2 Chronicles 7:14 - if My people who are
called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn
from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their
sin and heal their land. NKJV
Ever since we moved to the Pacific Northwest
several decades ago I've been hearing prophetic words that revival would break
out first in the Pacific NW and that it would spread across the nation like a
whirlwind. Year after year the word has been reinforced by those you hear
and speak from Abba and we have waited, believing that soon God would hear the
prayers of His children and heal the land. But a strange thing has
happened during the waiting time - fewer and fewer voices are proclaiming a
coming move and it seems that fewer and fewer individuals see a need for a move
of God. Don't get me wrong, those that still believe and are crying out
are doing so with significant passion and vigor - yet things are seemingly
getting worse.
This is probably with good reason. As you see things that have happened
just recently in our nation and our state - the pot of water is boiling and the
frogs are simply soaking it up till they are cooked. As an example - the
lack of outcry from the Christian community regarding the passage of the
gay-marriage bill here is Washington
was amazing. While it is often difficult to stand on the word of
God - all of it - we must not compromise the underlying tenets of our faith
less we fall to deception.
I know that God loves all sinners and I believe that I love ALL sinners
including those whose lifestyles are different than mine - in fact I've had no
problem praying for a young HIV positive homosexual man who has visited the
healing rooms on several occasions - I see him with the compassion that Jesus
sees him - but I must still stand on the word of God and explain my beliefs
without trying to judge. Yes it's hard but it is what each and every one
of are called to do.This is just one small example of what is happening and
perhaps may be why God has delayed bringing the fullness of His presence -
Let me share something else that I feel sets the tone for why this nation
and the world must have a massive sovereign move of God. This is a very
sensitive and serious issue and I’m not casting stones – but I think we need to
understand something that is very serious in the eyes of the Lord and has
probably caused Him to delay His favor. We see in 2 Kings 17:16-18 an
example –
16 So they left all the commandments of the
Lord their God, made for themselves a molded image and two calves, made a
wooden image and worshiped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. 17 And they
caused their sons and daughters to pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft
and soothsaying, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord, to
provoke Him to anger. 18 Therefore the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them from His sight; there
was none left but the tribe of Judah
alone. NKJV
This very simple slide shows the number of children aborted since the passage
of Roe v Wade in 1973, the totals are at the side and the 20 pink shaded states
are representative of the equal number of residents in those states equivalent
to the number of aborted children. As of last year there have been over
52 MILLION abortions – equal to the entire populations of Washington, Oregon,
Idaho, Montana, North & South Dakota, Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona,
New Mexico, Hawaii, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Arkansas, New
Hampshire, and Iowa. As I have personally experienced - one of the
on-going challenges for those God has established as Prophets and Apostles is
bringing words and revelation of change that is coming upon the Body of
Christ. Fortunately in most situations Abba begins to bring the word and
revelation many years prior to the actual occurrence of the change.
And as I've noticed in various social medias a lot of individuals around the
nation are hearing similar words of a significant paradigm shift in the spirit.
For my part in this process God has given me several messages and words that I
feel, as revealed by Holy Spirit, will come to fruition this year. Over
the last several years I have spoken on numerous topics in preparation for what
I feel Holy Spirit has been saying will begin to occur this year. And
fortunately I am not the only prophet that God has been using to bring these types
of message, the truth is that He has been speaking to His prophets for many,
many years about future events, many of which we will see come to pass in
2012.
So many people have been believing for a revival, or a renewal, or restoration
- all which are great words, and historically many Christians have chased
after them in one form or another. We keep looking hoping for something
that we have not yet experienced, or something that we may have experienced
once before and long to share again. Throughout history man has come to
his senses at one time or another and responded to the call from Father God and
responded in accordingly – with repentance, supplication and humility.
I remember as a child going to revival meetings, tent meetings, and such and I
don’t know if we needed them all really, but it was fun at least. During my
life we have had the Jesus Movement of the 1970’s, Argentina, Toronto,
Brownsville, and many other breakouts here and there - and the interesting
things is - when revival “breaks out” folks run to it to see what going
on because they are hungry for something more than what they are getting in
their local congregations.
My wife and I had the opportunity to go to Brownsville during the revival in 1998.
We were at a conference in New Orleans and we
just thought we’d drive to Florida
– what can I say - we were much younger then and driving across several states
that we had never been through before was no obstacle. We had heard
the stories, we knew the longing in our hearts and spirits and so off we went
and we got to experience something – a mass of individuals coming before God
and God honoring them with His presence.
Yet here we are once again in 2012 and voices around the nation are being
raised for revival. To be honest, I don’t think a simple revival will do
it, because for some reason revivals don’t seem to last more than a few years,
with the Argentine revival being the exception. Renewal would be good,
but I’m really feeling in the spirit that we need something much, much
more.
Why do we need something? To be brutally honest – for the last several
centuries the church has failed in its mission to consistently spread the good
news of the Kingdom of God - that God is love, and expect for a few brief years
of awakenings and movements that church has not had the displays of God’s
dynamic love and power that so many people are desperate for and actively
seeking. Denominationism, sects, cults, splits, doctrines, and a
whole lot of stuff that is not from God has crept into the church over the
years and now we find ourselves in our current dire
straits.
And as a dramatic but simple example - when national leaders allow things
to happen - reportedly like the use of cells from aborted babies to be
developed as "flavor enhancers" because they are considered a
"normal business occurrence" we have crossed the line and are in
serious need of a cleansing and healing from God through the roar of His
love!
As said in the natural – the definition of insanity is doing the same thing
over and over and expecting different results. For their role the
denominational churches have a similar problem. Preach the same messages,
sing the same songs, have the same format, have the same programs and expect
something different from God. Yet as I've said - here we are with a
mostly powerless church body that has been incapable and/or unwilling to fully
represent the love of Christ.
What we need is something much more, we need a sovereign move of the hand of
the Lord across this land that will make a lasting change in hearts, minds, and
spirits, and restore His children to Him.
Often it takes a national tragedy to get folks attention – the Hebrews were
well aware of this during the Old Testament days. And recently we
had a very short experience of this following 9/11 where people once again
began to refocus on God, their walk with Him, and began to go back to
church. But what I’m talking about is significant level of repentance on
a national level that has not been seen probably since the days of the
Prophets.
How God brings this is completely up to Him and I am convinced the He is
looking for spirit filled men and women right now that will set aside their own
desires even their own lives in order to seek His face and usher in His
presence and His glory.
Rev 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood
of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their
lives to the death. NKJV
What will the next move look like? I have an idea based on a message He
gave me back in February of 2010, but if history is any indication it will
certainly not look like what we are currently doing and in all probability it
will not look like what we have seen before. There will probably be
similar characteristics of earlier moves of God because the spiritual DNA is
His, but other than that who knows. It may include mass amounts of joy
and laughter; it may include mass amounts of falling prostate before the Lord
in tears and supplication, it may include awesome signs and wonders, but one
thing it will include will be controversy.
Let me give you a few examples of what I mean. You see, when God begins
to move - not only do the voices in the world shout complaints, but the established
“church” rises up in full battle array proclaiming that whatever is going on is
clearly not of God – instead of judging by the fruits of the work – the rile
against it because it’s different and it threatens their way of life (can you
say funding stream?).
The first example I’d like to share comes from our denominational folks over in
the Methodist camp. For those that do not know the history of the
Methodists – they were radical and outside the box in their foundational days.
How many of you have heard of John and Charles Wesley? During the
mid-1700’s he was used by God to transform England
and by inclusion – America.
Today we see the Methodists probably as a mild mannered gathering, but in the
1700 here are some of the things that were said about them:
“The horrid
blasphemies and impieties taught by those diabolical seducers called
Methodists. They pray in the language of a saint to Beelzebub himself and
their religion could be forged nowhere but in the bottomless pit” Rev John
Kirkby. (The Revival Answer Book,
M. Brown, pg14).
Rev.
Kirkby had this to say about John Wesley? He called him “that emissary of
satan, whose religion is as opposite to Christianity as heaven is to hell and
whose damnation will be just”. (ibid) During the 1740’s there were
more than 100 anti-revival publications calling the Methodists such things as
fortune tellers, conjurers, and such. Yet in 1922 British Prime
Minister Lloyd George said “the Wesleyan movement was responsible for ‘a complete
revolution effected in a whole county…and that you cannot understand
twentieth-century America,
unless you understand Wesley”
The Azusa Street Revival is often called the birth of the global Pentecostal
movement and the Foursquare and Assembly of God denominations came forth from
the fruits of this work. God used a young one-eyed African-American
gentleman named William J. Seymour, who started as a Methodist – still moving
in the teaching of Wesley – to bring forth a whole lot of God – but of course not
without significant criticism and downright hostility. A Los Angeles Times reporter summarized the
thoughts of the day
"Breathing
strange utterances and mouthing a creed which it would seem no sane mortal
could understand", the story began, "the newest religious sect has
started in Los Angeles".
Another local paper reporter in September 1906 described the happenings with
the following words: ...disgraceful intermingling of the races...they cry
and make howling noises all day and into the night. They run, jump, shake all
over, shout to the top of their voice, spin around in circles, fall out on the
sawdust blanketed floor jerking, kicking and rolling all over it. Some of them
pass out and do not move for hours as though they were dead. These people appear
to be mad, mentally deranged or under a spell. They claim to be filled with the
spirit. They have a one eyed, illiterate, Negro as their preacher who stays on
his knees much of the time with his head hidden between the wooden milk crates.
He doesn't talk very much but at times he can be heard shouting, ‘Repent,’ and
he's supposed to be running the thing...They repeatedly sing the same song,
‘The Comforter Has Come.’[3] - The attenders of the meetings were
often described as "Holy Rollers", "Holy Jumpers",
"Tangled Tonguers" and "Holy Ghosters." Reports were
published throughout the U.S.
and the world of the strange happenings in Los Angeles.
How about something a little closer to home and more recent - How many of you
recall the renewal movement of the 1990s? How many of you recall the
fruit and manifestations of this movement…remember Holy Laughter? Well a
Christian author by the name of Dr. Eddie Cheong wrote “Deceiving the Elect: A
Scriptural and Critical Analysis of the Laughter Movement” (1995).
He explains why he wrote the book:
“I wrote [this book]
with all sincerity of heart to warn God’s people of this deceptive movement and
would not have proceeded to write even one page if there was one percent of
this move being of God. [It] is a Christian spiritual apostasy and deception on
an unprecedented scale. False doctrine, like leaven, corrupt the Whole
Body of Christ” (ibid pg 23)
Similar things have been said about the moves of God in Toronto
and Brownsville, Florida. I won’t dwell on this any
longer because dozens of books have been written on these topics over the years
– but I want to make a few things as clear as possible.
- God desires to move
- God
will
move
And when God moves, as history has shown, it will not be in a way that is
“acceptable” to the institutionalized church. Many currently in the
church will rise up in opposition against the fruits of the work and those who
God is using for this work. I feel the need to stress this as strongly as
I can because there are some here today that have this desire to see God come
in His fullness of His Glory and who desire to see this nation return to God
one street at a time if
necessary.
When God comes, and if you embrace what He is doing, you can expect to be
vilified, lied about, cursed, etc. until His fruit becomes wide-spread.
You may receive some really weird words from God…I myself have been so blessed,
but understand that the season you have been going through for the last several
years, some for decades, has been to prepare you for this time.
Matt 5:10-1210 Blessed are those who are
persecuted for righteousness' sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 "Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all
kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be
exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted
the prophets who were before you. NKJV
Let me share with you one of the original examples of what God can do.
Please turn with me to John chapter 6 starting with verse 41. I heard a
message on this passage a short time ago at my mother’s church in California –
l don’t think the pastor knew what God would do with it.
John 6:41-59 41 The Jews then complained
about Him, because He said, "I am the bread which came down from
heaven." 42 And they said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of
Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, 'I have
come down from heaven'?" 43 Jesus therefore answered and said to
them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can
come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at
the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be
taught by God.' Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father
comes to Me. 46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is
from God; He has seen the Father. 47 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who
believes in Me has everlasting life. 48 I am the bread of
life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are
dead. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat
of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall
give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." 52 The
Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give
us His flesh to eat?" 53 Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I
say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you
have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has
eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is
food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and
drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent
Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because
of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven — not as your
fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live
forever." 59 These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum. NKJV
To the Jewish mind this was the most absurd non-Godly message they could have
heard…eat his flesh, drink his blood…but today we understand. We can
expect similar because God has not changed, His message has not changed.
He has the right to bring the most radical life changing message He wants to
bring, anyway He wants to bring it…as I said before, laughter, tears, joy,
sorrow, whatever it takes to turn us and this nation around in order to prepare
the Bride for the soon return of the Bridegroom and King. You can
only see the fruits of Revelation 12:11 and they did not love their lives to
the death if you understand that this is not about me or you…it is about
the Good News and the Kingdom of God and move without fear into all that God
has called you and I to
do.
So in that vein - As I said earlier, I think that this change that is
currently underway will be one of the most dramatic changes in the
Body of Christ since the reformation, or perhaps even since the Cross.
I know that these are bold statements to make but I serve a bold and loving God
and the need is exceedingly great ant the time is short. Today the body
struggles with different denominations with different doctrines, standards, and
polices and while many of these doctrine may be good they are not fully
scripture – and often taken out of context at
best.
I’ve had several individuals ask me what is the next move going to look like,
and Holy Spirit prompted me of the word He gave me two years ago…that this move
will be based on God’s pure love. And because the overall church
has had a problem being and representing His love it is going to be a
significant challenge and it will take a revolution of the mind – the word He
gave two years ago was:
“This is the beginning of the Second American Revolution” - “This
revolution will not be like anything that has happened before in this nation,
and it will herald in a mighty move of My Spirit…for this revolution will not
be based on politics or political agendas but it will be based on My people
coming into the fullness of understanding of My Love and My relationship with
them…and through this revolution of Love this nation will turn back to me and
once again be what which I have planned for this time.
So be prepared - God is going to move with us or without us. He is coming
to help the Bride prepare herself for the return of the Bridegroom and
King. If you have a problem with your doctrine being challenged - be
prepared He is going to challenge it. For too many years man's
interpretation of what God has said has hindered what God really wants to
do.
So hear what the spirit is saying today - anything of man that conflicts with
the true word of God will have His light shown upon it. Doctrines that
limit the giftings, or say that certain ministries ceased centuries ago, or
that women can't minster, or that continue any elements of the law will fall
under the love and stare of our Heavenly Father.
March
2012
