Chapter 7: Judgment Begins on 9-11-01

My wife and I and family moved to Arkansas in January 1983 just as Governor Clinton was becoming that state’s governor. In May, 1987, just before leaving, the Lord spoke to me, telling me that Governor Clinton was going to become the President of the United States. Since the candidates were just then lining up to run for office, I assumed for the moment that he would announce his candidacy immediately, but instead Bill Clinton was elected to office in 1992.

Part of the revelation that I received was that Bill and Hillary Clinton would manifest the pattern of King Ahab and Jezebel in the Bible. At first, I could see only that this would be a very immoral reign that would lead America into divine judgment. 1 Kings 21:25 says,

²⁵ Surely there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife incited him.

In spite of this, however, I came to realize that Ahab had also repented, and this had given the nation a reprieve. That is, the judgment had been postponed for a time. 1 Kings 21:29 says,

²⁹ Do you see how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but I will bring the evil upon his house in his son’s days.

Ahab did not really repent, but he did humble himself. The prophet had confronted him for killing Naboth in order to steal his vineyard. The king humbled himself, but did not return the property to Naboth’s heirs. The next verse begins the next chapter—1 Kings 2:1—which begins by saying,

¹ And three years passed without war between Aram [Syria] and Israel.

So we see that because King Ahab humbled himself, the judgment upon Israel was postponed for three years. The purpose of this postponement was to give Ahab and the people three years in which to fully repent—otherwise, the judgment would come.

President Clinton showed no signs of repentance in his first term of office. But in his second term things his immoral behavior began to be revealed in the newspapers. The reports focused upon his affair with Monica Lewinsky, but he was ultimately impeached for perjury—lying to the Grand Jury.

When Kenneth Star finally was ready to present his report to the Congress on August 18, 1998, President Clinton knew that he had no choice but to confess his infidelity on national television. He was very angry, but nonetheless, he humbled himself over national television on the evening of August 17, 1998.

But a few weeks later, President Clinton appeared before the Congressional Prayer Breakfast in the East Wing of the White House and this time offered the Congressmen a more contrite apology. He even prayed from Psalm 51:10, “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” This psalm was written by King David after his affair with Bathsheba. A prominent news anchorman announced that President Clinton had turned the East Wing of the White House into a confession booth! This Prayer Breakfast occurred on September 11, 1998.

Because of this, God delayed judgment upon America for three years. As in the case with King Ahab, “three years passed without war.” Three years later—to the day—was Sept. 11, 2001. On that day America was plunged into perpetual war. By this time we had a new president, because the biblical prophecy was that this war would not come in King Ahab’s life time, but in the days of his “son” (successor).

When President Clinton apologized at the Congressional Prayer Breakfast on September 11, 1998 for his indiscretions with Monica Lewinsky, this was Clinton’s 911 call for Grace. In the Bible, every word has a numeric equivalent. In ancient times they did not use numbers like we do. They used their letters as numbers. The Romans used six of their letters as numbers (I = 1; V = 5; X = 10, etc.). The Hebrews and Greeks used ALL of their letters as numbers. The first ten simply represented numbers 1-10. The next ten letters, however, represented 20, 30, 40 . . . to 100. Then the next letters were used to write the higher numbers 200, 300, 400, until they ran out of letters. This is called “gematria.”

Anyway, in the Greek New Testament, the word for Grace is charis. Its letters add up to 911.

Thus, when Clinton repented on 9-11-98, we understood that this was his 911 call for Grace. It was interesting that three years later the news media noticed that the Twin Towers had been attacked on 9-11, the standard emergency telephone call in America. What they did not know is that we had already been talking about the events of September 11 being “911” for three years!

And so, believe it or not, God began to pour out His grace on America on Sept. 11, 2001, because suddenly the most popular prayer in America was: God Bless America.

Most do not understand, however, how God blesses people, because they do not understand the biblical definition of “bless.” Acts 3:25 and 26 give us this definition:

²⁵ Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. ²⁶ Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to BLESS you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.

In other words, God has promised to bless all the families of the earth by turning them from their iniquities. The people still think that God’s blessing means that only good things will happen to them and that they will prosper and make a lot of money. Certainly, that is what the people at the New York Stock Exchange were thinking as they sang, “God Bless America.” But that type of blessing is only secondary. Prosperity is ultimately the RESULT of God’s primary blessing—which is to bring America to a place of repentance.

The good news is that God has virtually tricked everyone to pray a simple, but great prayer: “God bless America.” Unwittingly, they are asking God to show them how to repent, so that He will turn us from our iniquities. This is a very good sign, because it is the first step toward the genuine national revival that God has revealed will shortly come to pass. In fact, Isaiah tells us that the fall of the Twin Towers are a major sign of a soon-coming outpouring of the Spirit.

The Law of Multiplying Horses

Six months before the Twin Towers disaster, God revealed to us that we were to begin to pray a simple prayer: God Bless America. This word was given to me on March 28, 2001. Little did I know at the time that within six months, it would become the most popular prayer in America.

This was also when the Lord revealed the true meaning of that prayer. In effect, God used the events of 9-11-01 to elicit a huge appeal that God would cause America to repent and turn from its iniquities. That is a prayer that God will answer and is answering. The divine purpose for this perpetual war is not to win “war on terror,” but to bring America to its knees in repentance.

The prophets who gave President Bush the advice to go to war did not know the reason why God was giving such a word. They probably thought that God would bless America for preventing Iraq from harming the Israeli state. I believe, as many commentators have said, that this is the real motive for the war. But because people do not know who Israel really is, and people do not know the divine law, they do not yet know how to repent. They need to read three books to understand the situation:

• The Struggle for the Birthright
• Who is a Jew?
• Who is an Israelite?

God has brought us into war, not that God wanted revenge on Afghanistan or Iraq or even upon Osama bin Laden. It is to humble us as a nation and bring us our knees. President Clinton has set the pattern for this already on September 11, 1998. Now it is President Bush’s turn to repent on behalf of Church hypocrisy.

Each of these two presidents represents a different half of America. The nation is polarized and split down the middle. Thus, God required President Clinton to repent on behalf of those who desire sexual freedom and lawlessness in the sight of God. But now President Bush must repent on behalf of the Christians for their hypocrisy. They claim to love others, but (at heart) this entire war is being fought by a spirit of revenge. This, too, was revealed to me in February of 2001, months before the war began.

Isaiah 30:23-33 tells us that there will be a great revival in the end times, when the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon the earth like the rain. This “rain” will cause the earth to bring forth its increase—that is, it will cause the earth to bring forth the fruits of the Kingdom for which God has been laboring since the beginning. What was seen on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 was only the beginning. There is yet the feast of Tabernacles to be fulfilled, which will make Pentecost look like a mere sprinkling.

There is one sign that stands out in this passage of Isaiah. It is the sign of the coming “rain” of the Holy Spirit. Isaiah 30:23 says,

²³ And on every lofty mountain and on every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of the great slaughter, WHEN THE TOWERS FALL.

I believe the twin towers falling is the sign that national revival is soon coming. The same chapter warns us, however, that we are to put our trust in God’s protection, rather than “horses” (i.e., armaments). We are told in chapter 30,

¹ Woe to the rebellious children, declares the LORD, who execute a plan, but not Mine, and make an alliance, but not of My Spirit, in order to add sin to sin; ² who proceed down to Egypt, without consulting Me, to take refuge in the safety of Pharaoh, and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! ³ Therefore the safety of Pharaoh will be your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt, your humiliation.

We are told further in chapter 31,

¹ Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, and rely on horses, and trust in chariots because they are many, and in horsemen because they are very strong, but they do not look to the Holy One of Israel, nor seek the LORD! ² Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster, and does not retract His words, but will arise against the house of evildoers, and against the help of the workers of iniquity. ³ Now the Egyptians are men, and not God, and their horses are flesh and not spirit; so the LORD will stretch out His hand, and he who helps will stumble, and he who is helped will fall, and all of them will come to an end together.

This makes it very clear that the arm of flesh is not the answer. We are to trust in God for our defense. If our defense is breached, it is not because we did not have enough weapons or intelligence. It is because we have violated the divine law and have come under the curses of the law (Lev. 26; Deut. 28). The law itself instructs the kings:

¹⁶ Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, since the LORD has said to you, You shall never again return that way.

The divine law itself defines “returning to Egypt” in terms of multiplying horses. The horse was the army tank of the day. Those who multiplied horses were building their cavalry. They depended upon armaments, rather than upon God, for God said that if we obeyed His law, He would give us peace. President Bush needs to understand this biblical principle. Leviticus 26:3 and 6 tell us,

³ If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, so as to carry them out. . . ⁶ I shall also grant peace in the land, so that you may lie down with no one making you tremble.

This, then, is Isaiah’s advice to President Bush. If he is a Christian, as he himself claims, then let him act as if there is a God who actually is sovereign and knows what He is doing. Let the President put his trust in Jesus Christ. If he had done this, the world would have admired America, even as we received tremendous world sympathy after the fall of the Twin Towers. But we squandered that with our policy of vengeance and war, and now the whole world is against us except for the Israelis, whose violent policies we are imitating.

If trouble comes, it is because he has forsaken the divine law. The problem is not external enemies; the problem is our own disobedience. The solution is not to put our trust in horses (tanks); the solution is to put our trust in God and begin to be obedient to Him. The real problem, though, is that he has been taught the Bible by many lawless teachers. It is doubtful, then, that he has even read the divine law, or if he has read it, he has dismissed it as being discarded by Jesus. Isaiah 30:3 says that this war response will bring us into “shame” and “humiliation.”

Though we seemed to win the battle of Afghanistan and the battle of Iraq, do not expect to win this war in the long run, as long as we remain proud of our national defense and our superpower status. One of the curses for disobedience to the law is found in Deuteronomy 28:25,

²⁵ The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them, but you shall flee seven ways before them, and you shall be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

We should have dealt with God before we made any attempt to deal with Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, or any other perceived enemy. Yet we have relied upon our own arm of flesh for so long that God is going to show us how useless it is. As long as we have fleshly means to protect us, God will allow us to use them. Yet He will cause those efforts to fail. When our own fleshly efforts have failed, we will then turn to God as the last resort.

The second bear has been loosed and is now upon us to devour much flesh. There is nothing that can be done about this now. But we can still repent of our evil ways.

God’s purpose in this is not simply to destroy, but to replace the current system with the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the New Jerusalem, built upon the divine law which is an expression of His character (Love). How He accomplishes this and according to what time frame, we leave to His wisdom.