On the morning of Monday, February 14, 2005 -- 8 days after Super Bowl 39 --the Lord led me to watch a report aired on the 90-minute, Sunday-night version of ESPN's SportsCenter. The report by Andrea Kramer dealt with the passing away of NFL superstar Reggie White and with the "spiritual turn" his life took towards the end of his days.

During the day of December 26, 2004 (when God unleashed His tsunami judgment on south Asia), I was stunned to hear that retired NFL player Reggie White had passed away at the young age of 43. Reggie White is considered one of the greatest defensive ends of all time. He was selected to 13 Pro Bowls (the National Football League's equivalent of an "All-Star game") during his 15-year career, and was a "sack machine" feared by offensive lines throughout the league. He played for some years with the Philadelphia Eagles, and then played for the Green Bay Packers, where he was instrumental in their first Super Bowl victory in 29 years in 1997's Super Bowl 31 over the New England Patriots (who won Super Bowl 39 20 days ago).

Reggie White was a devout Christian, even from his teenage years, and he became one of the most vocal preachers of Christianity in the NFL. His great God-given abilities and his vocal preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ during his NFL career earned him the nickname of "minister of defense".

According to ESPN's report, Reggie White was at his home in Charlotte, North Carolina (U.S.A.) on the morning of December 26. Just before 7 AM, Reggie began to cough while on his bed, and his wife Sarah realized that he was choking. She called 911, and gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while an ambulance arrived. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead within an hour of arrival. The cause of his death is reported to be an inflammation of tissues in his lungs that spread to his heart and liver, which led to a cardiac arrest that was complicated by an attack of "sleep-apnea".

Reggie White was often invited to preach at many churches, where he would preach on obeying Jesus and abiding in God's will. After his retirement from the NFL in 2000, his faith took an "unexpected turn". He stopped preaching altogether, and never set a foot in a church again. According to his wife Sarah, this was triggered by the sudden realization that pastors were teaching nothing but human tradition that had no foundation on the Word of God. He also realized that most pastors would invite him to preach on account of his notoriety as a football player, and not so much because they perceived in him an Anointing that could bless others.

Tired of human tradition, Reggie White decided to find the true God by going back to the Scriptures. In an interview before his death (aired during the ESPN report mentioned above), Reggie White said the following:

 "I came to the realization that, if I'm gonna find God, I better go find Him for myself. I gotta go back and research the Scripture in its original language to see what it said"

Reggie White began to realize that the various translations of the Scriptures often introduced elements of human error. He began to see how small distortions in the translation of crucial words in the original text would distort the whole meaning of the entire passage. Troubled by this, he became determined to study the Old Testament in its original Hebrew text.

In 2003, Reggie White went on a trip to Israel where he found a Biblical Hebrew scholar named Nehemia Gordon, who became his Hebrew language instructor. According to Nehemia, Reggie wanted to take the "middleman" out of the Scriptures; he wanted to take the "interpreter" out of the way so that he could directly find out what God had said in the original text.

Over the last 9 months of Reggie's life, Nehemia taught him the Hebrew language over the phone from Jerusalem. Reggie developed a zeal for the Hebrew language, and he would sometimes spend up to 10 hours a day studying Hebrew. According to Nehemia, Reggie made great strides, and he became capable of reading and understanding entire chapters of the Torah in Hebrew.

In the year 2000, Reggie White decided to stop celebrating xmas, and he even celebrated Hanukkah once. This rejection of traditional Christianity led to fierce attacks by many of the people who had once supported him. He was considered by some to be a heretic who betrayed Christianity by becoming a Jew. Some Christian ministers even told others to stay away from him because of his supposed conversion to Judaism. According to Nehemia, who is a Jew, Reggie never showed him any interest in becoming a Jew. On the contrary, he was "moving closer to Christianity", according to his wife Sarah, by going back to the true roots of his Christian faith. He was a man who was "seeking the truth", driven by a "desire to know the truth", says Sarah.

The night before he died (Dec 25, 2004), he was sharing with family and friends about a dream he had recently had. The dream took place entirely in Hebrew; in it, he found a treasure, and on that treasure was a message in Hebrew. The next day, he looked up the meaning of the words in that message and found that it contained two words that mean "redeemed by Jehovah".

Reggie White died 10 days shy of his 20th wedding anniversary on January 5, 2005.

This is the prophetic interpretation:

As God's judgments were unfolding against the xmas spirit on December 25 and 26, 2004, the news of Reggie White's death had a deep impact in my heart. The Lord spoke to my heart that we had to post a prophetic word related to his death. Yet, as I struggled to find the meaning, I would always come up short. It was not until February 14, 2005, 50 days after his death, that I finally understood the deep meaning behind this event, and it happened as I watched the report that God inspired the ESPN people to do.

The following verse is a "party favorite" at Christian funerals:

Unfortunately, most pastors who quote this verse at funerals do not truly understand the meaning behind this verse. Why? Because they have never taken the time to sit down and meditate on the verses that come before and after. Notice what this psalm declares prior to verse 15:

Notice that verse 10 says, "I believed, therefore have I spoken"; this is another "party favorite" at Christian gatherings. However, most believers do not know that this phrase is followed by the words, "I was greatly afflicted". Those who speak what they believe can expect to suffer affliction and be persecuted for their convictions. Psalm 116 speaks of a person who has received a direct word from God and who proclaims that word with prophetic boldness, even at the price of suffering affliction.

Just as Reggie White found out in his study of the original texts (and just as we constantly share in our articles and words), this psalm has a tragic mistranslation in verse 11 that distorts the meaning of the whole verse. The word "haste" in that verse was translated from the Hebrew word chaphaz, which literally means, "to hurry, to flee". Therefore, verse 11 should really say, "I said in my flight, all men are liars". This means that verse 11 is referring to a person who is fleeing from the persecution of men who want him or her to deny the word that he or she has directly received from the Lord. Such a person is willing to declare all men as "liars" before denying the truth that he or she has received from God:

"God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged" (Romans 3:4)

As we have said before, apostles are called to suffer long periods of persecution while prophets are called to suffer intensely painful but "quick" deaths. Therefore, Psalm 116:10 refers to a believer who is willing to suffer prophetic anguish, while Psalm 116:11 refers to a believer who is willing to suffer apostolic persecution. While doing so, he or she is willing to engage in "logos confrontation" where God's Word proves man's word to be a lie.

Psalm 116:12 then asks, "What shall I give back unto Jehovah for all His benefits towards me?" This means that Psalm 116 refers to a person who wants to thank God for all the spiritual grace that He has bestowed upon him or her. Notice that the grace being referred to here is spiritual, not "material", since verse 10 and 11 clearly indicate that this person is under affliction and persecution. Those who are walking in the Spirit are able to understand the incredible spiritual path that God has laid out before us. They understand the incredible spiritual authority and power potential to which we now have access by the sacrificial death of Yeshua at Golgotha. Such people know that salvation from hell is only the beginning of all the spiritual things God wants to do in and through us. Such people understand the awesome dimensions of each believer's spiritual inheritance.

To answer his own question, the psalmist then says in verse 13, "I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord". The "cup of salvation" refers to the cup that was used to offer a wine libation unto the Lord:

"¹And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, ²Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land of your habitations, which I give unto you, ³And will make an offering by fire unto the LORD, a burnt offering, or a sacrifice in performing a vow, or in a freewill offering, or in your solemn feasts, to make a sweet savour unto the LORD, of the herd, or of the flock: ⁴Then shall he that offereth his offering unto the LORD bring a meat offering of a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of oil. ⁵And the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering shalt thou prepare with the burnt offering or sacrifice, for one lamb." (Numbers 15:1-5)

As we have said before, wine in Scripture speaks of the "joy of victory". Therefore a wine libation in the Spirit is equivalent to saying the following:

"Lord, I am willing to sacrifice the joy of any personal victory or conquest. From now on, what gives You joy shall be my joy, and what gives You victory shall be my victory."

The phrase "call upon" in Psalm 116:13 is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word qara, which literally means "to proclaim". In other words, Psalm 116:13 should say, "I will take the cup of salvation, and proclaim the name of Jehovah". Since the proclamation of a name is associated in Scripture with the establishment of a kingdom, the psalmist is declaring that he is forsaking the pursuit of any earthly, personal kingdom and will further God's Kingship only, which means that he will now further nothing but the will of God's heart on Earth. This inherently implies warfare against all those who stand in the way of God's will being fulfilled. In essence, Psalm 116:13 refers to the heart of a true spiritual conqueror, i.e.- an evangelist.

So far, we have seen how Psalm 116 speaks of a believer who is willing to suffer prophetic anguish (v10) and apostolic persecution (v11) while at the same time furthering God's Lordship as a true evangelist (v12-13). Therefore, it speaks of believers who are willing to take the 3 "male"-ministry anointings on his or her life. As Psalm 116 shows, this requires anguish, persecution, and the libation of our personal interests.

In Psalm 116:14, the psalmist then declares that he will pay his vows unto the Lord in the presence of all His people. What does this mean? As we studied before, vows speak of freewill, voluntary sacrifices (Numbers 15:3) that a believer makes unto God. In such a vow, a believer voluntarily binds him or herself to God's will and purposes. This gives God the "legal" authority to "go after us" whenever we start straying from our vow, as was the case with the prophet Jonah in Jonah chapter 1. Since God respects our free will, He requires that we voluntarily give away that free will in order to "forcibly" take us to places where we would not go of our own volition (as was the case with Jonah):

"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." (John 21:18)

"³⁹And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. ⁴⁰And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? ⁴¹Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. ⁴²He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. ⁴³And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy. ⁴⁴And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words." (Matthew 26:39-44)

In the life of every believer who has shaken the spiritual world for God, you will always find an explicit (or implicit) moment where he or she has decided to yield his or her entire will to God. This implies yielding our most precious dreams and desires and saying to the Father,

"Do whatever you want to do with my life. Even if my most precious hopes and dreams do not come true, even if my greatest fears do come true, do whatever you have to do so that Your will may be done in and through my life. If you have to break me, break me. If you have to scold me, scold me. Do whatever you have to do, Lord, just don't ever allow me to stray from Your will and purposes!!!"

Fellow believer, if you pray such a prayer, I can assure you that God will hear it and He will make it come to pass. There is a certain joy and rest in knowing that we will carry out His will even despite our human weakness and insecurities. If you offer your life as a "freewill offering" to the Lord, God will not let you rest. He will come after you and He will not leave you alone until His purposes are fulfilled in and through your life. He will unleash His purifying judgments into your life, and He will work you over until you become perfect in Him. Hallelujah!!!

Victory in the Spirit is achieved through a process of constant yielding unto God. As you yield, God conquers you, and as He conquers you, you become a conqueror in Him. This is what "resting in the Lord" is all about. Those who do this are living out the spiritual Sabbath of Hebrews 4:1-11. Such people become spiritual Joshuas who conquer the Promised Land.

A freewill vow involves a prophetic sacrifice of our emotions, but it also involves a yielding of our hearts (i.e.- our wills). As we have said before, evangelists are called to conquer the hearts of others unto God. Therefore, a person who fully yields his or her heart is endowed by God with a mighty evangelistic anointing through which the hearts of others will also yield to God. In other words, you can conquer other hearts unto God if you have allowed God to conquer your own heart first. This explains why Simon Peter and Jonah the prophet became such powerful evangelists. As John 21:18 and John 13:37 (quoted above) show, Simon Peter bound himself up in a freewill vow unto God, and God responded by endowing him and the other disciples with the anointing to conquer 3,000 hearts in one fell swoop (Acts 2:41) and 5,000 hearts in another fell swoop (Acts 4:4). In the case of Jonah, his freewill offering (Jonah 2:9) unto God prompted the Lord to endow him with the anointing to conquer 120,000 hearts (Jonah 4:11) in a few days.

In Psalm 116:14, the word "people" was translated from the Hebrew word am, which is also contained in the Hebrew name "Abraham". Abraham was also called by God to make a freewill vow:

"¹And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. ²And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." (Genesis 22:1-2)

Abraham was called to sacrifice Isaac, who personified all his hopes and dreams for the future. His willingness to make this prophetic sacrifice led to the following:

"¹⁵And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, ¹⁶And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: ¹⁷That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; ¹⁸And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice." (Genesis 22:15-18)

Notice how Abraham was given a "multiplication anointing", which points to the evangelistic ministry. He was also given spiritual authority to bless all the nations through his Seed, which speaks of an evangelistic authority to conquer and possess the spiritual atmosphere of the Earth.

In short, prophetic freewill sacrifices lead to a mighty evangelistic anointing. This is why Jesus said the following:

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me" (John 12:32)

In a literal sense, the "lifting from the Earth" refers to Jesus being raised up from the ground as the cross was placed in a vertical position at Golgotha. In a spiritual sense, the Lord is referring to how prophets are willing to separate themselves from Girgashite earthliness and temporality, going even to the extreme of sacrificing the temporary life that Girgashites so piggishly hold on to (consider, for example, the Girgashite who is drowning to death in Rome at the time of this writing). 

As Jesus showed when He was in the flesh, God's nature is meek and humble (Matthew 11:28), and He showed a compliant willingness to yield to Himself. If we want God's nature to be manifested in us, we must do as He does, meaning that we must be willing to yield our will to His, and, when we do, we allow Him to mold us, and we become more and more like God. Anyone who wants to be One with God for eternity must therefore yield His entire will unto Him.

Psalm 116:14 speaks of paying one's vows in the "presence of all His people". A freewill vow, therefore, is an announced death. It is a moment where you publicly sentence yourself to death with your own words:

"³¹And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. ³³But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men." (Mark 8:31-33)

The Lord sacrificed His life in the literal presence of His people (the Jewish people) as a sign that He was paying the price to redeem them and to lift them up. In the same way, we are to sacrifice our lives so that others may be redeemed, beginning with the unredeemed inside the Church and reaching out to the unredeemed whom God has already prophetically called "His people" but who do not yet know Him (as was the case with Saul in Acts chapter 9 and with Cornelius in Acts chapter 10).

Having studied the 5 verses prior to Psalm 116:15, we can better understand this verse:

As we have said before, the Lord's eyes speak of His judgments. Therefore, the Lord is declaring in Psalm 116:15 that those who voluntarily yield their lives to Him pass through the inevitable fire of His judgments being declared as "precious". In other words, the final grade of their exam is "Precious":

"¹¹For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹²Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; ¹³Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is." (1 Corinthians 3:11-13)

When verse 11 above declares that the foundation is "Jesus Christ", it is speaking of His Nature, which points to His heart. When verse 12 speaks of "building upon this foundation", it is not speaking about doing work at a "Christian" congregation; it is not talking about participating in many church activities; it is talking about fusing our hearts with His and being willing to do all that He did. If a believer is not willing to make a freewill vow as the Messiah did, that person is not building on the foundation of "Jesus Christ".

Notice also that Psalm 116:15 speaks of the death of "His saints", which speaks of those who have consecrated themselves unto Him. Therefore, Psalm 116:15 speaks of how precious it is to God to see a believer who is willing to go through the death of prophetic anguish, apostolic persecution, and the forsaking of all personal interests for His sake. Such believers are deemed precious in God's eyes. Unfortunately, not all believers are willing to make such a sacrifice, meaning that Psalm 116:15 cannot be read at the funeral of all believers.

The price each one of us has to pay varies in shape and form from individual to individual, and it is God who will lead us to the places where we must suffer for His sake. If you willingly give Him your life, He will begin to show you what you must do, what you must say, and where you must walk so that His purposes may be fulfilled. We are not to be masochists who are looking for any place where we can "suffer" for the sake of suffering. There is a "Christian" religious group, for example, where the ordained "priests" must make a "vow of poverty" and a "vow of chastity". Even though such vows sound similar to the "freewill vow" described above, they are not. Why? Because they are forms of external sacrifice determined by the "priest" and his religious hierarchy, not by God, which turns them into the "Cain-style" sacrifices we studied before. In such sacrifices, man is figuring out a way to please God, instead of asking God what sacrifice He wants us to make. It is like buying a very expensive, imported hockey stick for a friend without first finding out if he likes hockey in the first place.

When did God ever say that He likes all His children to be "poor" in the literal sense of the word? Wasn't Abraham a rich man, and wasn't he declared "God's friend" (James 2:23)? When God asked Abraham to make a sacrifice, He didn't ask for all his money. He asked for Isaac, his son. In the case of the young man in Mark 10:17-22, however, God did ask him to give away all his possessions. The form of the sacrifice varies from person to person, and is determined by God and God alone.

When did God ever say that the truly devout are those who never marry (in the literal sense of the word)? Didn't Cephas (i.e.- Peter) and the other apostles take their wives with them as they served the Lord, and didn't Paul see that as a legitimate right (1 Corinthians 9:5)? Again, wasn't Abraham a married man? Did God tell Abraham to give up his wife in order to serve Him? No! He asked for Isaac. He decides what He wants from us, not us.

Man likes to reduce the "freewill vow" to a series of external, literal actions because the performing of literal, institutionalized actions is always easier than an invisible yielding of the heart which no one but God will see. The literal, pious actions are visible to the natural, carnal man, so they can more easily draw the praise of men. The invisible yielding of one's heart does not draw the praise of men, but it makes us find grace in the eyes of God, and, believe you me, that grace is all that matters!!!

"⁵But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, ⁶And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, ⁷And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. ⁸But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. ⁹And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. ¹⁰Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. ¹¹But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. ¹²And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." (Matthew 23:5-12)

"²⁰Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, ²¹(Touch not; taste not; handle not; ²²Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? ²³Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh." (Colossians 2:20-23)

The Girgashite who is drowning in Rome at the time of this writing is praised and revered by men as a "tireless" and "pious" man who has made "countless" trips around the world promoting "peace" and "understanding". However, all this "tireless" work is worthless in the eyes of God. God asked that man and the people around him to become instruments through whom idolatry would have been terminated in their religious group, yet that sacrifice was just "too much" for them. Who cares how many trips and how many sermons this Girgashite has made, especially when those trips have served to strengthen idolatry around the world? What good do all those trips do if He never preached of a true, abiding conversion to Christ? All his sermons are laden with humanism, not with the anointing of God's Word! In his sermons, he always reads a prepared speech, and he never so much as opens a Bible to truly teach from the Scriptures. God wanted that man to sacrifice his reliance on human thought, but he refused to make such a sacrifice. Who cares, then, about all the "tireless work" this Girgashite has done?

As we said at the beginning of this word, the Lord led me to watch the ESPN report on Reggie White's death on February 14, 2005. There are several prophetic reasons for this. One is the fact that it was 8 days after Super Bowl 39. As we have said before, the number "8" represents "regeneration" in Scripture, since there were 8 people in Noah's ark when God regenerated the Earth by drowning all the Girgashites in the flood. As we said above, the invisible freewill yielding of our hearts may not draw the praise of men, but it will make us find grace in the eyes of God, as was the case with Noah, and as was the case with Reggie White:

"But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD" (Genesis 6:8)

Notice that the verse above is verse 8. The chapter number is 6, which as we have said before, is a number of human weakness. Therefore, this verse speaks of how Noah was regenerated in the middle of his human weakness while the people around him drowned as they sought to find strength in that same human weakness. Girgashites believe that they can be perfect or "complete" in their human weakness.

Another reason for the ESPN story being aired on the morning of February 14, 2005 is because it was 50 days after Reggie's death. As we have said before, the number "50" in Scripture speaks of the outpouring of the Spirit. Fifty days after the Lord's death at Passover, the Pentecost outpouring (or "uncovering" -- Isaiah 32:15) of the Spirit took place. Therefore, the fact that the ESPN report "uncovering" the details surrounding Reggie White's death happened 50 days after his death is a figure of how the latter-rain revival will come through believers who sacrificially give their lives in freewill vows to God.

There is a powerful prophetic reason why Reggie White died at age 43. As we share in a previous word, the number "43" appears many times in the Red Sox' World Series triumph on October 27, 2004 (exactly 60 days before Reggie White's death); in that previous word, we shared on how the number "43" points to Ezekiel chapter 43:

"¹Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east: ²And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory." (Ezekiel 43:1-2)

Notice how verse 2 speaks of the glory of the "God of Israel" coming from the east. During the last years of his life, Reggie White was trying to find the God of the Old Testament, i.e.- the God of Israel. In these latter days, the "God of Israel" will reappear; satan (cursed is he) has worked to conceal the God of Israel under a mantle of pious religiosity which portrays God as a God who put aside all the "nastiness" and "meanness" of his Old-Testament past to become a "gentle, peace-loving, merciful" grandfather who wouldn't harm a mouse even if his life depended on it.

The reason why the Jews and the Arabs have not come to know Jesus on a massive scale is because they do not recognize the God of Abraham in the God the Europeans offer them. They compare the God who would kill 70,000 people in Jerusalem "simply because" king David chose to have a census (2 Samuel 24:15) with the softy "God" of the Europeans, and their conclusion is: It's not the same God. They compare the God who unleashed His wrath over an entire generation of Israelites (killing them in the desert over a period of years for refusing to believe Him) with the effeminate "God" who is so "loving" that He is willing to tolerate blatant sin and iniquity inside churches so as not to "offend" anyone, and their conclusion is: It's not the same God. They compare the God who wiped out all the inhabitants of the Earth except for Noah and his family with the "God" of the Europeans that compels people to "forgive" others even when they refuse to repent, and their conclusion is: It's not the same God.

The Jews are aware of the God who opened the Red Sea in front of their ancestors' eyes and who set a column of fire behind them to hold off the most powerful army on Earth in those days. The Jews are aware of the God who then mercilessly drowned that most-powerful army in the waters of the Red Sea. The Jews are aware that their God is capable of saying things like the following:

"⁵And to the others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: ⁶Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house." (Ezekiel 9:5-6)

If you read the entire chapter 9 of Ezekiel, it is evident that the words above are spoken in a spiritual context; in other words, God is not ordering each one of us to go kill people literally. Yet, even when the command is spiritual, it is a "bloody" command, and, believe you me, the spiritual obedience of this command produces much more "violent" consequences in the material realm than its material obedience. A misguided individual can go into a school and shoot down a few dozen innocent kids at most, but a fervent believer on his or her knees can unleash judgments that can take the lives of tens of thousands in one fell swoop. Consider, for example, what happened on the day that Reggie White died: God killed over 160,000 people and left millions upon millions homeless in a few short hours. The amazing thing about God's deadly judgments is that they are precise: they never kill the innocent (Ezekiel 9:6). This explains why a 2-year old Swedish kid, for example, was able to survive in the middle of the slaughter while his parents died in the same tsunami. Two can be standing in the same place; one will be taken (i.e.- destroyed), while the other will be left behind (i.e.- preserved).

The fact that the Jews are aware of the fearsome "God of Israel" explains why the book of Hebrews (a book in the New Testament) so clearly portrays God as a fierce God:

"⁷For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: ⁸But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned." (Hebrews 6:7-8)

"²⁶Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. ²⁷And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. ²⁸Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: ²⁹For our God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 11:26-29)

Like the Jews, the Arabs are also aware of the fierce of God of judgments and justice, because they are also physical descendants of Abraham. To them, therefore, it is not "ludicrous" to think of a God who would call them to a bloody holy war against the "infidels". Unfortunately, they have understood God's fierce nature in a Girgashite, literal way, but, still, they are aware of it. In the latter days, God will raise up a remnant Church that will manifest the true God of Israel, the God whose very presence instills reverent fear and awe, the God who literally kills the Ananias and Sapphiras inside the Church for daring to tell half-truths in His Presence (Acts 5:1-11). When this happens, the Jews and the Arabs will say, "Surely, the God of our father Abraham abides with them". I will see those days with my own two eyes, my friend, and my inner being burns with the desire to see them! In those days, the following prophecy shall have a literal fulfillment:

A person becomes "jealous" only when he sees someone else having something that supposedly belongs to him. The Jewish people have not become "jealous" of the Christian Church because they do not recognize the God of the Jews in us. When they see us manifesting Him in these latter days, the Jews will say, "What is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob doing in the midst of the Gentiles?" They shall be filled with awe, and they will come to the Lord in great numbers. A similar thing will happen with the Arabs. As long as they see us manifesting an effeminate "God" that has the name of a male but behaves like a pastoral female, this will never come to pass.

By the way, this is not an issue of adapting God to the taste of the Jewish and Arab people. It is a matter of adapting our view of God to the God of the Scriptures. In the original Greek text, John 4:22 reads "Salvation is out of the Jews" or "Salvation comes out of the Jews". Let those who have ears hear what the Lord is saying in the Spirit here.

There is another prophetic reason why Reggie White died at age 43. You may have noticed that we have made repeated references to the "Girgashite drowning in Rome" throughout this word, which to the natural mind would seem like "digressions" or "unrelated comments". However, I now understand why this has been so. Many times (especially, in recent days), as I have prayed judgments against the Girgashite in Rome, I have seen the word "Whore" written across the wide forehead of this man. Notice, now, what Ezekiel chapter 43 says concerning "whoredoms":

"⁷And he said unto me, Son of man, the place of my throne, and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever, and my holy name, shall the house of Israel no more defile, neither they, nor their kings, by their whoredom, nor by the carcases of their kings in their high places. ⁸In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds, and their post by my posts, and the wall between me and them, they have even defiled my holy name by their abominations that they have committed: wherefore I have consumed them in mine anger. ⁹Now let them put away their whoredom, and the carcases of their kings, far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever. ¹⁰Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern." (Ezekiel 43:7-10)

During the last years of his life, Reggie White began to question the teachings of pastors. In other words, he began to question the teachings of the Church's "religious hierarchy", the Church's current "kings". A month after Reggie White's sacrificial death, the biggest "religious hierarch" in the world became very sick, and the Lord has had us writing about this Girgashite while we speak about Reggie's death as a prophetic sign: As more and more believers make freewill sacrificial vows and are willing to die, the Church's religious hierarchy will fall; the promoters of religious whoredom shall fall, and the Church will be cleansed and prepared for His full-blown manifestation in the latter days.

Earlier, we mentioned how the number "43" is related to the Red Sox World Series victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004. As we said before, the "St. Louis Cardinals" acted in that World Series as a prophetic figure of the spirit of religiosity and of Girgashite religious hierarchies. As believers willingly expose their souls to bleeding and anguish, the spirit of whorish religiosity will be destroyed.

At the time of this writing, the police in Wichita, Kansas, USA, have arrested Dennis Rader, the so-called "BTK serial killer", who was a criminal sought by the law since the 1970s. The man has a degree in administrative justice, was an "ordinance officer", and is even the current president of the Lutheran church he attended!!! He is a "religious leader", and it is not a coincidence that this man was caught in the week in which we would post this word on Reggie White. The judgment on the whorish leadership of the Church has begun!!! Dennis Rader's case had been a "cold case" since 1986. Interestingly enough, the Red Sox had not been to a world series since 1986 as well.

The clinching evidence that got Dennis Rader arrested was turned in by his own daughter. This is a prophetic figure of how those who are "low and weakly" on the "hierarchical scale" will lead to the downfall of the men at the top:

"And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be your judges." (Luke 11:19)

Reggie White's age of 43 has another spiritual significance. Current U.S. president George W. Bush is the 43rd president in U.S. history. As we have said before, George W. Bush has a "pestilence", red-horse anointing on his life. In a sense, Reggie White also became a "pestilence" to the religious establishment that once hosted him. When he began to question the pastors' traditions, he became a pariah, a persona-non-grata to pastors, who warned others about relating with Reggie White for fear that his words might result in others following his "twisted" example.

Reggie White died in his home town of Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S.A. Around the day of his death (Dec 26, 2004), God was in the midst of unleashing His judgments on xmas 2004. On the day of his death, a heavy snow storm hit the central counties of North Carolina, causing 180 car accidents, and thousands in neighboring South Carolina were left without power due to a layer of ice as thick as half an inch that weighed down power lines and tree branches.

As we shared before, hurricanes Bonnie and Charley hit Charlotte County in Florida and the states of South and North Carolina as a prophetic figure of God's judgment on a Church that is run by a leadership that pretends to be a "Charles" when it is really a "Charlotte"; in other words, God will judge the Church's leadership for pretending to be "male" (i.e.- spiritual) when it is really "female" (i.e.- "soulish"). Charley acted like a "green horse" that came against the Korah spirit of soul matriarchy.

A close study of the 4 major hurricanes that struck the U.S. in 2004 reveals their connection to the 4 horses of the Apocalypse:

December 26, 2004

10 days shy

"The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come."" (Isaiah 57:1)

I can assure you that the pastors who labeled Reggie as a "heretic" and a "pariah" must have preached to their respective congregations that Reggie's death was proof of God's judgment against his heresy. It is interesting to me how hypocritical pastors can be. When a person begins to speak of God's judgments, they rise up in unison chanting, "We do not believe in judgments here; we believe in the God of the New Testament!" However, when the supposed "judgments" seem to favor them, "Old Testament" judgments once again become acceptable and real.

Isaiah 57:1 declares that man does not appreciate the perishing of the righteous. While God sees their sacrificial death as "precious" (Psalm 116:15), man gives it little importance and even rejoices over the death of the truly righteous. Few people paid attention to the death of Reggie White, but millions upon millions of people are paying attention to the death by drowning of the Girgashite in Rome. While very few cried the death of Reggie White, many idolaters around the world will cry the upcoming death of a revered spiritual whore. Yet, in God's eyes, Reggie White's death was very significant and precious in the spiritual realm. The Girgashite's death, however, will not be precious in the eyes of the Lord because his death is involuntary. Yes, there will be shouts of joy in Heaven when the Girgashite dies, but they will be shouts of victory over the death of an enemy, not shouts of appreciation of a good and faithful servant, as was the case with Reggie White.

" ²He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness. ³But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore. ⁴Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood, ⁵Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?" (Isaiah 57:2-4)

As we said above, 7296 equals 128 times 57. The number 128 points to Psalm 128:

"¹Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways. ²For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. ³Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. ⁴Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD. ⁵The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. ⁶Yea, thou shalt see thy children’s children, and peace upon Israel." (Psalm 128)

This psalm is prophetic word for Reggie White's wife and children, and it is prophetic word for the people who are close to all those who are willing to make freewill vows unto the Lord. This is the prophetic reason why Reggie went with the Lord on day number 7296 (128 times 57) of his marriage.

The fact that Reggie died 10 days shy of his 20th wedding anniversary also has meaning. As we have said before, the number "10" refers to the final stretch of sacrifice that we must be willing to suffer in Christ in order to receive the "crown of life" (Revelation 2:8-10). This means that Reggie White's wife and children have a burden of sacrifice that they must complete. It was very difficult and understandably painful for sister Sarah to lose her husband, but, in her pain, she is completing the libation of prophetic sacrifice that her husband began. Even though the natural eye cannot see it, the sacrifice that Reggie White and his family have made and are making is serving as seed in the spiritual realm that is blessing (and will bless) the lives of many, many, many people.

The death of His saints is precious to God, and their obedient sacrifice will never go for naught.

The treasure

In the dream that Reggie White had shortly before going with the Lord, he found a treasure with a message in Hebrew on it which meant "redeemed by Jehovah". While narrating the dream, the ESPN report showed the following Hebrew letters on screen. Even though the report did not explicitly say so, we assume that those were the letters that brother Reggie saw in the dream:

The first word (the first 3 letters on the right) are from the Hebrew verb padah, which means "to ransom, redeem, rescue". The second word (the 5 letters on the left) refer to the name "Jehovah". However, if we only take the 3 letters underlined above, we get the Hebrew word loyah, which means "wreath, garland", which points to the "crown of life" mentioned above. By going after the truth, Reggie White found grace. By going after the God of death-causing judgments in the Torah, he found true eternal life.

2 Kings chapter 22 narrates what happened when the book of the Law was found after being lost for many years during the reign of Josiah, king of Judah:

"⁸And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. ⁹And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, Thy servants have gathered the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight of the house of the LORD. ¹⁰And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. ¹¹And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes." (2 Kings 22:8-11)

The treasure that Reggie White found was the Law, meaning that He found the God of justice and judgments that the Church has chosen to deliberately ignore for so long. As he directly delved into the Torah, Reggie's reaction was equivalent to Josiah's in verse 11. Anyone who takes away the middleman and begins to read the Scriptures without human prejudices suddenly realizes that the "God" that is being preached as the "God of the Bible" is more a human adaptation of the true God of Scripture. If you have read our articles, you will have noticed how the Word contradicts many of the preconceived notions that most believers accept without question. In my personal encounters with believers, including pastors, I have been amazed at how little importance they place on the written word. Time and time again, I have found myself showing believers verses of Scripture that clearly contradict what they are saying at the moment, only to have them literally shove the Bible aside and continue arguing their points of view. They don't even make an effort to "interpret" the passage I show them, nor do they try to support their arguments with any passage of their own. To such believers, the confidence of saying something that is supported by hundreds of years of religious tradition seems to be enough to counter any opposing argument. Such believers have placed their faith on their pastors, on religious traditions, and on the prestige of their churches' reputations and denominations. In the case of pastors, they simply place their faith on the "reverence" of their hierarchical titles. To all such believers goes a word from the very Scriptures they so casually dismiss:

"⁵Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. ⁶For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited." (Jeremiah 17:5-6)

Those who encounter the true God of Israel are compelled to rent their clothes in grief when they compare the "God of the Church" with the true God. This grief propels them to wail in their spirits, and the sound of their wails (Joel 2:12-17) becomes a troublesome nuisance to the pastors and other believers who want to live in the stale and corrupt "tranquility" of the status quo.

It is not a coincidence that the man who was helping Reggie White to learn Hebrew is called "Nehemia". The name "Nehemiah" means "Jehovah consoles", and it refers to how God consoles those who grieve on account of the Church's falsehoods. Nehemiah was a man who grieved when he learned the condition of Jerusalem's wall and gates (as we have said before, "gates" are a figure of "judgments"):

"¹The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. And it came to pass in the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace, ²That Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. ³And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. ⁴And it came to pass, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted, and prayed before the God of heaven, ⁵And said, I beseech thee, O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments: ⁶Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee: both I and my father’s house have sinned. ⁷We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandedst thy servant Moses." (Nehemiah 1:1-7)

Notice that Nehemiah was not grieving on account of personal problems. Freewill-vow believers are more concerned about God's kingdom and purposes than their own problems. Notice also that Nehemiah did not visualize God as a "kindly old grandfather" but as a "great and terrible God" (v5). Only the believers who have come to know the true God of Israel become aware of this. Notice also how Nehemiah grieved over the fact that the people of God had discarded His commandments, statutes, and judgments. Nehemiah was not praying a "blessings prayer" where he was simply asking God to pour kindness and blessings while ignoring the iniquity of the people. He was praying for a genuine spiritual restoration of Jerusalem and its people. Unlike Nehemiah, all that conformist believers want is to have material blessings and a decent measure of emotional blessings; the Church could be (and is) in a spiritual Sheol of purposelessness, and conformist believers would still not care (not until it affects them in some material or emotional way). Nehemiah was not like that, and neither was Reggie White.

Reggie White had it all. He had money; he had fame and a good reputation, and he had a nice family. He was even an ordained minister. He could have ended his life in comfortable retirement, accepting invitations to preach at various churches as had been the case before. He could have died a hall-of-fame football player, respected by the mainstream Church and admired by NFL fans. I am even convinced that he might still be alive today had he chosen not to give up all his natural "blessings". Yet, he gave all of that up, and he allowed his life to become a living sacrifice through which millions will be blessed in the latter days. Why? Because, in his search for truth, he found a treasure far more valuable than any "blessing": he found the God of Israel, the God that stubborn believers continue to call "the God of the Old Testament", as if He no longer existed. Boy, will they be surprised!!!

"¹⁶O LORD, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds. ¹⁷I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD. ¹⁸I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people, ¹⁹In the courts of the LORD’S house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the LORD." (Psalm 116:16-19)