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The 7th Sign

I was unable to find time to do a weblog yesterday, because of the telephone and visitors. That often happens in this line of work.

In the 7th sign of Elisha (2 Kings 4), the Shunammite woman's son died. She went to the prophet to find a solution to her problem, and his answer came in TWO PARTS. In Part One, Elisha told his servant, Gehazi, to take his staff and to place it upon the boy. Verse 31 tells us,

"Then Gehazi passed on before them and laid the STAFF on the lad's face, but there was neither sound nor response. So he returned to meet him and told him, 'The lad has not awakened'."

In Part 2 Elisha dealt with the situation personally. Verse 34-36 says,

³⁴ And he went up and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth, and his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands; and the flesh of the child became warm; ³⁵ Then he returned and walked in the house once back and forth, and went up and stretched himself on him; and the lad sneezed seven times and the lad opened his eyes. ³⁶ And he called Gehazi and said, "Call this Shunammite." So he called her. And when she came in to him, he said, "Take up your son."

For the past month or so, I have wondered if we might see this seventh sign fulfilled in two parts. January 27 was Part One. It was a beginning point, but not the complete sign. I believe that Part Two is to occur on February 21, perhaps at noon. (The child died at noon--see 2 Kings 4:20.)

There is a reason why I believe we will see Part Two fulfilled on February 21. It goes back to patterns from 2001, involving a staff. In late January of 2001, Elaine Cook and I sponsored a Sonship Conference in Vista, CA. While we were there, the Father began to open our eyes to a greater flow of revelation. We learned that the golden calves set up by Jeroboam in Bethel and Dan were still effecting us. Though Israel had been overthrown by Assyria long ago (because of those golden calves), it seems that no one thought to overthrow them and negate their spiritual influence. These were primarily affecting America.

On January 22, 2001 California Bob received revelation that there was a big court case in the Divine Court that was scheduled for January 29, and that I was to answer it. That is nine years ago today.

"The Prince of Persia is bringing forth its own petition, an accusation. The petition has already been filed yesterday [Jan. 22, 2001], but January 29 is the court date. The Prince of Persia intends to attack America with the help of seven other princes."

Note that two months earlier, on Nov. 30, 2000, we reached the end of the 7-1/2 year transition from Saul to David--that is, from Pentecost to Tabernacles. This was when the full authority to establish the Kingdom was transferred from those of Pentecost to those of the feast of Tabernacles. The divine court case we were facing January 29, 2001 was an accusation and objection to this transfer of authority.

And so, Bob and I were led to prepare our court petition denying the seven princes the right to rule America. By this time, of course, I was back in Minnesota, so we did this by telephone at 8:30 a.m. on January 29, 2001. Then we waited to see what might happen.

About two hours later, the mailman arrived and gave us an envelope. In it was a letter, along with some ashes in a "baggie," which contained also my letterhead. This was obviously to let me know that the person had burned a newsletter. The enclosed letter to me was signed by a woman who called herself "Commander in Chief of the Army of the Lord."

Stephen E. Jones

"Thus saith the Lord--Enclosed you will find the remnant of the Satanic army, comprised in part of would-be seekers who have dared to cross the line into My Holy Kingdom. You are leading a group of people all across this land through the churches that I, by My hand, shall destroy. You, sir, with your carnal mind, carnal intent, and carnal baggage have portrayed yourself to be a General of sorts in My mighty Army. Henceforth I shall bring you to the ground, for you, with your carnal, Satanic moves, have crushed and put to death all hope of My true anointed ones from coming forth. . . ." (blah, blah, blah)

This letter was interesting to me, first because it was the earthly manifestation of the divine court battle, and secondly because the letter informed us that we had won our case. She admitted defeat in the underlined portion of the letter above, and was obviously very upset and angry with me. This is the sort of response one might expect from a spokesman of the Prince of Persia.

By the way;, this woman died a few years later. But because we have some understanding of spiritual warfare, we know that we do not fight against flesh and blood. No doubt she thought she was the General of God's Army, while in fact she was the voice for a very different spirit.

At any rate, we prayed over this to know how to respond. I was not led to respond to her personally, because I don't like to deal with middle management. Instead, we were led to go back to the Divine Court and to do as Moses did when a dispute over authority was raised by a man named Korah in Numbers 17. The word came to me:

"Do not fight back or respond to them directly. On February 2, 9:00 a.m. command that all who dispute the authority transfer must lay up their staves before Me in the Sanctuary, even as Moses did when the princes challenged his authority. . . My ruling will come at noon, February 21, 2001."

So we knew that the staff of authority would bear fruit at noon, Feb. 21, 2001, because this is how it was pictured in Num. 17:8, when Aaron's rod brought forth almonds. So we had to wait a few weeks for God's ruling to be issued from the Divine Court.

Meanwhile, we were also led to file a separate complaint on Feb. 8 on account of the blasphemy in the letter quoted earlier. (Incidentally, a year later on Feb. 8, 2002, the woman in question was brought down to the police headquarters for questioning in a different case, and on the 13th she was actually charged with disorderly conduct, "stalking," and suspicion of murder.)

Then Sunny Day Roberts was led to call for two days of meeting beginning the evening of February 21. Some friends from out of state (last name "Berry") were led to fly in for those meetings. Their plane was scheduled to land at 11:32 a.m. It was clear that that the Berry's were the "fruit" that would appear on the (spiritual) "staff" as God's answer to this authority question.

Their plane was delayed on the runway to wait for another plane to leave the gate. Hence, they arrived precisely at noon on February 21. That was how the budding of Aaron's rod was fulfilled in 2001.

The point of this is that this pattern appears to be coming back to us 9 years later. This time it is about the staff of Elisha. The delay in 2001 appears to have established the timing of Part Two of Elisha's 7th sign. The "almonds" in the story of Moses fit because the Hebrew word for almond means "to awaken,"  because eyes are shaped like almonds. In the story of Elisha, "the lad opened his eyes" (2 Kings 4:35).

So the events of nine years ago give us revelation of what is happening now. Each revelation is a piece of the big revelation, as a cell is to the body. Hence, each revelation has some tie or connection to other revelations. So also the 2001 revelation is connected to the present.