[HOME] [INDEX OF ARTICLES ] [ COPYRIGHT INFORMATION ] [ ABOUT US ] [CONTACT ]

The Birth of Esau and Jacob:

A Prophetic Key To Discerning Christ From Antichrist in the End Time Moves Of God

"Two nations exist in your womb, and two peoples shall separate from your body, one stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger."      Gen. 25:23



I remain intrigued by a recent vision called Demarcations given through Holly Moody of Michigan, US on Dec. 29, 2001. For those unfamiliar with the vision, it depicts the man of sin as someone who on first appearance looks to be nearly identical to the Lord, though eventually a separating distinction between the two becomes clear to the discerning heart.

That the man of sin could appear to look just like the Lord is a novel but compelling thought. It is compelling for those who have embraced the Holy Spirit's outpourings, but have come away bewildered by an intermingled sense of the Lord's presence with teachings and experiences that do not sit right with the inner man and fail to align with clear bedrock propositions set forth by the New Testament apostles.

Those who have matured in their pursuit of the Lord through these moves have outgrown the reactive conclusion that a move is either "all of God" or "all of the devil." Instead, we find ourselves simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by what we perceive in these moves, knowing that somehow both feelings are from the Lord. And under the strain of this tension we continue wondering how this can be and what does it mean.

Pondering these things further today, the Lord began opening my understanding of this from another perspective—the perspective of birth, specifically, of twins. My attention was drawn to the story of the birth of Esau and Jacob. A fresh prophetic understanding of this story may provide us an understanding about this developing mystery of conflicting manifestations within the end time moves of the Spirit.


Two Harvests / Two Births

We know that the end time is a time of birthing. Jesus referred to it as a time of birth pangs, and Revelation 12 pictures an immortalized ruling-class generation of saints being born out of the earthly corporate body of the Lord's people in the earth.

We also know that the end time is a time of two harvests. This is seen in the parable of the sower as well as in Revelation 14:14-20. The thing to note about the two harvests is that, though there are two different seeds planted, they are planted in the same field.

The pictures of end time harvest and end time birthing are parallel portrayals of the same reality. But though we have thought in terms of two harvests, we have not thought in terms of two birthings. Yet if there are two harvests, then the end time is also about two birthings. And if the harvest is about two plantings in the same field, then the birthing is about different offspring out of the same womb. It is about twins, but it is about twins that have different fathers!

It is here the prophetic application of Rebekah's twins comes into view. The story of Rebekah is the story of one mother giving birth to two different spiritual lineages as twins. From a natural perspective, Esau and Jacob had one father Isaac. But from a spiritual standpoint, they had separate fathers. And it is the spiritual fathering that takes center stage in the story. The focus in this story is not on the interchange between Isaac and Rebekah, but between the Lord and Rebekah.

Malachi clarifies that Esau and Jacob do not have the same father. He tells us that the Lord loves Jacob, but hates Esau. The Lord does not hate those He fathers. As in Hosea the Lord tells Hosea to name his son "Not My People," so also here in Malachi, the Lord is making a disavowal of being the father of Esau.

The idea of twins being born of different fathers is a distasteful one, but it accurately portrays for us the spiritual struggle and confusion in the heart of the spirit-filled revivalist prophetic church.


Rebekah: The Mothering Work of the Holy Spirit

The first key to appreciating the prophetic significance of Rebekah and the twins is in comprehending that the Lord not only has a fathering work but a mothering work by His Spirit in the midst of His people. We don't think of it this way, but it is so. There is ample scriptural evidence that the Lord functions as one who mothers as well as fathers. As the Comforter—the gentle nurturer, the merciful unifier, the healing and forgiving knitter of the corporate people of the Lord—the Holy Spirit's outpourings and anointings perform a mothering role in the earth.

In application, Rebekah is a prophetic type of this end time mothering work of the Lord within the corporate body of His people. She illustrates that body which endures birth pangs in the end times. She is a type of the femininely-portrayed Church overshadowed by the mothering work of the Holy Spirit—a work seen in comforting and nurturing as played out through the giftings of the anointed church under the Spirit's outpourings. The Spirit's mothering work in the church provides the picture of the great "spiritual womb" from which there is to be a great end time birth.


Esau and Jacob: Struggling Seeds Under the Glory

The second key is to grasp that within this end time Spirit-baptized prophetic body, there are in fact two separate spirit-fathering inseminations taking place simultaneously. Esau and Jacob present us with this prophetic reality. Hidden within the corporate "Rebekah" womb of the Spirit's end time comforting ministry are two competing conflicting seeds of differing origin. Each of these seeds will be brought forth to a complete birth in the end time.

One seed, answering to Jacob, is the true seed of the Father and will produce a ruling generation bearing the full image of Christ. The other answering to Esau is the seed of the devil. This seed will produce a counterfeit twin of the Lord. This is the antichrist spirit and man to come, and which I believe to be illustrated so well by Holly's vision.

Given this picture, it becomes possible to understand how and why the appearance of the man of sin will be so deceptive. Twins indeed look alike. When he finally appears, the antichrist man of sin will bear all the mothering qualities of the Holy Spirit. Unfathomable, I know. But at the same time, it will be in the absence of and his ultimate rejection of the Lord's fathering qualities that the man of sin will be exposed as the false offspring of the church though he purports to show himself to be Christ standing in the Lord's temple.

But this picture also explains this otherwise unexplainable present tension, struggle and divide within the prophetic body of Christ saturated under the anointing and glory. It explains how the Spirit can indeed pour Himself out on His people, yet in the midst of that glory exist elements that are simply false, contrary to the truth and do not carry the ring of the Lord's voice and word. It explains then how many of us can feel so drawn to the Spirit's corporate ministry on one hand, yet equally repulsed by many of the teachings and experiences that appear within it where we fear to even darken the door of churches where the Lord is reported to be moving.


Ramifications

I believe that God would shed light on this issue now for a number of reasons:


1.     The Lord does not want us to be deceived at the end when the twin Esau (man of sin) comes forth first in Christ's name.

The man of sin will look like Christ, but He will be of the earth. He will bear the traits and powers of the mothering Spirit of the Lord, but those spiritual traits and powers will be focused on reinforcing our mortality, our cares in this life, and our sense of lineage in Adam. The Spirit's work will be subverted to deny the work of the cross in our lives. He will proclaim the glory of God, but everything he says and does in God's name will ultimately revert back to the exaltation of man and of self.


2.     The Lord does not want us to be dismayed over the unexplainable skewed teachings, prophecies and manifestations that seem to thrive within the womb of the Holy Spirit's end time outpouring.

Esau and Jacob struggled in the womb long before they were born. So today there is a great struggle within the body of the Lord under the Spirit's mothering ministry. So great is the confusion that we cannot see clearly to know what we are really facing. Right now, there are some grievous divisions and attitudes within the worshipping prophetic community. But these are necessarily due to the presence of two conflicting seeds under the one glory. The true prophetic Israelites and the counterfeit prophetic Edomites are in a fetal combat within the womb of the anointed church on the way toward birthing.


3.     The Lord wants to magnify our discernment of this reality so that, in the course of embracing the Spirit's work, we neither reject the Lord's corporate mothering work because we discern Esau in the midst, nor embrace Esau because we perceive him to be accepted within the womb of the Spirit's comforting ministry.

Our inability to discern between the Mothering and Fathering work of the Spirit together with the inability to perceive the possibility of two different seeds within the womb of the church has amplified the Jacob/Esau struggle beyond its proper focus to where we over-accept or over-reject certain teachings and manifestations within the moves of God. Today's prophetic community is as much divided along the wrong fault lines as it is along the true one.

Within today's womb of revivalism is a prophetic ministry committed primarily to the mothering ministry of the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ, but blinded by its devotion to God's passion for man. This ministry is not for antichrist, but is unable to grasp the difference between Christ and Antichrist in her own midst, seeing all under her canopy as her "children in vitro", forgiving whatever is taught and experienced in Christ's name no matter how severely it departs from New Testament apostolic foundations, and marks any kind of discernment in this direction as judgmentalism, wrongly divisive, and a lack of love.

Against this there is a discerning company of Jacob saints who are indeed Fathered in the Lord and His truth. These saints well-perceive and struggle against the counterfeit antichrist spirit within the church's midst. Yet they are blind to the difference between the antichrist and the genuine mothering heart of God for man. These "throw out the mother with the false baby," interpreting most words of comfort, healing and blessing as a sign of "antichrist in the midst." They leave the womb altogether and dry up as dying sperm cells out in the desert of critical self-righteousness. But apart from the Spirit's nurturing mothering work in the earth, they can never be brought to their full term birth.

The wrong division between the Rebekah and Jacob hearts in the church needs to be overcome if we are to rightly discern and overcome in the real Jacob/Esau struggle, and be born into our ultimate destiny.


Conclusion

The purpose of this article is to bring clarity out of confusion by helping us perceive a larger end time prophetic reality, then to perceive our weaknesses in light of that picture. It is to help us come into alignment with the Father's true plan by fully submitting to the Spirit's mothering work while, as a Spirit-filled worshipping/intercessory prophetic people, rejecting the developing strain of antichrist in our midst.

This is a difficult course to negotiate. It calls not only for piercing prophetic discernment, but carefully measured wisdom and application born of humility. If we want to come to full term, fulfil our appointed destiny and finish the race as the Father's seed, then we want to overcome the tension in this decisive arena of faith, hope and love.

May the Lord strengthen, establish and settle all the true prophetic worshipping priesthood in this grace.





Chris Anderson
Riverside, RI

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

2/02


BACK TO TOP