Prophecy isn’t fortune-telling. There are things God will certainly do because He is God, but most real prophecy biblically has always been conditional. It’s if-then. IF we heed the call of God to respond to His message, THEN certain blessings and breakthroughs will happen…
*** Please Note: Raw outline for Prophetic Message ***
If we fail to listen, or if we act in rebellious ways, then the blessings don’t happen and often discipline or disaster does happen. So I’m not fortune-telling today. It’s more in the tradition of if-then.
I see some things that are certain and established in the Lord, things He has decreed that will certainly unfold, but I also see things that are hugely conditional.
THE VISION OF 4 STICKS
On December 5, 2016 in our Monday night Armory prayer time I had a sudden mental vision. I’ve shared this before, but I need to point it out again.
Vision of 4 things like sticks that represent years. The first 3 are strong and the last one begins to bend. “You have 4 years in which to shine… Tremble before Me. You have lost the art of the tremble. Shake as I have shaken you.” It strikes me that 3½ years is a period of time in Scripture associated with the period of Jesus’ ministry on earth.
These next now 3 years are a window in time in which favor and release will be given to God’s people. There will be less pressure against us as Christians in this nation, more favor upon us and more opportunities to speak and be heard.
It CAN BE a time of revival, an outpouring of the Spirit, lives being changed and people coming to know the Lord. Kind of a “seek the Lord while He may be found” season in time. The Kairos moment…… God is moving.
In the midst of it, there is pressure mounting to give up… But it’s a lie and a deception intended to neutralize us before we can be part of it. Now is the time to lift up our hope.
The uptick in the economy we are seeing during these 4 years can be used to benefit the kingdom of God as well as individual believers’ households. Many of you sitting here will see breakthrough on the economic front that you’ve sought after and prayed for.
There will be and already is a fresh release of God’s Spirit upon those who will receive it. It’s given to be be given away. It’s given for the advancement of the kingdom beginning in your home and extending to everyone you touch.
Where it can be received, a paradigm shift is underway in the church. Briefly put, it is a move from kingdom of God in signs and wonders as self-focus to a focus on the kingdom of God as a culture of honor, sacrifice, joy, victory and encouragement.
A shift of seasons from remedial Xtianity to kingdom Christianity…
Began in 2009…
In the last half of the 4th year, of which nearly a year has already passed, things will begin to turn downward somewhat and the window will begin to close, maybe because of events in the U.S. and North America but also because of conditions and developments in the wider world that will affect us.
I don’t see specifically what will come. It may be a backlash against Trump if things don’t change, if he doesn’t learn Proverbs 15:1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger. OR Proverbs 12:18 There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, But the tongue of the wise brings healing.
but I suspect it will also have a lot to do with turmoil in nations we have partnered with and where our economic interests are invested. Much of the world is a house of cards ready to collapse.
It struck me in my vision that after the 3½ years of Jesus’ ministry, after the resurrection and ascension into heaven, the persecution began. If that paradigm holds, then by the end of the 4 years, things will begin to be more difficult.
This one is important for this window in time: God deals with nations according to how they treat His people. He deals with His people according to their relationship with Him. That includes Christians and the Jewish people whom He has never disowned.
The Obama admin was not a friend of Israel or of the church. I’m convinced that this lack opened the door for much of the increasing violence and division we’ve seen in our nation.
God’s blessing on this nation has been hindered until now because of it.
God judges those who harm His people and He blesses those who bless His people. Psalm 122:6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you.”
On that principle, one reason that we will see a window of grace and opportunity, a season in which the church can shine, is that the Trump admin is friendly both to the church and to Israel and realizes in practical terms that Israel is our only democratic ally in the Middle East.
Don’t underestimate the significance of the move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Scripture is consistent in saying that those who bless Israel are blessed of God. You may hate Donald Trump. You may see him as a misogynistic foul mouth. But this nation will be blessed with prosperity and the church within it will enjoy a time of opportunity because of a repaired relationship with Israel.
So there will be a season of grace and blessing on us, the United States, to some degree because of business friendly policies but also because of a restoration of the United States’ relationship with Israel and the church under the Trump administration, something that too many have minimized the significance of.
In the world of nature, we will see increasing turmoil. Climate change is only part of it. Wild weather will accelerate. Extremes will become more extreme.
All in proportion to the violence and sin we have heaped upon the earth. Earth is groaning under the burden of defilement piled up by the sin of mankind in the spirit and in the natural.
And at the same time, according to Matthew 24 it is birth pangs –the whole of creation groaning in travail to birth the age to come. It will be a time of increasing turmoil, but also a time of the greatest outpouring of the Spirit ever seen.
Because of the prayers of so many Christians, Islam will undergo a gentling. Less of a threat. More of an adaptation to the culture of the world. Because of the appeal of freedom and prosperity Islam will be more affected by the culture of the world than it will affect the world around it.
This will open doors of vulnerability to the gospel. Radical Islamists will continue to wreak havoc in terrorist attacks – acts of desperation and hatred – but they will be ever more in the minority. Stop fearing and hating Muslims. They are ripe for the Father’s heart.
In the near term, I think… that North Korea will not be a real threat. More of a distraction. The real dangers will come from other places, although I believe we are going to see at least a time of relative peace.
A time like Isaiah foresaw in Isaiah 60:1 “Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
60:2 “For behold, darkness will cover the earth And deep darkness the peoples; But the Lord will rise upon you And His glory will appear upon you.
60:3 “Nations will come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising.
60:4 “Lift up your eyes round about and see; They all gather together, they come to you. Your sons will come from afar, And your daughters will be carried in the arms.
60:5 “Then you will see and be radiant, And your heart will thrill and rejoice; Because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you, The wealth of the nations will come to you.
THIS IS THE PASSAGE AND THE PROMISE I’M CAMPING ON IN THIS TIME.
A chapter is closing. A season has run its course with all its goodness and all its flaws. A new era is opening and if we choose to see it and embrace it, leaving behind what was, it’s better than anything we’ve ever known.
Like veil being pulled back. The veil is made up of old ways that once were good but now have run their course. Like a carbonated drink that has lost its fizz. It still tastes good, but the pop is gone.
The veil is also made up of old attitudes and judgments. About self. Church. Others. Even if you’re right in your opinion of someone you know or have known, even for years, or this church or a member of your family, if that opinion doesn’t strengthen the kingdom, it’s wrong.
It will blind you to changes. It will poison the spirit. Whether that’s attitudes about the one sitting next to you, a family member, me, Nathan, Ray and the list goes on.
People change when the Spirit is moving and if you don’t look for it, see it and feed it then you feed the darkness by default and you hinder the move of Holy Spirit and prevent the fullness of the kingdom of God from manifesting.
It’s more important to be in tune with the kingdom and with Jesus right now than to be right in your personal opinion. Time to peel those things away and look up into the face of Jesus.
A fresh burst of God’s goodness, love and power us about to happen, but listen carefully: We don’t need a new anointing or a new outpouring. We need a consuming fire to burn up and consume old attitudes, old opinions, judgments, visions that aren’t His, the poverty spirit, angers, hurts, and even unholy comforts that hold us back from fullness of the kingdom of God.
One season ends and new one begins. Always a vast wilderness between seasons, just like Israel left Egypt and spent 40 years in the desert before taking the Promised Land. It’s a time when what was cannot satisfy, even if it was glorious. It’s dead now. Over. But what is to come hasn’t become clear yet.
So there’s often a confusion. You can’t see the way ahead. You can sense it but you can’t quite touch it. You sense it but you can’t define it or find words for it. You don’t know what it looks like because it’s never come for you before in that way.
So for myself, I’m up and strong but I’m stressed and weak. I’m excited and full of hope and I’m fighting to keep discouragement at bay. I can feel great things coming and I feel the Lords direction but I don’t know clearly where I’m going. I sense opportunities but see too few open doors to know what those opportunities really are.
So, for you and me, these 4 years, of which nearly a year is already past, are a season of preparation and inspiration, a time of cleansing, equipping and building during a window of lessened pressure from the world outside and a release of the Lord’s favor, before the game really begins.
I see coming years of holy oil and healing poured out on us. A time of rest and joy in the Lord and increase in the kingdom. Probably not sudden, but definitely in motion.
But it’s also a time of exposure and cleansing, conviction and change. Luke 12:2 “But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.
12:3 “Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops.
It’s a time when all things dark and hidden are being revealed. It’s more than sexual abuse exposed and lies and corruption unveiled in the world of politicians and Hollywood moguls.
Every ministry appointed of God to have an impact on the world around them and every individual involved in that call will come and is coming under the penetrating gaze of the One who sees it all.
It’s a time of the narrowing of the way.
What you got by with in past seasons will be brought to the surface and dealt with by God in the days to come so that we either embrace it and rise to glory or reject it and find ourselves lost.
So there is and there will be ongoing exposure of corruption both in the world and in the church, but this is only to set the stage for the revealing of the “sons of God” whose character conforms to the image of the Son, those who have cried out to be holy and pure and have embraced the disciplining and refining hand of God to bring it about. Romans 8:19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
In my 2015 prophetic word the Lord told me that we would see levels of corruption exposed at governmental levels that would rock the nation. And now it’s here on every side of the political spectrum. And in the body of Christ.
But the righteous will also stand forth and be seen precisely because unrighteousness will be revealed. I Corinthians 11:18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it.
11:19 For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you.
For us as believers in Jesus, it’s God peeling back the veils, exposing the darkened places in the heart, the places that fuel depression and hurt. Things that block the culture of the kingdom of God from fully taking shape. There’s an acceleration of this going on.
Revealing the places inside of us that hinder the glory, that disrupt relationships and dim the light that we have been called to be. God will move with power and with increasing urgency to make His people whole.
Hidden sins will be exposed and broken places will be revealed in order for God to restore and manifest His glory through us. In some cases it might be difficult but it won’t be awful. We have a Father who loves us.
So it’s a healing year – and not just a year, but an extended season. Old wounds. Hurts. Disappointments. Holy oil will be flowing over these things because after exposure comes the cleansing and after the cleansing comes the glory, the freedom and the joy.
It won’t just be matters of the heart being healed but healing of physical sickness and broken bodies. In contrast to past seasons, the healing will come in a more gentle way, full of love without fanfare or hype or condemnation or anger or judgment or legalism or method.
It will be the hand of God and we won’t have to labor at it or attend a conference to be taught it or legalistically confess a bunch of stuff to make it happen or pray just the right words. It won’t depend on a superstar gifted person. It will belong to the body of Christ.
And it will come from the Spirit of the Father and the Son who love us.
All of this that I’m saying – from Isaiah 60’s promise to the healing and restoration I’m talking about – must be fueled by three essential hungers that need to be cultivated and balanced. What I’m saying about blessing and healing will come to pass if we cultivate these three essential hungers in balance.
1. Hunger for God.
2. Hunger for one another.
3. Hunger for the Word.
Hunger for God:
This includes seeking intimacy with God and walking with Him as sons and daughters, but at the heart of it, of number one importance is a renewal of worship in deep spirit and deep truth and passion.
I will have to come not from attachment to your favorite worship leader or even your favorite style of music, but from a heart fully given to God to bless Him for His sake.
Revelation 14:2 And I heard a voice from heaven, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder, and the voice which I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps.
14:3 And they *sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders; and no one could learn the song except the one hundred and forty-four thousand who had been purchased from the earth.
Worship will take on a new importance, a new force and increased power for the sons and daughters of God in these last days—our day—it carries a quality of uniqueness and even urgency.
But it’s if-then. Not automatic. Not something God does FOR us.
It comes from a place in the heart that has been profoundly changed, a place that has come to look like Jesus, so that it resonates powerfully with the Spirit of Jesus.
It comes from a place of sacrifice offered to God for God.
A worship revival is coming in these last days for those who will choose to enter in, a “song” that the compromisers and the lukewarm cannot learn because it comes exclusively from undivided hearts.
Where this revival of worship power goes we will see a dramatic rise in sovereign healings, signs and wonders poured out in the context of worship. We’ve seen it here in this church from time to time, but it’s going to increase, IF…..
God will touch His children with healing power in the context of worship without the mediation of any human agent. We will see visible manifestations of the Presence of God as we tune in to this “new song”. IF we tune into this new song.
The role of the psalmist and the prophetic voice are going to be increasingly blended in places where extended worship is valued and God has room and time to move. This is not for the lukewarm.
It’s time for Christian music to again become a magnet, a tool for winning the lost…
Hunger for one another:
Acts 2:42 They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
2:43 Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.
2:44 And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common;
2:45 and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.
2:46 Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart,
2:47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.
That kind of connection and love followed directly upon the baptism in the Spirit, the infusion of power that fell on them on the day of Pentecost. If you’ve not felt a longing to be with other believers in fellowship and in worship, then you’re not walking in the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son and they are desperately in love with people, so much so that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
The kingdom of God is inhabited by people who desperately love God and desperately love one another.
So there has to be a renewal of connection and relationship in these days to come or there will be no revival. It has to be men and women, old and young, black, brown, white, Native American and Asian. All connected to one anothere. And it needs to be intentional.
The Malachi 4 mandate – heart of fathers restored to children and children to fathers starts with an older generation – the fathers – longing for the younger with a selfless desperate hunger of love. It’s the love of Father God so powerful and so consuming that it has to have a place to go, something to be given to.
This is the season – if this is really the last days – for the realization of God’s 3-generational vision and if we fail to grasp and walk in that 3-generational vision, there will be no real revival for any of us. In fact, Mal 4 says that if this connection doesn’t happen, the land labors under a curse.
Revival cannot come. Not in fullness.
God has a vision and I’ve never known Him to compromise His own vision or His own word.
Hunger for the Word:
Acts 2:42 They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching
A renewed dedication to digging deep into the Scriptures to know the heart of God and the truth of who He is and what He has given us to ensure that life is good. Study it. Absorb it. Be changed by it.
Bible study has become the least popular activity of the church in our day. This MUST change.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
1. For God.
2. For one another.
3. For the Word.
Neglect any one of those three or get any one of them out of balance and shipwreck happens. Every time. The Jesus Movement died of the religious spirit because it became focused on the Word out of balance with the other two legs of the stool.
The Charismatic Renewal during the same period of time died in part because of unbalanced emphasis on hunger for experiences of God at the expense of grounding in the Word. Silly and horrible teachings resulted under the guise of what we called “the deep things of the Spirit”.
Hunger for the Word without a grounding in the Father’s love results in the religious spirit without the love with which God wrote the Word.
Leave out a hunger for one another and miss everything the love of God is supposed to produce.
But if it’s all about one another and we begin patting ourselves on the back for having so much love, while we neglect the Word and the primary focus on hunger for God, then love will sour and die and we’ll end up in a different sort of religious spirit and full of the kind of pride that leads to a serious fall.
Hunger for God without a balance in hunger for the Word and for fellowship with other believers leads to aberrant doctrines and deceptions. It leads to a focus on getting supernatural experiences, but without grounding in the Word it leads to delusion and ultimately the destruction of faith.
In days to come, we’re going to see an increasing flood of questionable teachings flowing out of popular ministries because of imbalances in the emphasis.
In many cases because we have fallen in love with being supernatural rather than focusing on intimacy with the father. Because we’ve neglected the Word. Because we’re too disconnected from one another.
Time to penetrate the veil of empty and false teachings and come to the simple foundation that never changes.
I Corinthians 2:1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.
2:2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
2:3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,
2:4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
2:5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
Look for a deepening chasm between those who seek the simplicity of the cross and resurrection, the innocence of coming to Jesus and the Father as simple children, and those who pursue other paths and find themselves in delusion, thinking it’s God.
In lockstep with all of that imbalance we will see increasing levels of compromise of biblical principles in the church as more and more teachers and leaders fall to the pressure of the dominant culture driven by a demonic principality.
You’ll see more and more teachers adopting and teaching universalism at the expense of the centrality of the cross and the words of Jesus that tell us no one comes to the Father but through Him. More of them compromising core doctrines of what it takes to be saved….
We are going to see a continuation of formerly solid Christian leaders capitulating under the pressure of the demonic principality holding sway over the nation to adopt unbiblical and immoral stances with regard to sexuality and related issues.
You’ll see more and more leaders surrendering to the pressure of the demonic culture to affirm gay marriage and the gay lifestyle, as well as other forms of sexual compromise.
It’s just easier to give in and abandon or reinterpret the biblical plumb line than to walk the line, standing for biblical morality and our historic confessions and to do it without crossing over into hatred or judgment or a religious spirit.
Never let the world tell you what love looks like because it will ultimately come out distorted. Let God’s word do that.
In many ways this will be a time of both-and. Negatives to prepare for and guard against at the same time as there are positives to walk in and find glory. The warnings about the negatives are so that we don’t miss the positives and so fail to enjoy the glory and be part of what God is actually doing.
Many of you are in labor to bring forth a new season. Pregnant with the kingdom of God. Giving birth with no cheating anesthetic. It actually hurts. It’s that wilderness between seasons.
What do in wilderness? Purity of focus. Simplicity. Peeling away idolatrous.
It’s a time to speak of every small beginning as if it is huge. Post exile temple. Jesus with 12. Small leaven. Believe that you have already received.
We’re called to be nation-changers and that is going to accelerate. Jesus left us with a command to make disciples of all NATIONS. We’re not twiddling our thumbs waiting for God to do something and hoping the rapture will take us all away while the world gets worse.
We win. We exert influence. We touch people. We change atmospheres.
So we give a truck to a Liberian pastor to start a business to support a school we funded the building of, and children are educated. Those children grow up and start businesses, build homes, schools and hospitals. And Liberia is changed.
Your giving and the heart and spirit of this church enable travel to Liberia where young people are called out and challenged to rise to positions of influence and pastors are strengthened. And the nation begins to change.
We pour into a pastor and wife on the Navajo reservation so that first he changes and then he becomes instrumental in changing longstanding generational dysfunctions for the largest Native American tribe on this continent. This is the seed of cultural change and the lifting of a whole people.
Look for a year when the fruit begins to show.
I Corinthians 4:12 when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure;
4:13 when we are slandered, we try to conciliate and the apostle changed his world. He affected people. Where he went, the atmosphere changed. The Roman Empire remained cruel. Pagan. Godless. But in the midst of it a people arose in the nature and character of Jesus who healed the sick and raised the dead and changed the lives of those they touched.
What lies before us is a time of oil and water. Healing and cleansing. It’s a 3 year period of grace, opportunity.
I’m going to say this again and then we’re going to cry out for it. We don’t need a new anointing or a new outpouring. We need a consuming fire to burn up and consume old attitudes, old opinions, judgments, visions that aren’t His, the poverty spirit, angers, hurts, and even unholy comforts that hold us back from fullness of the kingdom of God.