Category Archives: Prophesy and the prophetic

Some current prophetic words and some teaching on prophesy, including notes from the Wildwood Church School of Prophesy.

Discipleship and witness, Prophesy and the prophetic

All Bow Down

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“You oh Lord are a shield for me,
You’re my glory and the lifter of my head.” (Psalm 3:3)


We all know the story of Joseph to one level or another, and there are plenty of levels to it. I think one of them that the Lord speaks to us through, and definitely that the enemy temps us with, is the area of recognition. I think this is particularly true today, at a time when a recurring theme in what the Holy Spirit is saying through various prophetic ministries is that He will be using unknown people in the next great move of God. Jesus speaks about it to the Pharisees, and does not mince His words: “What is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God“ (Luke 16:15), and Joseph has serious problems with it when he tells his brothers of the dreams in which he saw all his brothers bowing down to him. How do we deal with it in the Church, operating as we do in a society where badges of rank and leadership are very much a part of the meritocracy in which we live? Jesus clearly gave us the model: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28), but navigating this path is fraught with traps and temptations. It certainly is for me, and I don’t think I’m the only one who wrestles with the need for recognition.

The Mantle
Joseph‘s coat showed his brothers that he was his father‘s favourite and his status in the family was higher than theirs; that he bypassed them all to have the rights of the first born; and that he was destined to be leader of the clan. It represented authority and leadership. There’s a picture of the church here: we are called out of the world by our Father to sit with him in heavenly places, where we have spiritual authority and a commission to lead those around us in the ways of righteousness. Our coat represents our call, our authority and our status as children of God, that we receive by Grace through the Holy Spirit. Without stretching the analogy too far, it’s a picture of the mantle that each one of us carries: the anointing of the Holy Spirit that both sets us apart from the world and enables us to bring God’s kingdom into it.

For Joseph, God‘s call was for him to be the vessel of God‘s wisdom and authority that would rescue Israel from famine and ultimately establish them as God’s chosen people. And let’s remember here that the seven years of plenty followed by the seven years of famine which was the world context by which God both established the Ministry of Joseph, and through him the destiny of Israel, were not just circumstances that just happened to be brought about by World conditions: they were planned and controlled by the sovereign God who was, and is, pointing all of history toward its final outcome in the eternal rule and reign of Jesus Christ. Through his dreams of authority, God revealed to Joseph the essence of what his part would be in the great plan of salvation.

If we want to learn from Joseph, I think that one place where where we need to look is how Joseph responded to those dreams. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” (John 18:36), and He also said “the Kingdom Of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21) Joseph however wore his coat as an external sign of his status. The consequence was that it was ripped off him, dipped in blood, and returned to his father. He told his brothers that they would all bow down to him, and far from any recognition he might have hoped for, his reward was to be thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, and cast into the obscurity of a prison far from home.

But God.
But God. “But the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man.” (Genesis 39:2). There is no need to retell the story. Joseph was elevated in Potiphar’s household; he was elevated in prison; and finally he was elevated to the position of governor over the whole of the land of Egypt. While he was in prison his mantle was no longer visible, but it was still at work, because with the mantle came the gifting. He had the seer’s gift of both receiving and interpreting dreams, and we see later that he also had the supernatural gift of wisdom needed to steward the resources of the nation so that God‘s desired outcome could be achieved.

So what happened? The same prophetic gift was at work both before and after his brothers cast him out. Standing before them, wrapped in his coat, he said to his brothers: “Please hear this dream that I have dreamed.” Genesis 37:5) But instead of being persuaded that they should accept Joseph and the coat that he wore, his brothers said
“Shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have dominion over us?” And “they hated him even more for his dreams and his words“


Joseph’s lesson
The esteem that Joseph longed for was, as Jesus made clear, “an abomination to God,“ and moreover would have doubtless destroyed the work that God had planned for Joseph. If we seek to exalt ourselves through our ministry we are destined to fail. How different was his attitude when his distressed fellow inmates in prison told him of their dreams. “We each have had a dream, and there is no interpreter of it,“ they said. Joseph replied:“ Do not all interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dream.“  (Genesis 40:8) Like Daniel, many years later, Joseph did not say “I can interpret dreams,“ but he pointed to God and gave Him the glory. He had learnt his lesson, and it was a lesson he did not forget when he stood before pharaoh in the splendour of his palace. He glorified God when he interpreted pharaoh‘s dreams, and he imparted God‘s wisdom without seeking the position of being the one who would carry it out.

The New Mantle
Because Joseph had learnt that he did not need to display a mantle of authority but simply be the vessel of the One who has authority over all things, God could trust him with a new mantle: not just status in his family, but status in the greatest nation on Earth at the time. Joseph had to die to his earthly mantle in order to receive it anew from God in the power of resurrection life. Only in the power of resurrection life could he fulfil the purpose that he was called for. The life of the spirit requires the death of the flesh.

The term “Joseph ministry“ is often used today in the context both of the prophetic and of the stewardship of Kingdom Resources. I think it’s probably true that many are called to be Josephs today, but only the few are chosen who have learnt the lesson that every Joseph needs to learn. In the secret place of the prison, Joseph moved in his anointing and met the need of the two distressed individuals around him, but no one knew about his ministry until God decided that he was ready to “go public.“ The extent to which Joseph had genuinely died to his desire for recognition is shown in the fact that he only remembered his dreams of dominion when he actually met his brothers again. “Then Joseph remembered the dreams which he had dreamed about them, and said to them, “You are spies! You have come to see the nakedness of the land!” (Genesis 42:9)

Because pride and its attendant desire for dominion was the sin that led to Satan‘s expulsion from heaven and the fall of Man, the enemy is always looking for ways to infect the Church with that particular evil. If he had bones, you could say it is in them. And just as the Father rewards our prayers and our giving “in the secret place,” so the secret place is where our ministry is matured until the Lord is ready to send us out. If the coat of our anointing is going to be displayed to the World, it needs to be dipped in the blood of Jesus and returned to the Father. He will give it back to us when we are ready to wear it. He, and only He, is “my glory and the lifter of my head.” (Psalm 3:3)

Be prepared; hold on., Prophesy and the prophetic

Stepping up to the coming move of God

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“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” (Gal 5:6)

This is a prophetic word I received on Easter Sunday. A “move of God” has been prophesied for this season by many people, significantly by Smith Wigglesworth in 1947, but by a growing number of people in recent times. What the different prophesies have in common is that it will be greater than any that has gone before, and will be unlike anything that we have experienced before. I believe this word relates to it.

I saw a platform at a station, except it was it on a higher level then where I was standing and the track was running in a different direction: it was at 90°, as if it was going over a bridge. The only way to reach the platform with by two flights of steps that were pushed into place, rather like stage scenery. The second flight of steps sat behind the first, starting where the first one ended so that the two flights became a single flight. I felt the Lord was saying, “The train is coming, but it won’t pull in for you just where you’re standing. You need to take the steps to the higher level. If you don’t take the steps, you will miss the train. And it’s not coming from the direction that you expect and that you are used to; it’s coming from a completely different direction. It’s not what you expect. It’s not another train like the last one because it’s on a different track going a different way.”

I said: “What are the two flights of steps? Why are there two?“
He said, “The two flights of steps are Faith and Love. Pushed together they become one. You need to take steps of both reach the level where my train is coming in. The first flight is faith, because you cannot love selflessly without faith. But faith alone is not enough, because without love, you are nothing.”


I asked, “Why are they mobile, like stage scenery that is pushed into place?”
He said, “Because you have to ask me for them. You can’t just walk up them on your own. When you are ready, I will push them into place for you. Are you ready to take the steps? Because my train is coming, and I don’t want you to miss it.”

Discipleship and witness, Prophesy and the prophetic

Water what’s fruitful; burn what’s dead.

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“I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I him bears much fruit, for without me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he has cast out as a Branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this, my father is glorified, that you very much fruit; so you will be my disciples.” (John 15:5 – 8).

I was in the garden a few weeks ago, burning rubbish in our garden incinerator in an enclosed area that used to be a chicken run. I had a hose pipe to hand in case any sparks jumped from the fire, and was directing it onto the roots of an apple tree on the other side of the enclosed area so that the water was doing something useful. I felt the Lord spoke to me quite clearly as I stepped back, away from the smoke for a moment. He said, “Water what is fruitful, burn what is dead.“ I took the above picture as a reminder to myself.

This is a time of transition. We have heard many times, and we know, that God is doing a new thing. So why do we persist in carrying on with our old ways? I wrote about making disciples in my last post. Jesus says that discipleship is this: abide in Him and let his words abide in us. What does this mean? I think it’s quite simple: Walk with him and do what he says. Forty years ago, before cars were computers on wheels, I rebuilt a car engine (a morris minor, if you remember them) from a DIY manual. You read the information and did what it said. It was tried and tested, and – unless you misread the instructions – it worked. For too long, we’ve been doing it ourselves in the church: repeating strategies that worked in a previous era in the hope that they will work for us today. But it’s time we threw away and burnt our DIY manuals and let Him build His church, because what He is doing today is not the same as it was 40 years ago.

I believe the Lord says:
 “You cry out to me to pour out my spirit and bring my anointing to what you do. But I will not pour my water on that which is cut off from me. I will not water your DIY efforts. Where is there life and growth in your church? Where is there life and growth in your family, in your marriage? Cry out to me for those areas, and I will water them. I will even water one little seedling, I will water a tree that only bears a single fruit. If it is growing, I will water it. Where there is love, I will water it. But I will not water a pile of dead branches, however big and impressive it is, however hard you’ve worked to assemble the pile, and however long it’s been there.

So burn what is dead, abide in me, listen for my word and do what I say. And I will watch over my word to perform it, and I will water what grows when my word springs forth through your obedience.”

Prophesy and the prophetic, The word of God, Walking in the Spirit

The desert and the camel

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A couple of months ago the Lord gave me the following word, but I think now is the time to release it:

“I am the God of the universe. I put the stars in the sky. I put every vein on every leaf on every tree. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without my knowing. When those kairos moments, those “god- incidences,” happen in your life where you see my hand at work, arranging and organising your situations, it is because I have knitted the universe together to meet you in that moment and to open up my path for you.

You look ahead and you see an expense of barren desert. A rocky plane, stretching into the distance, with no path turning to the right or to the left. You say “I do not know which way to go. In every direction it looks the same, and the distance seems so great wherever I look.”

But I say I am calling you to walk by faith and not by sight. You cannot see a path because if I were to reveal it, you would be walking by sight and not by Faith. But I will guide you with my eye, even though your eye cannot see where to go. And you will hear a voice behind you, saying: “this is the way, walk in it,“ and you will step forward, one step at a time on my word. Because my word in you is living and active, and as you step on my word I will create that path for your feet and I will build structures that you can’t see through the active power of my word, even the structures of my kingdom. Will you trust me to knit the universe together anew at every step of obedience that you take? Will you trust my word, by which the worlds were made? Will you walk with me? Will you trust the power of my Spirit in your life?”

At around the same time the Lord also showed me a camel. It was, again, in the desert. Someone was trying to lead it with a rope, but it was resisting. I think the Lord was – is – saying that the camel knows that it’s got everything it needs to cross the desert: water stored in its hump; big flat feet to help it to walk across the soft sand without its feet sinking in, but we can be like camels who don’t know what they are carrying in their humps, and are resisting the person who is trying to lead them out across the desert. He says: “You have everything you need. You have my Spirit, and you have my word. I am holding the rope and I know the way you should go. You won’t wander off and get lost, so trust me and come with me across the desert. You may think it’s forbidding and barren, but it is also beautiful, and I will show you things, hidden things, that you have never seen before, because you have never been this way until now. Come, because now is the time.”

Be prepared; hold on., Prophesy and the prophetic, Pursuing Love

The Season of the Lowly

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There is a word that the Holy Spirit is bringing to the church in this season, and which many prophetic ministers are catching and releasing in different ways, and which can be summarised like this: ”I am bringing revival in unprecedented ways to show my glory and my power in these last days before the King returns. And it will be now as it was at the beginning of the gospel: I will choose and use the unknowns, the unqualified, and the unrecognised; the fisherman, the labourers and the tax collectors, because they are the ones who will show for my glory and not desire to keep it for themselves. I will demolish ministry platforms and pull down the strongholds of pride and selfish ambition that have divided my church; the church, the Father and the Son will be one in the Spirit, and the glory of the Lord will cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea.”

We have heard this word in many ways, and we acknowledge its truth. But I believe the Holy Spirit is grieved by those who would build a platform for themselves to pronounce it against others; who lift themselves up in order to declare that this is the season of the lowly.

The book of Obadiah is a prophecy against the Edomites, the house of Esau, whom God judges for their arrogance and “violence against your brother Jacob.“

The prophet writes:

“The pride of your heart has deceived you,
You who dwell in the clefts of the rock,
Whose habitation is high;
You who say in your heart,
‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’

Though you ascend as high as the eagle,
And though you set your nest among the stars,
From there I will bring you down,” says the LORD” (Obadiah 1: 4-5)

Galatians 6:5 says “each one should carry his own load.“ In other words each one of us is responsible for his own faults and shortcomings . Revival has to begin in our own hearts. Peter writes “for the time is come the judgement must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what will be the end of them that have been not the gospel of God?“ (1 Peter 4:17).

I believe the Holy Spirit is saying, “Do not judge your brother as Esau did, for the pride of your heart has deceived you, and I will bring you down from the place where you exalt yourself.”

If we want to be part of the wave of God’s mercy that is going to flood this earth, let us beware of judging those who we think might be standing in its way, because in doing so we come under the judgement of the One who is “meek and humble of heart” whom we claim to be exalting.

“The house of Jacob shall be a fire,
And the house of Joseph a flame;
But the house of Esau shall be stubble;
They shall kindle them and devour them,
And no survivor shall remain of the house of Esau,”
For the LORD has spoken.” (Obadiah 1:18)

Be prepared; hold on., Living by Faith, Prophesy and the prophetic

The Big Reshuffle

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Prophesy from Andrew Baker for 2025

There is coming a big reshuffle, a time, a season, in fact a year, to put things in place for this new season. There will be a very big, noisy rattling, like going over rapids, a time such has not seen been seen before. There will be an upheaval of nations all over the world. There will be a repositioning and a realigning in the practical, financial and even the spiritual area, affecting your position and call, and all aspects, in fact, of ministry. There will be a recalibration, a shifting, so that God’s people, and many others in the secular world, are ready for 2026 onwards.

2025 is the year of holding tight to God as He moves things about. Huge changes are coming; new things and developments appearing; fresh ways of looking at things and new ways to accomplish them.

His people will be required to have a deeper walk of faith, walking right in the centre of corruption at many levels, yet holding the light of the Lord to show the way. God will position His people, and those secular people whom He will use, to bring light, hope, provision and direction during an upheaval that’s coming next in the world and in the church.

Do not panic, be calm. Get the lifeboats ready and practise your drills. This is a different year, 2025, not the same as any other you have experienced. Lay down the thinking that says that things can only be done the way they have always been done. Be free and flexible to operate in new ways, methods and plans. He can see ahead, now He wants you to understand the reality and get ready now! Change is here. You have not been this way before.

God’s ministers will loose, release and relinquish many things and people, even projects. You will collect many new ones but also there will be many challenges but also answers from heaven that you have not seen before, in your lifetime.

It’s a time to step up to the plate and do things you felt unable to do before. Get yourself ready in mind and in faith. Great is your God in the midst of you. He will enable you, bless you, anoint you, fill you and give you all you need in every way. His people will become the head and not the tail. Eventually, His leaders will help people into safety, like an ark, from drowning.

This is the season, enter it with joy and faith. There will be new adventures, and 100% commitment and submission will be required of God’s children and servants. Now the miracles, rescues, upbuilding of new, of good things, and the falling of old things. This is your day coming now. 2025 is your Esther season, Esther chapter 4 verse 14. This is your time, your moment, your season, your era. Don’t miss this! Rise up and be the ones who would take hold of the season with great courage. Be like Jesus, who for the joy set before Him in eternity, endured the cross as well as brought changes to the world. It is not a time to think of self, but to expand the kingdom of God. Be God’s people of this final season! Be those who will give, release, loose, relinquish, and yet pick up, run with and enjoy it, gathering, on the way forwards, an abundance of all that is needed and many new believers, too. It’s time to disciple the new and the younger; teaching with your experience, showing them how to walk in faith and in power. It’s time to see the last revival and the resources to do the job.

This is a time of fire and faith, not fear. It is a time for victory, not running from the enemy, for believing, rising up and seeing the kingdom increase in depth, height, wisdom, numbers, and, in particular, commitment to Jesus.

There will be an upheaval of nations, world finances, climate issues, lawlessness, power struggles and all that goes with this. You have authority and peace in Me. Take up your positions, allow the preparations to take place step by step, during the coming year, as you hear and obey. These changes and directions are not just to carry you through future issues coming on the earth and in the church, but are to give you the foreknowledge, the ability and the enabling to help so many more. The Lord is saying that we must now take time aside and meditate on these things.

Be prepared; hold on., Prophesy and the prophetic

The Waters are Rising (2)

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I believe that the recent floods in Valencia, Spain, are prophetic of what the Lord will be sending onto the world. I believe He’s saying this:

“My flood waters are rising. They will be coming down from my mountain, pouring across the Earth, and sweeping systems and structures before them. They will sweep away religion like a straw house. They will be flowing around the hills and the mountain sides, through the valleys and through the towns, so do not try and climb the mountains that face you, or walk over the hills. Do not seek me in the solitude of the valley or the throng of the people. Yes, I am there, and you will find me while you have to be there, but do not go there to seek me. For it is time to wait and to listen for the rushing waters. When they come they may look dangerous and alarming, but trust me to let them carry you to new places. The waters will lift you and they will carry you. You will not sink, but if you try to swim you will only splash fruitlessly and swallow water, and you will not propel yourself anywhere; for the river is too powerful for you. It will take you to where I intend to put you, and not to where you have decided to go. You will see the flotsam of the world being carried along with you, but do not hang onto it. I will carry you like I carried the ark in the days of Noah, and you will come to rest on a high mountain where you will know My presence and my provision. It is this mountain that will be your place of safety in the flood. And when the waters have subsided, you will go down into the debris and the ruin that has been left, and you will bring my salvation to the world.”

About six months ago I sensed that The Lord also gave me a word on rising waters. At the time I was on a birdwatching visit to a place where the high tide floods a saltmarsh. I sensed then that the flood was coming over the low marshy places, but that “that a time will come and is coming shortly when the flood will speed up.” I think we are now in that time of increased momentum. Time is short: we need to let the waters take us to safety – even if it seems to be the most dangerous thing to do.

(Footnote: Spain is a stronghold for religion and religious spirits, so the floods also demonstrate what will happen to religion when the waters rise.)

Living by Faith, Prophesy and the prophetic

Grace for Grace

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John 1:16 says  “Of his fullness (in some versions, “abundance”) we have received, and Grace for Grace.” The Greek word “for“ is anti. We might say to someone, “I’ll give you a cash for (anti) it:“  the cash replaces the item you give me for it in exchange. Grace for Grace means that one Grace replaces the last one. God’s grace keeps coming out of His abundance.  Grace is like manna: we can’t hoard it, but we receive it fresh every day, out of God’s bounty.

Jeremiah knew this. Lamentations 3:  22 – 23 says “The steadfast Love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.”

God’s mercies are like an endless succession of train carriages, grace for grace coming out of His limitless abundance, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceasing.

Isaiah takes this to another level:

“Forget the former things;
Do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making away in the wilderness
And streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:18–19)

Here, the Holy Spirit calls us to see the “new thing” in the Spirit before it comes. At the same time He also tells us to let go of the former things. The last train carriage is on its way past – there is another one coming along. Yesterday’s manna is finished: God’s provision will be in, and for, the new thing that He is doing.

This operates at every level, from our personal lives – spiritual, work, family – to the Church, to the nations. Prophesies from the last century of a great harvest, notably from Smith Wigglesworth, Rick Joyner and Jean Darnall (among others),  perceived the new thing that God would be doing in world revival. Today, political and financial situations are in upheaval as the former things crumble away. And here’s the challenge for us, the people of God: we need to be asking the Lord to show us what we aren’t letting go of, and why, so that we can be ready to move into the new thing when it comes. This will require faith and endurance, but God’s abundance is limitless; His mercies never come to an end.

A final thought. Science tells us that the universe is constantly expanding. Why is this? It’s because God is constantly creating. His mercy are new every morning; grace for grace coming out of His abundance. May we embrace this in our lives.

Holiness: You shall be perfect, Living by Faith, Prophesy and the prophetic, The word of God

“Go your way, your son lives.”

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“So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee where He had made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and implored Him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.” The nobleman said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies!” Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your son lives.” So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.” (John 4: 46-50)

The man “believed the word that Jesus spoke,” and at that moment life entered his dying son. The Greek used here for “word” is logos, carrying a meaning of decree and declaration. Jesus, Lord of Lords, decreed that the boy would live, and it was so. Just as God spoke and there was light, He spoke now and there was the light of life. Locked as we are into the dimensions of time and space, it can be difficult for our human brains to fathom that a word spoken many hours’ journey from the situation it affects can have immediate, life-changing impact. We read the story and to a degree we probably gloss over the dynamics of it. But I think it’s important to understand (as much as we are capable of understanding) that words of power and authority decreed into the spirit realm can have immediate material effect anywhere in the world, just as they did here. Jesus saw what the Father was doing, and decreed it into existence. The word of authority – the King’s decree – that He spoke, and that the man believed, was a “logos”  declaration of God’s will, and effected an immediate change in the spiritual realm that transformed the situation on Earth. God’s will was done in Heaven, and so the boy lived.

Our responsibility
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)  God is in and through all things, therefore so is the Word. The Word, Jesus, is at once personal (with God) and universal (He is God). In union with the Spirit He is both an infinite dimension and a living entity within that dimension, carrying spirit and life. He spoke the words “Go your way, your son lives,“ and that word of life was released in the spirit and transformed the dying child. It was not the boy’s father who carried it, but the Spirit; so the man had nothing to do except believe and go his way. When the life and the authority of God’s words are released in the spirit to transform a situation, it is not our responsibility to make it happen, other than to believe that it has already been done. From the moment that Jesus spoke, the son lived, because Jesus knew He was speaking into faith. The word and faith are like the two poles of an electric current: if one is missing the circuit is no longer live. But when they are both there, and you turn on a switch in one place, something happens somewhere else because they are connected by the electric current that runs between them. So it is when the word of God is declared in the Spirit and faith is present. As I have written elsewhere, our job is to find the switch.

The light of Life
Psalm 119 :130 says “The entrance of your word gives light.” Jesus tells us: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) The true light has authority over darkness, as we know from John 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it..” The very first “logos” decree recorded in the Bible was the beginning of Creation: “Let there be Light.” The creative words of the Son of God have authority over darkness and death.

Immediately after Jesus demonstrates this release of logos power, He smashes the religious framework of the Pharisees, and speaks His life into the paralysed man at the pool of Bethsaida. John follows this double whammy with Jesus’s first confrontation with the Pharisees, where He makes the following declarations (among others) about himself:

  1. The Son has life in himself, and “gives life to whom He will,” and
  2. His life is carried by His voice: “Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God, and those who hear will live. As the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgement also, because He is the Son of man.  (John 5: 25 – 27.

Living and Active
The word of God is living and active. His voice carries His life. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of God. When we hear the words of Jesus, we hear His voice, and we receive His life; and when we speak the words of Jesus, we speak with His authority and release His life in the dimension of the Spirit, speaking life Into dead situations. A logos degree is transformative. It has the power over life and death. But it also carries with it His judgement: it is a weighty matter. Jesus Himself said: “I can of myself do nothing. As I hear I judge; and my judgement is righteous, because I do not seek my own will, but the word of the Father who sent Me.” (John 5:30) My point here is that I think we have to be careful not to prophetically “decree and declare” too lightly. I don’t think that we can decree matters which we judge to be righteous (I have seen this done in political contexts, for example) and in line with what we understand to be the will of God,  unless we have specifically heard the Holy Spirit speak those declarations. If we have not heard the logos in the spirit, we are surely not decreeing the Father’s will, but our own. We are not in righteousness but religion, and our words, however fine sounding, are barren and empty, and possibly worse.

Our God is a Consuming Fire
Jesus is rewiring His Church. It is a holy and powerful operation. Our God is the same yesterday, today and forever: when Aaron’s sons Nabab and Abiihu “offered strange fire before the Lord” (Lev 10:1) they were destroyed. Although we are under grace today, and we have the covering of the blood of Jesus cleansing us from all our sin, we do well to remember the lesson of their tragedy and approach His wiring in awe and the fear of the Lord. But when we do, and the Holy Spirit gives us a logos to decree in faith, we can speak the life and light of God into the darkest places:

“The Gentiles shall come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising.” (Isaiah 60:3)

In His grace, our God of “consuming fire” (Deut. 4:24; Heb 12:29) invites us into His  awesome presence through the cross of His Son. So let’s believe He will sometimes hand us His decrees as we stand before Him, and let us handle them with reverence.

Be prepared; hold on., Prophesy and the prophetic

The waters are rising

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Every year there is a wildlife spectacle on the Dee estuary (in NW England), when the high Spring tide floods the saltmarsh and sometimes comes right up to the sea wall. Hundreds of small animals are driven inshore; the roosting and feeding birds fly up and wheel around – and the gulls and birds of prey gather for the feast, Birdwatchers came from all around to watch the spectacle. I was there on the day of the highest tide of the year – over ten metres – standing on the rocks of all that remains of an old ruined quay, and as the waters ran in across the marsh and past where I was standing I sensed the Lord speaking through it:

“The waters are rising. The waters are rising and covering the low ground. Those who dwell in the marshes will rise up and panic, running from the racing tide or wheeling around and crying: “Where is my resting place? Where is my supply?” But I say I’m flooding the marshes. Even now you are seeing My waters rise, and have seen the floods begin, but I say that a time will come and is coming shortly when the flood will speed up. There will be times of suddenly, when the waters break through in different places one after the other, and men will run between them with their sandbags to try to plug the breeches, but the waters will continue to rise and the streams run together until they change the landscape completely. This will happen quickly. Nothing will stand before My Waters. So I say to you now, come onto higher ground, find your resting place on My rock. Come now, while you can. I will feed you and keep you safe, I will give you all that you need as you watch in amazement what I the Lord am doing. And when the floods recede you’ll see a different landscape, and you will walk with Me in the places where I will take you.”

Hebrews 6: 16-18 says that we “have fled for refuge to lay hold of the Hope set before us. This Hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stead fast, and which enters the presence behind the veil.”

The only safe place where we can flee for refuge is in the Presence of God. While the world flees from the waters, we must flee to the One who holds them in His hand. He will “show us the path of life, and in His presence is fullness of Joy.” Psalm 16:11. The call to “come up higher” has been echoing round the Church increasingly in the last few years, whether this has been in prophetic words given at large and small assemblies, released in prophetic forums or written in books. It tends to be an exhortation that some run to, thirsty for more of the Holy Spirit, and which others leave for those that do the running. The “higher ground” is seen as that place of more intense spiritual experience; of deeper love and more profound worship in the presence of God, where we may well walk in greater spiritual authority and more effective ministry but which is not so relevant to our day to day lives. And indeed Jesus does want us there because He loves us and wants to surround us with His love. But this is only part of the story: He is calling us to higher ground because it is the place of safety, the place where we will receive His directions and practical provision, as well as the anointing for ministry to those who are struggling in the flood and are reaching out to be pulled onto the rock themselves. It is an urgent call as well as an exhortation, and those who ignore it risk being among those caught in the flood. Jer 12:5 (which I’ve referred to elsewhere on these pages) becomes increasingly relevant with each passing day:

“If in the land of peace, in which you trusted, they wearied you, then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan?”

So what’s stopping you? The waters ae rising. Come up higher!