On Monday, December 5, 2016, not long after the presidential election, I received a vision during a prayer meeting at our church. I saw four sticks standing up straight and strong with the fourth one beginning to bend. I asked the Lord what it meant and heard Him reply, “You have four years in which to shine…” I knew that some kind of trouble would happen in the fourth year and that the years represented by the sticks would be years in which to prepare for it. I saw that the first three of those years would be years of relative ease in which we would see increased prosperity and a renewed level of favor exhibited toward conservative Christians and Israel. Now the trouble begins.
Have we prepared adequately? Have we truly listened to the prophetic voices calling for holiness and intercession in prayer? Little time is left. The people of God must awaken to the crucial days that lie before us. It’s time to shine in the darkness and fulfill the promise of Isaiah 60:
“Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. 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. Nations will come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising”.
Isaiah 60: 1-3
Concurrent with these three years of economic prosperity that have favored every racial and ethnic group in America with record levels of employment, we have seen another related thing manifest that I prophesied nine years ago. A rising tsunami wave of hatred now engulfs us as a nation, just as the Lord told me it would. It has paralyzed the function of government, set the races against one another and shredded any sense of national unity. I have called for Christians to be careful not to engage in this wave of demonic influence and have pled, instead, for renewed prayer in the Spirit of Jesus.
The turmoil will quiet down, at least on the surface, only if Republicans retake the majority in the House of Representatives in 2020. Democratic chairpersons of committees would then be replaced with Republicans and the unending investigations and attempts to impeach the president, if he is reelected, would stop. I don’t intend that as a political endorsement, just a reality. Hatred will, nevertheless, continue to grow as the narrative from the left continues to paint conservatives and evangelical Christians as haters who present an evil threat to their vision of a reshaped America.
As early as nine years ago I began to sound the alarm over the tsunami wave of hatred I saw coming. When I began to call for prayer for a change of character in the president’s inflammatory rhetoric, many Christians attacked me and defended the president’s insults and name-calling as if it were somehow necessary to get the job done. But you don’t put out a fire by throwing gasoline on it. You put out a fire by throwing water on it. The opposition to this president has been fed unnecessarily. And I am no ignoring the good he has done. I am merely pointing out what needs to change going forward. Unfortunately, we now pay the price as a nation for the hatred that has been unnecessarily fed and the divisions that have widened beyond what they should have.
Perhaps this current attack from the left and the push for impeachment will have a refining effect on the president at the level of character – and for the rest of us for that matter. I’ll repeat the pertinent passages of Scripture and call once more for prayer. Proverbs 12:18, “There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, But the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Proverbs 15:1, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.” Proverbs 16:7, “When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.” We either believe the Word of God or we don’t. Let us put our prayers, our words and our relationships where we say our faith resides.