Bible Study with Jairus

Deuteronomy 33: Moses’ Prophecies to the Twelve Tribes -Joseph: Enlarge Your Tent and Kingdom

America as Joseph: The Horn of the Wild Ox

Welcome to Bible Study with Jairus. We are going to continue our study of Deuteronomy 33, looking at the experience of Joseph and its application to Christians today, and also to nations, especially America. How can the experience of Joseph give us insight into what it means to represent God, to be the horn of the wild ox, to resist and chastise the nations?   America should be like Joseph, used by God to represent Him and to maintain His justice in the world.

You may agree or disagree, but this is the reality: America is the strongest country in the world. Many people, even on the right, do not want America to be the world’s police. They want to focus on their own affairs. But the truth is, everyone knows America is the policeman of the world. That is the calling that comes with being the greatest nation on earth. That is the calling of God. You have to maintain justice in the world, because if you do not, the world falls into chaos.  

If you do not maintain power, like the horn of a wild ox as Moses prophesied over Joseph and as Jacob blessed Joseph, you lose your authority. That authority is the iron rod that Jesus prophesied about in His letters to the seven churches. If the church overcomes, it will receive the iron rod to rule over the nations. That is the calling of the church. That is the calling of man, as established in Genesis 1:26 and as David revealed in Psalm 8: man is created a little lower than the angels, but God gave him authority to rule over the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and every crawling thing on earth. Eventually, we will crush Satan under our feet. We will have the victory.

Opening Prayer

I know God has not yet given me a large platform, but let us learn to be faithful in the small things. I am very grateful for the listeners we have across various platforms. It is like a congregation. I appreciate you tuning in to listen to a Chinese man speaking in a non-native accent. We invite the presence of the Holy Spirit. We invite the help of God to be with us, to enter into the richness of the Word of God, so we can experience its transformation.

Dear Father God, we come boldly to Your throne of grace through the blood of Jesus Christ. We thank You for Jesus, for His blood, His sacrifice, and His finished work on the cross, which allows us to come boldly into Your presence. We are seated together with Christ at the right hand of God. We are His body and His members. We consecrate our physical bodies, our minds, our emotions and wills, our tongues and hearts to You as righteous instruments to bring You glory. We consecrate our whole being to You, that You would fill us with Your glory, with the life of Jesus Christ, with the fruits of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. That anointing breaks every rope and every yoke. We pray that in the power of the Holy Spirit, You would bring us into the experience of Joseph and help us to become overcomers. Then we can gain the authority You prophesied to Joseph, the horn of the wild ox, to gore and rule over the nations in the life of Jesus Christ. We humbly ask for the presence of the Holy Spirit to help us and teach us in this hour. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

The Experience of Joseph and the Experience of Benjamin

Let’s get into the experience of Joseph. I have been sharing this over and over, and I need to share it again, because the experience of Joseph represents the freedom of the heart, the freedom within you. The experience of Benjamin represents the freedom of worship, freedom of religion, and freedom in the land. If you do not have freedom in your heart, you cannot maintain freedom in the land.

Let’s look at the example of Europe again. Europe was once almost entirely Christianized. But when the people of Europe lost the gospel and lost the freedom of the gospel in their hearts, in their knowledge of God and His Word, they eventually lost the freedom of worship in their land. We saw it plainly during the Paris Olympics, when France openly mocked Christ and taunted the Last Supper. That was certainly from an evil spirit. And that is why you see nations like England and other European countries becoming increasingly Islamized. When you lose your freedom in the heart through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, you lose your freedom in the land.

This is the principle God set in the Old Testament as well. When the Israelites lost their freedom in their hearts and turned to idol worship, they forgot the law of God. And eventually they lost their freedom in the land. Their land was taken, they were carried away as captives, and their temples and priesthood were destroyed. God would rather see the outward religious structure destroyed than allow it to remain as an empty shell. Whether through Nebuchadnezzar or through the Roman armies, God destroyed His own temple again and again. That is the life of Benjamin; Benjamin represents Jerusalem, because Jerusalem is in the land of Benjamin.

Moses’ prophetic blessing to Benjamin represents the freedom in the land. When you have Benjamin, you have freedom in the land. When you have Joseph, you have freedom in the heart. And when you do not have freedom in the heart, you cannot maintain your freedom in the land.

William Penn’s Principle: If You Don’t Serve God, You Serve Pharaoh

I also quoted what William Penn said, the founder of Pennsylvania: when you do not serve God, you serve Pharaoh. That is why the Chinese people have a dictatorship. That is why Venezuela has a dictatorship. That is why Muslim countries have dictatorships. The majority of their people do not have freedom in the gospel and in their hearts. And without freedom within, they cannot have freedom without.

If you do not have the freedom of the gospel in your heart, you will do worse things. Even the dictatorship, in a certain sense, is used by God to control and chastise a people. For example, in China, if you are caught dealing drugs, you face the death penalty immediately. China suffered deeply from the opium wars and the drug crisis brought by outside forces, and they have a fierce hatred of drugs as a result.  Anyone caught dealing drugs, whether foreigner or Chinese, is dealt with immediately. I am not commenting on whether that is humane. My point is that even a dictator can be used by God to enforce a certain measure of justice over a people whose hearts are deeply corrupt.

I can say from my own experience that many people in China have very dark hearts. Sometimes we even joke in Chinese that we cannot live without the Communist Party, and there is some painful truth to that joke, because the hearts of human beings are so corrupt, sometimes it takes a harsh ruler to keep people from doing even worse things. I am not saying there is no hope for the Chinese. There absolutely is hope. But this is the reality of a people without the freedom of the gospel in their hearts.

This was true in the history of Israel as well. The Israelites rejected God and rejected Samuel. They did not want God to rule over them directly. They said: give us a king like the other nations. Samuel was grieved, but God said to him: they are not rejecting you; they are rejecting me. They do not want me to rule over them. But I will warn them: a king will take their sons and daughters, will tax them, and will give them a hard time. The Israelites said: we do not care; we want a king anyway. That is the biblical proof of what William Penn said. If you do not serve God, you will serve Pharaoh. If you reject God as your king, you will get a dictator instead. The best outcome, of course, is a king who is after God’s heart, like David. That is the principle.

So, you must have freedom in your heart to maintain freedom in the land. Why do the Chinese people not have freedom? Because the majority of Chinese people do not have the freedom of the gospel in their hearts. God cannot entrust freedom to people who will use it to destroy themselves and others. But because the knowledge of the gospel has been more prevalent in America, God gave America the opportunity to experiment with self-governance, a right to govern themselves that is almost unique in human history. Every other civilization has had a king, a dictator, or a ruler. America has this freedom because enough of its people have the law of God written in their hearts and have the maturity to choose good over evil.

Jacob, Joseph, and the Journey Out of Captivity

I mentioned my own experience last time and how it parallels Jacob’s experience when I left my previous denomination. God was leading me through a period of trial into a new stage. And I shared that you have to have the life of Joseph within you in order to leave certain seasons of captivity. When Jacob was in the land of his uncle Laban, Laban was a kind of Pharaoh to him in a small but real sense. Jacob was a slave to Laban in a certain way. When you do not have the life of Joseph in you, you are a slave. But when you produce the life of Joseph, you become liberated.

That is why I noticed that God only spoke to Jacob after Joseph was born and told him it was time to leave. The life of Joseph represents a life of suffering that produces a partaker of God’s holiness, an overcomer, a co-king with Christ and ruler on the earth. That is what it represents. And when the Israelites were in Egypt under Joseph’s authority, they were not slaves. They were honored guests of Pharaoh, friends of Joseph. When the land recognized the life and ruling authority of Joseph, the land was free and the Israelites were free.

But when the land no longer recognized the life of Joseph. When a new Pharaoh rose who did not know Joseph, the freedom of worship in Egypt was lost. The entire book of Exodus exists to record Moses going to Pharaoh and saying: let my people go, so they can journey three days into the wilderness to worship God. They lost the freedom of worship in the land of Egypt because the land no longer recognized the life of Joseph. When you lose the life of Joseph, which is the overcoming life in Christ, the life of a co-king who overcomes the world, the flesh, and sin, you will lose your freedom in the land, your freedom of worship, your freedom in the political realm, your freedom in everything.

America was headed down that same path. But we are fighting to save America today. We are trying to use the window God has given us to bring revival to America, to bring the freedom of the gospel into many more hearts, and to keep the freedom of worship in this land. And then we need America to gore the nations like the horn of the wild ox, to gore Venezuela, China, Russia, and all the dictatorships, so that the gospel can be preached among the nations and worldwide revival can come. This is what is happening now. This is what God is doing through America, through this administration, through the political changes in this country, and even through saving Trump from an assassin’s bullet. God is preparing Joseph in America spiritually, to gore the nations so the gospel can go out and bring in a worldwide revival.

The Bones of Joseph: Hope for America and Europe

If you do not recognize the life of Joseph, you will lose the freedom in the land. But even though the land of Egypt lost its freedom of worship, Joseph’s bones were still there. Joseph knew this would happen. He told his descendants: you must promise me to carry my bones out of Egypt into the promised land, to the cave of Machpelah where my forefathers are buried, where God appeared to Abraham under the oak tree. I must go there with my remains. Bones represent resurrection, because not a single bone of Jesus Christ was broken. When Ezekiel prophesied over the dry bones, they came alive and became a great army for God. When a dead man’s body was thrown into Elisha’s tomb and touched his bones, the man was resurrected.

I am full of hope for America. I am full of hope for Europe. I spent a year studying in London and received the gospel in England, and I carry a burden for revival in Europe. I know Europe has been declining. I know America has been declining. But the bone is still there. The prayers of the forefathers who dedicated Europe and America to the one true God are still there. Their consecration is still there. The life of Joseph is still hidden in the bone. You have to bring the bone of Joseph, the resurrection life of Jesus Christ, into the wilderness journey so you can worship God freely again. That is the whole point of Exodus: to bring the bones of Joseph, the resurrection life of Christ, into a new wilderness journey, so the people of God can regain their freedom of worship and their freedom in the land.

Today, we have to fight in America to bring revival, to bring the resurrection life back to people’s lives, so that Christians can overcome sin. That is the most basic thing. So many American Christians are living in open or hidden sin. Let us not even talk about hidden sin; so many are living in open sin. But we can overcome sin through the life of Christ. We are more than conquerors through Him. The resurrection bone is there. We have to resurrect the bone of Joseph, the resurrection life of Jesus Christ. It is in our spirit. We have to come out of whatever land of captivity is holding us, whether it is sin entangling us, or the world pulling us down, as mentioned in Hebrews 12.

We must walk this journey according to the example of that great cloud of witnesses described in Hebrews 11. We must become partakers of His holiness, as Hebrews 12 calls us to be. Hebrews 11 gives us the testimony of those who have gone before. Hebrews 12 tells us to lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles, and to run with endurance the race set before us. It tells us that God the Father disciplines us, just as an earthly father disciplines his children, so that we can become partakers of His holiness. When God is disciplining us, it does not feel joyful; it feels sorrowful. But those who go through this exercise will receive the fruit of righteousness.

Joseph represents that very life, the fruit of righteousness through suffering, by becoming a partaker of God’s holiness. The apostle Peter says the same: do not be surprised if you experience trials and troubles, because God will test your faith, and your faith will emerge more pure than gold refined in fire. And you will be filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory. The apostle Paul also says: through many sufferings and trials we enter into the kingdom of God. If you want to experience the life of Joseph, the life that becomes co-king with Christ and represents God to rule over the nations with the horns of the wild ox, you have to become a partaker of God’s holiness through suffering.

No one in America wants to talk about suffering. People want to hear about the gospel of financial blessing and prosperity. But you cannot gain holiness without suffering. This is clearly taught throughout the Bible. We have the life of Christ. We have the bones of Joseph buried across America and Europe. I have visited the tombs of saints, the overcomers of past generations. Their testimony, the resurrection life of Jesus Christ working through them. It is all still there. But we have to resurrect it. We have to bring the bones of Joseph back into our wilderness journey through our three-day struggle to worship God, and regain the freedom in the land by first regaining the freedom in our hearts. We must overcome sin. We must overcome the world. We must overcome our enemy.

The Pattern of the Judges: A Constant Cycle

The very reason I keep coming back to this, and the very reason we cannot overcome our enemy spiritually or politically, is that we have not yet overcome our sin spiritually. God showed me this clearly: Jacob could only get out from under his Pharaoh, his uncle Laban, after the birth of Joseph. And the Israelites could only be saved from famine and from the enemy’s schemes to destroy them when Joseph ruled over Egypt. The Israelites were honored guests only as long as the life and story of Joseph was recognized. When it was no longer recognized, they lost their freedom and their freedom of worship.

This is a constant cycle, just like the book of Judges. The people worship idols, God disciplines them and raises up a foreign nation to chastise them. Then the Israelites repent and cry out for help, and God raises up a judge to deliver them. Then they fall into idol worship again, and God delivers them to the enemy again. Then they repent and cry out again, and God raises another judge. The entire book of Judges describes this same repeating cycle.

This principle is the same today. Trump is a judge in this hour. God is using him. He is not perfect. Samson was not perfect. David was not perfect. God is using a judge in this hour to deliver His people from oppression. The judge is not God. But if we do not take this window of opportunity to bring in revival in America, if the people of God fall back into spiritual idolatry, God will surely deliver us to the hands of the enemy again. That enemy could be the Democrats, it could be an influx of ideology, it could be Islam, it could be communism, it could be anyone. The problem is always in our own hearts: will we worship the idol or not?

The Ministry of Moses: Resurrecting the Life of Joseph

God showed me that Jacob experienced deliverance after the birth of Joseph. And Joseph brought emancipation and deliverance to God’s people. Even the bones of Joseph, carried out by Moses, eventually resurrected the people’s previous experience of freedom of worship. In other words, the ministry of Moses was to resurrect and reproduce the ministry of Joseph. Joseph had died, but his bones were still alive. Moses was called by God to resurrect the experience of the people of God for a new generation. That is what revival is. We need revival because we have lost our influence in the land. The ministry of Moses was to resurrect the ministry of Joseph and carry the bones forward, because the bones represent the resurrection life of Jesus Christ. Not a single bone of Christ can be broken. He will always resurrect.

We fail. We fall. But God will use His resurrection life in Jesus Christ to empower us, to bring us out of captivity, and to restore our freedom of worship in the world. So with that background, let us quickly look at what Moses blessed Joseph with. Deuteronomy 33, verses 13 through 17, can be organized into four sections: first, the blessing of heaven; second, the blessing on and in the earth; third, the blessing of God who dwells in the burning bush; and fourth, receiving the horn of the wild ox, which is the authority from God to gore and rule over the nations. These are the four structures of Moses’ prophecy and blessing to Joseph. Let me read the Word of God and walk through it, because the Word speaks for itself.

Moses’ Blessing to Joseph: The Four Structures

First, Moses speaks to Joseph: “Blessed by the Lord be his land, with the choicest gifts of heaven above.” Heaven, heaven, heaven. Because the tent and the kingdom, the experience of Joseph, was enlarged to connect heaven and earth. His blessing reaches beyond heaven, into eternity. So he can, in spirit, become a co-king with Christ. He can apply all the riches God has blessed us with in Jesus Christ, as Paul describes in Ephesians: God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. But why can we not take hold of those blessings, use them, and apply them? Because our kingdom, our territory, our tent has not yet been enlarged enough to reach both heaven and earth. The blessing of Joseph reaches to heaven.

Moses continues: “And with the deep that crouches beneath, with the choicest fruits of the sun and the rich yield of the months, with the finest produce of the ancient mountains and the abundance of the everlasting hills, with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness and the favor of him who dwells in the burning bush.” His blessing reaches the everlasting hills near Jerusalem, not only on this earth but in heaven, beyond time and space. Then Moses says: “May these blessings rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers. He is like a firstborn bull; he has majesty, and his horns are the horns of a wild ox. With them he shall gore the peoples, all of them, to the ends of the earth. They are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.”

So Joseph received the blessing from eternity, from the everlasting hills, the third heaven. He received the blessing of the first heaven: the sun, the moon, and the mountains. He received every blessing in the earth, through the earth, and on the earth. He received the blessing as the firstborn and became the prince among his brothers. And he received the horn of the wild ox. He could represent Egypt, represent Pharaoh, or rather represent God, to rule over the entire earth.

America should be doing exactly this. Whether you agree or not, by removing the dictatorship from Venezuela, America may be freeing those people. The gospel may be preached there more boldly. Christians there may be emboldened to share the gospel and bring revival, knowing that this nation, this administration, supports Christians. That is the function of the horn of the wild ox, to gore the nations.

Jacob’s Blessing in Genesis 49: The Same Pattern

This structure is very similar to Genesis 49, when Jacob prophesied over Joseph. The same pattern appears. Let me read Jacob’s blessing to Joseph in Genesis 49 beginning at verse 22. “Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring. His branches run over the wall.” This is the pictorial language of a person living in the fullness of God’s life, a victorious life that produces abundant fruit for God. But of course, the enemy will attack you. Verse 23 says: “The archers bitterly attacked him, shot at him, and harassed him severely.” Whenever you have a calling in your life, Satan will attack you. You will go through suffering. But the God of Jacob will help you.

Verse 24 begins to describe how God helped Joseph: “Yet his bow remained unmoved; his arms were made agile by the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob. From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel, by the God of your father who will help you, by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that crouches beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of my parents, up to the bounties of the everlasting hills.”

Again we see the everlasting hills mentioned. The blessing of Joseph is beyond heaven and earth. The territory, the enlargement of the tent and the kingdom influence of Joseph, reaches beyond heaven and earth. “May they be on the head of Joseph and on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.” He is the prince among his brothers. He became the leader. He became the overcomer who represents God and represents the life of Jesus Christ in the New Testament sense, to rule over the nations, because he has the horns of a wild ox.

I have been to Yellowstone Park and seen the horns of the wild bison. And if you have watched wildlife footage from Africa, you know that the horns of a bull can kill a lion. Today, we desperately need America to become a Joseph spiritually, to gore the nations and resist those who are resisting God. We need to pray for America to bring in revival. We need to pray for Christians in America to overcome their sins. If Christians can do this, the maturity and authority God will entrust to the American churches will grow tremendously. We can bring revival and help spread the gospel to other nations around the world.

I know China will experience this, because God has shown me. But we are not there yet. Not because God does not want it. He does. But so many people do not recognize what God is doing and do not cooperate with Him. We need to pray for China to experience transformation. And we need to pray for America not to compromise with China, but to be used by God as the horn of the wild ox to gore China. In some ways we already are, but God may desire much more. He wants to change the heart of China, to bring freedom of worship there, and to bring the body of Christ in China to a higher level of maturity.

And God showed me that when China experiences this great transformation, political change and revival together, it will have a profound effect on countries like North Korea and Japan, bringing Christian revival there. Then that revival will spread westward through Muslim countries and eventually bring revival to Jerusalem. Perhaps God will return at that time. I know it will take a long time, but remember, America: you are called to be Joseph.

A Call to Remember and a Closing Prayer

Remember, American Christians: if you are living in sin today, if you have lost the freedom in your heart and the freedom in your land and in your family, remember that the bone of Joseph is still there. We need the resurrection and the ministry of Joseph to bring about a great exodus through the ministry of Moses. Once more: if you do not experience the freedom in your heart, as represented by the life of Joseph, you cannot maintain the freedom in the land, as represented by the life of Benjamin. You will lose your freedom of worship. You will lose your temple and your priesthood. You will lose everything. But we have the seed of the gospel’s work within us. We must overcome. We must bring the people of God out from under the tyranny of every Pharaoh, whether in America, Venezuela, or China, and into the wilderness journey. Three days to worship God freely. To regain the freedom of worship. I pray for revival in all the world. Amen.

Revival is not an event that happens on a campus somewhere. Revival starts from one person, from you, from me. When we repent of our sins and receive the resurrection life of Jesus Christ, we regain our freedom in our hearts. Then we regain our spiritual influence and can draw others into Christ. When everyone in the church is vitalized and resurrected in the life of Jesus Christ, the church will have revival. And then the nation will have revival. It does not work the other way around. Revival does not just fall from the sky. We love the fire of God, but revival starts with you and me, today, from overcoming sin and every weakness, from now onward, reclaiming the life of Christ and recovering what we have lost in previous spiritual battles.

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