When the Next Wave Comes...

When I was on the ocean last weekend the winds were strong and the waves high. There were riptides. People were warned not to go in the water. Of course I went in. You knew that. And there were shark warnings. And it was cold. As I walked out until it was deep enough to swim, the waves were 5 feet high. The problem wasn't swimming, it was standing. Trying to walk out I was knocked over several times by the waves. Eventually I was in deep enough water. Down the beach there was a surfer. And some kayakers had made an attempt but capsized. Rough ocean. 

Why am I telling you this? I was thinking about the next wave of revival we pray for. The wave of spiritual change coming to America. When it comes it won't come as a tiny ripple. One that doesn't disturb much. One that is safe. No sharks. No rip current. That's what the church would like, safe revival, no danger, nothing upset. Business as usual with more attendance and better offerings.

Yet that's not the message I got as I dried myself off. I heard Him say, "When the next wave comes it will knock most off their feet. It won't be safe. There will be dangerous currents and there will be hidden dangers. The result will be glorious, but the trip to the deep water will be treacherous. Most won't make it. Everything you thought would go with you into the deep water I am calling you into will be upset. The waves will knock them down and the current will wash them away". 

I won't over interpret, but it's fair to say we are about to go into a time when the church we used to know will be tested and many, maybe most won't stand the test. The wave will knock them over. There will be deceivers. There will be sharks. There will be currents that if you fight them will kill you. 

I can't tell you if that was just for me, or if I was over-spiritualizing an event. I am only saying that the spiritual wave we all hope and pray for will be so big it will not be safe for religion. 

Much of the religious establishment when threatened will come against it. It's already happening. The strongest attacks will come from those who were part of the last wave. Then have now built structures that are about to collapse from the coming wave.

Gene Redlin

Destruction from the Wave

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I was walking along the beach on the Florida panhandle during a heavy rain, watching the patterns the rain made in the soft sand and praying. After about an hour of walking and splashing, my attention was drawn to the ocean itself.

As I turned to look, I saw a vision superimposed over the choppy Florida waters: a great wave rose up out of the sea. As I watched, it rose higher and higher until it towered eighty or a hundred feet over the sea, and it rushed toward land. Just as the wave was about to break, the vision froze, and the wave was suspended.

I watched the frozen wave for several seconds, and I was able to see it from several angles; the one that stuck was watching the wave from overhead. After a moment, a voice spoke: “Shall it continue, or shall it stop?” I answered, “Hunh? What?”

The voice spoke again, “This is me. Shall it continue, or shall it stop?” I held my tongue and thought about it: that was a pretty terrifying-looking wave, but it was clearly a vision: I was seeing this with my spirit, not my eyes.

The voice spoke a third time: “Shall it continue, or shall it stop?” I had the presence of mind to ask, “Uh, is that from you, Lord?” and he answered, “It is.”

“OK. I trust you, Lord. Let it continue,” and the vision un-froze, and the wave continued its rush toward land. I expected that it would stop or do something symbolic before it struck land, but it didn’t. It struck the shore, and because if its immense size, it continued its rush unabated. It was miles inland before the wave was spent and began to draw back out to the ocean.

As the water washed back out to sea, it took a great deal of the soil with it (this was in Florida: the soil was mostly sand). The buildings were undamaged, the trees were unharmed, but the soil was washed away until every building, every house, was standing on a thin pillar of sand that looked rather like an apple core underneath it. The roads were still unharmed, but all the sand had washed out below their asphalt surfaces, so they hovered between the homes.

As I watched, the water finished drawing back into the sea, and some of the houses began to shudder, then wobble, and then they fell from their precariously balanced apple-core of sand, and were destroyed. House after house fell to destruction, but many homes were unshaken. I watched carefully to see what was different about the houses that fell from the houses that remained unshaken, and soon I saw that the unshaken homes had driveways that were connected to the road, and via the road, were connected to all the other stable houses. The homes that fell had no driveways and were not connected.

I spotted some houses without driveways that were still standing and wondered if my observation was incorrect, but as I watched, those houses, one at a time, quivered, wobbled, and fell to their destruction. They could balance carefully for a while, but the slightest wind, the slightest shift of the people inside destroyed the balance and they fell and were crushed.

As I thought about the vision and what it meant, I felt the Lord whisper to me: “A wave of my presence is coming, and I have given my people the right to stop it if they wish. But when my wave comes, it will not come gently, it will not leave the world unchanged. Those people – and those congregations – that have isolated themselves will not be able to stand in this wave of my Spirit. Only those who have remained connected to other believers, other houses, will stand, and they will not be shaken. They will be delivered by those relationships.”

Northwest Prophetic, ±July 1998, Tumwater, WA.

Tribulation: Examination and Healing for Leaders

Tribulation: tribulation (ˌtrɪbjʊˈleɪʃən)
— noun
1. a cause of distress
2. a state of suffering or distress.
Root: to afflict or to press or squeeze.

This word is for every christian who is in a position of leadership or ministry, either known or hidden where no one else sees.

We are in a time of being pressed, or squeezed, it is a time of being subjected to the pressures of the presence of the new wine. God is allowing testing of the wine skins to see if they will burst. He is attending to the weak areas, the places where we have been wet down by wisdom, and truth, but have not become pliable. In some places he is replacing with whole new skins, in others, He is re-wetting the old skins making them pliable again. He is using the truths that he has established in our lives, and re-affirming them.

He is preparing us for an outpouring of His new wine. He is examining our weaknesses and healing them with truth and with love if we will allow Him too. He is urgently pressing in at this task so that we will be pliable for what is about to burst forth.

from Alena Miles.