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Casting out the bondwoman

If you have been following these weblogs, you may recall that April 19 was a watch date. It was the Israeli state's 62nd anniversary (by the Jewish calendar), and it was also the 1470th day from April 11, 2006, when the Israeli government officially declared Ariel Sharon to be incapacitated by his stroke and was formally removed from office.

3 x 490 days = 1470

April 19 was the 1470th day, counting inclusively. April 20 was 1470 days from his formal removal from office. Ariel is the name for Jerusalem mentioned in Isaiah 29:1, "Woe to Ariel." I have believed for many years that Ariel Sharon represented the spirit of Jewish Zionism in its outworking. Sharon himself was known as "The Bulldozer," because it was his favorite tool to use in demolishing the homes of Palestinians. He was the epitome of the violence and force of the Old Covenant mindset, by which they were attempting to establish the Kingdom of God.

As it turned out, the date to watch was April 20, not the 19th. I met with a group of intercessors yesterday to see what the Father was saying. A woman told of a dream that she had just received, where she was invited by a pastor to go to dinner. The dinner consisted of a large bowl of vegetables, and the pastor emptied the bowl upon his plate and began to eat. He left nothing for her or the others. Then she woke up.

Later, in praying about this, she ran across Ezekiel 34 and discovered the interpretation of the dream in verse 2,

"Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to those shepherds, Thus says the Lord God, Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves. Should not the shepherds feed the flock?"

Verses 10 and 11 also say,

(10) Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I shall demand My sheep from them and make them cease from feeding sheep. So the shepherds will not feed themselves anymore, but I shall deliver My flock from their mouth, that they may not be food for them. (11) For thus says the Lord God, Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out.

In reading the rest of the chapter, the indictment against the shepherds was also that they had misused their position and had placed the sheep in bondage to themselves, rather than take responsibility for their care. So God was going to intervene and remove them from their position as shepherds, replacing them with "my servant David" (vs. 23). This speaks of Jesus Christ, the Son of David.

This has layered meanings. First, God delivered us from the Levitical priesthood ("shepherds") who had abused the sheep in earlier times. He replaced them with the Melchizedek priesthood, of which Jesus Christ is the High Priest.

But in more recent times, in the church itself, many of the Christian "priesthood" have followed the pattern of abuse similar to what was seen in Old Testament times. They have fleeced the sheep but have refused to feed them the Word of God. They have refused to seek for the lost sheep of the House of Israel. We are now seeing even worse abuse printed in the newspapers today.

And so the intercessors were led yesterday to proclaim a release from those abusive and oppressive shepherds.

I myself had come prepared to share about Old and New Covenant marriage, as the group had requested this. So I was able to relate the group's revelation to the bondwoman (Hagar), which is the Old Covenant and pertains to the Old Jerusalem ("Ariel"). Paul says in Gal. 4:25,

"Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children."

The Old Covenant mentality of Jerusalem is a system that promotes slavery and abuse of the "sheep," whether it is done by Jews, Romans, Christians, Muslims, or anyone else having that mindset. The word I had fit perfectly with the revelation of the others yesterday, and when we put it all together, we knew that we were to declare the casting out of the bondwoman. This is what we did as a group.

The timing of this was significant, since it was linked by a well-known time cycle (3 x 490 days) to the removal of Ariel Sharon from his government position as Prime Minister. So what has actually happened is that, after 62 years of the Israeli state and its attempt to establish the Kingdom by violence and force, we came to the end of that time. It was thus revealed that we were to declare in the name of Jesus that the bondwoman (Jerusalem, Ariel) was cast out.

It will be interesting to watch how this unfolds in the days to come.