. In fact, the final transfer which occurred on Nov. 30, 2000 was the 4th anniversary of the Coronation Stone's placement on the oak table in Edinburgh, Scotland. Recall that this event on Nov. 30, 1996 established the prophetic pattern that would actually be fulfilled on the same day in the year 2000.

Hence, in the big picture we are seeing the fulfillment--at least in spiritual form--of the prophecy in Daniel 7:22, which reads:

"until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment [adjudication, the right to judge, authority]was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the Kingdom."

In 2000 the transfer was done in heaven, not in secret but without the knowledge of most people. It has yet to be more universally recognized, but this ignorance of the divine will has no effect upon its efficacy. The interim, however, has been marked by appeals and legal challenges in the Divine Court, as the contenders and pretenders to the throne make their case to regain their position of dominance.

The first major challenge came on January 29, 2001, sparking a general time of spiritual warfare for many months. The revelation began on January 23, while I was at a Sonship conference with Elaine Cook in Vista, California. There we asked the Father to tell us what date to watch next. He replied, "January 29."

We wondered if this date might be connected to 1991, which would have been the normal 10-year cycle, otherwise known as "The Hezekiah Factor." But the Lord surprised us by saying, "No, it is connected to seven years ago" (i.e., 1994).

On Jan. 29, 1994 a full-page ad was placed in the Jerusalem Post declaring Rabbi Menachem Schneerson of New York City to be the Messiah and appealing to the Israelis to accept him as such. This ad appeared while we were in the midst of another prayer campaign called "His Fulness" (Jan. 27-30, 1994). Of course, a false messiah (in my view) was staking his claim to the authority to bring the fulness of the Spirit as prophesied in Scripture. He was not accepted, either by God or by the Israelis, but we knew that the overcomers would indeed receive the promise of God.

The point is that in 1994 the Jewish messiah challenged the overcomers' authority to receive His Fulness. Seven years later the Church under Pentecost made a similar challenge on Jan. 29, 2001. The objection was based largely upon our (spiritual) overthrow of the old Jerusalem two months earlier, wherein we declared the New Jerusalem to be the capital of the Kingdom.

And so we learned on January 23, 2001 that a "petition" and "accusation" had been filed against us in the Divine Court the previous day. The court date was set for January 29, and if we did not answer it, they would win by default. This often happens in such cases, because Christians are largely unaware of the legal process, having neglected their study of the divine law. Thus, the Church usually takes a beating, because it loses most of its cases by default--by not showing up in the Divine Court to challenge such petitions and accusations.

In studying the case at the time, I was led to the story of Jehu as well as King Ahab who had humbled himself (1 Kings 21:29). Ahab's humbling deferred judgment upon America for three years (1 Kings 22:1). As I explained in my book, The 1986 Vision of the Two Gulf Wars, President Clinton was a type of King Ahab. When he humbled himself before the congressional prayer breakfast on Sept. 11, 1998, he deferred judgment upon America for precisely three years (Sept. 11, 2001).

Of course, in January of 2001, we still did not know what might occur on Sept. 11, other than that the biblical pattern indicated war.

We knew that this would have Middle East implications, because we understood that the Prince of Persia was "the main petitioner" against us. In other words, he was not alone. Further study and revelation showed us that we were also dealing with the golden calves, which Jehu had not removed from Israel, even though he destroyed Baal worship (2 Kings 10:26-29). The golden calves had never been overthrown, from ancient times to the present.

The golden calf is today manifested primarily in the Church's Prosperity Gospel. It is rooted in the love of money and the idea that "godliness is gain" (that is, the idea that wealth is an indicator of spirituality and godliness). See 1 Tim. 6:5. For this reason, we know that a secondary petitioner against us was from those teaching the Prosperity Gospel. Furthermore, it told us that in our answer on January 29, we were to appeal for the overthrow of the golden calf in America. (The Prosperity Gospel is a unique home-grown American idea, which has now been exported around the world.)

When the golden calf was built by Aaron in Exodus 32, the result was the removal of God's presence in that "Church in the wilderness." We read in Ex. 33:7,

"And Moses took the tabernacle and pitched it outside the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it 'The Tabernacles of the Congregation.' And it came to pass that everyone which sought the Lord went out unto the Tabernacle of the Congregation, which was outside the camp."

In other words, the golden calf is the biblical reason why the glory of God left the Church under Moses, and the Prosperity Gospel is the primary reason for the same thing in the Church today. If anyone wants to get a Word of Truth from God, they must generally get it "outside the camp."

These were the issues that faced us in January of 2001. And so our petition of Jan. 29, 2001 read in part,

"I ask that these golden calves be cast down, burned with fire, and ground to powder, even as Moses Thy servant did to the golden calf of his day. . . I ask that the whole Church be set free from all influence and domination by the golden calves and that the Church be put under the full authority of Jesus Christ alone."

About an hour after the petition was made, the mail arrived at my office, and I received confirmation of the opposition. It was a letter from a woman claiming to be "Commander in Chief of the Army of the Lord," threatening fire and brimstone upon me and my friends. It would have been humorous, except that I immediately recognized it as the earthly manifestation of the spiritual event in the Divine Court.

Interestingly enough, the letter had the flavor of a sore-loser concession speech, for she wrote, "you, with your carnal, Satanic moves, have crushed and put to death all hope of My true anointed ones from coming forth." In other words, from her perspective, I had won the court battle, and she was angry at the verdict!

The fact is that 7 years earlier, in 1994, we had petitioned for "His Fulness." The results of that petition were emerging into the world 7 years later in 2001, and so our competitors' spokesperson sent us a letter to inform us of our victory. I have often seen such things times in the past, where someone becomes the unwitting spokesman on behalf of spiritual forces behind them. It can be uncanny.

This is what started the battles in 2001, because the opposition obviously felt cheated and totally disagreed with the divine verdict that went against them.