Category Archives: Prophesy and the prophetic

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

Do not get stuck in the mud

“His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Matt 3:12)

This is a black wind stilt. It is a bird of the wetlands of southern Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, but it is rare in the UK. Now, however, a small but increasing number of black wing stills are starting to make their home here. The reason? Because their wetland habitats in some places are drying up, and where there used to be thousands of black winged stilts there are now none. They are moving North because of climate change. Those that are arriving here, and in other parts of northern Europe are having to cross major natural obstacles of mountain ranges and/or water.

I was thinking about these birds, and I felt that the Lord Began to speak to me. I believe he’s saying this:

“As there is climate change in the world, so there is climate change in the heavens. The spiritual climate is changing. Some places that used to be a sanctuary for thousands are drying out. Do not get stuck in the mud because it has always been your home, but go where there is food and water. I am bringing a baptism of fire to the Earth, and my winnowing fork is in my hand. I am gathering my people into my barns, but the chaff will burn with unquenchable fire.

So do not get stuck in the mud. You feel even now that the water is drying up, but you are too comfortable to move. It’s still okay here, you say. You feel that you can still move your long legs and fly away when you are ready, but its OK here for now. But I say to you that the mud will start to dry out very quickly as the heat of my fire increases, and when it does, it will clamp round your legs like cement, so you will not be able to move even if you want to.

So do not get stuck in the mud, but fly away to where there is food and water; the food of My word, and the water of My Spirit. Do not say I can’t move because there’s a mountain range that is closing me in, and a sea that I cannot cross, because I will make the mountains a highway, and when you pass through the waters, I will be there. Do not get stuck in the mud: spread your wings and fly.

The Dance

The other morning I switched on the car radio and a piece of music came on that is a favourite of mine:  it was waltz no 2, from Jazz suite no, 2, written by the Russia composer Dimitri Shostakovitch in 1938. I felt the Lord say “Pay attention to this,” so I listened more thoughtfully than usual. It’s a lilting, melodious piece, with the melody repeated on different instruments. It was written in a harsh and chaotic time, when Russia was in the grip of Stalin’s harsh and brutal regime, yet it is peaceful and melodious. It leads the listener in a dance, even though the world around it was running and cowering in fear and deprivation when it was composed. The orchestra are in a building apart, intent on working together and following the cues of the conductor, while outside the building purpose and direction are either held in the iron grip of the dictator, or are the disassociated hopes and dreams of people trying to escape that grip.

Today the grip of another dictator is tightening around society. Subtly and deceitfully, Satan is taking control of life, in different ways and in different parts of the world, but all with the aim of strengthening his position against his hated enemy, Jesus Christ, and the army of His followers, before whom he knows he will one day fall. But separated from the screaming and the pounding of feet is a building, the Church of Jesus Christ, where those within are working together in peace and harmony as they follow the cues of their conductor, the King Himself, who leads them by His Spirit as they play His tune. I felt that the Lord spoke to me through this piece of music, saying something like this:

“You play my tune on your instrument. Now you, over there, play my tune on your different instrument. Now altogether, now in twos and threes, now individually, my tune on the different instruments you have been given. And the result is joy, and peace and harmony. Whatever is going on outside the door, there is peace and harmony as you stay in my presence. But you must concentrate on me, and as the noise around you gets louder, and it will, you  will need to concentrate harder. While you pay attention to me there is harmony, but if you start getting distracted by what you perceive the others in the orchestra to be doing you will lose the beat, you will play out of tune, there will be discord, and you will not only get left behind yourself, but you will cause others to fall out of step as well. So listen to me and follow me, your conductor, and I will lead you in my dance. Do not get left behind because you are listening to others and not to me. And as you dance those outside will see and wonder, and many will come and join in, because it is the victory dance that my Spirit is conducting in preparation for my return.

So watch out for my baton: I am not just in your churches, but in your market halls, your workplaces, your railway stations. There are many more who will come: watch out for them. When you obey me and play your instrument when and how I say, sometimes on your own, sometimes with others, the souls that I am calling will stop and listen, and they will come and join in the dance.”

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ, and manifests through us the aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.” (2 Cor 2:14)

The Economy of Heaven

The banking system is falling through thin ice

We are currently hearing a lot about the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and its potential effect on the world economy: another sheet of the thin ice of debt upon which our financial systems are built has cracked, and it won’t be the last. I’m about to go away for a few days and was glancing through my book “Two Seconds to Midnight” this morning (thinking ‘Should I read through this again and make sure I am practising what I preach??’) and landed on this passage in the section on God’s Provision. The wider context in the book is our priestly calling, but I am sharing it here as a signpost to all of us, in these times of financial shaking, of the certainties of God’s economy.

Ho! Everyone who thirsts,
Come to the waters;
And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without price.
Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.”
(Isaiah 55:1-2)

So we find our provision in the presence of God, and we receive His abundance when we take our priestly calling seriously and allow the Holy Spirit to do His work of holiness within us. Indeed, unless we do “come to the waters” I don’t believe we can fully appreciate what it means to “buy and eat” without money. Before the Holy Spirit was sent, the twelve had given up everything to follow Jesus and spent every day in His company, yet they certainly had not grasped that He was Jehovah Jireh and that they could trust Him entirely for their needs. We see this clearly in Mark 8:14-21:

“Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat. Then He charged them, saying, ‘Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.’ And they reasoned among themselves, saying, ‘It is because we have no bread.’ But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, ‘Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?’ They said to Him, ‘Twelve.’ ‘Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?’ And they said, ‘Seven.’ So He said to them, ‘How is it you do not understand?’”

We are not given any discussion of what they hadn’t understood, because the account moves straight onto the healing of a blind man. But we can read the context clearly enough. Jesus wanted to feed the spirits of His disciples, but they were too worried about their stomachs to receive what He was saying. Yet they had just witnessed Him miraculously providing a good couple of tons of bread (enough for 9,000 men, plus women and children), maybe more, for the needy crowds, with enough left over to feed the disciples for weeks. “Don’t you get it?” He was saying. “You’re sitting in the boat with Jehovah Jireh and you’re worried about food? Why do you think I told you back on the Mount of Olives not to worry about what to eat, or what to wear? You should know by now that I’ve got all that under control, so you can pay attention to the important stuff! ‘Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance.’”

The Baskets Full

There is yet another layer to this story that concerns God’s supply for us. Take either of these two miracles: the sequence is exactly the same. Someone gives a tiny amount to the Lord; He multiplies it and involves His disciples in the miraculous distribution of the food, then there is an abundance left over for the disciples to enjoy. The first priority for the disciples was to give out what God had provided, and after the distribution they received their baskets full. In the world’s economy we receive first – income, wages, salary, etc. – then we give out of whatever spare is left in the baskets at the end. If we’re feeling generous there might be as much as half a loaf left out of our original five. In the economy of heaven there is a different dynamic: first we give what God tells us to give (if He is telling us, of course), then what is left in the basket afterwards is ours. But there is an additional element in the heavenly model: the loaves and fishes have passed through the hands of the Saviour, so what had been earth’s ration becomes heaven’s abundance. God wants us to give out of heaven’s abundance so He can multiply our portion accordingly: “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38).

God’s provision is in His presence

The important lesson for us is that God’s provision is in His very presence. What He wants from us is our hearts: a willingness to trust Him with what is ours, and to place it in His hands. We catch a glimpse, literally, of God’s perspective on our economy when we see Jesus sitting outside the Temple watching people putting their gifts into the treasury. We know the story: the poor widow, whose two mites represented all she had, had put in far more than the wealthy who gave leftovers from their abundance. We don’t see that widow again, but we can be sure that God gave back to her in the same measure that she had given to the Temple. Wealth and poverty have traded places. Our God is a creator, and loves to create, and we can so easily forget that when we look at our bank statements. But if our hearts are rich towards Him, we will see Him create in our material circumstances and fill our baskets, whereas if our hearts are bound by our bank accounts we remain in poverty, and will only ever see the loaves and fishes that we can provide for ourselves.

(From “Two Seconds to Midnight,” pp 130-133. MD Publishing 2021)

The winepress revisited

“For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows…” (Matt 24: 5-8)

The two short articles below were written in 2020, at the beginning of Covid; but they are even more relevant today as the pressure of the Winepress grows. The ongoing war in Ukraine and its impact on the food supply chain, the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, and of course Covid, all recall Christ’s end time prophesy quoted above. To these “signs of the times” we can add others. The “Great Reset” is one:  the world’s currency crisis is heading towards a “solution” that is being touted by politicians and economist the world over, where central currencies become digital, currency exchange becomes a thing of the past, and everything that goes in and comes out of our bank accounts can be monitored – and controlled – by government. Far from being an enigmatic spiritual symbol, the number of the beast of is becoming a reality that some governments are already working on, and where already, to a degree, No one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” (Rev 13:17)

Jesus warned us that many would come in His name, and false Christs abound. To name but three: Alan John Miller is gaining a following in Australia,; in Brazil, Inri Cristo lives in a secure compound with 12 disciples; and in the Phillipines Apollo Quiboloy has a following of millions. All three of them are claiming to be Jesus and are deceiving or have already deceived many.

Only the Father knows the day and the hour, but we can read the signs of the times; and if they aren’t pointing to the immanent return of Christ then either the Bible is wrong, or the Earth’s dwindling resources and overheating surface are going to last for centuries longer than appears to be possible. So if you read what I wrote three years ago, ask yourself this: how much have we learnt? Are our lamps trimmed and full of oil – are we walking in the righteousness of Christ and burning with the fire of the Holy Spirit?  Are we ready for the King to come for His bride? Are our hearts more attuned than before to His whisper, or is the clamour in our ears louder than it was? There are two seconds to midnight, and the clock is ticking…


The Winepress
Jesus has called us into His vine so that we bear fruit (John 15:5), and the purpose of that fruit is to make wine. The winepress may not be a very comfortable place for the grapes, but the wine is what we’re here for. Expect transformation, and even while we may be separated from one another physically during lockdown, I believe we can expect a Unity in the Spirit that we may not have known before. And when the restrictions are over and we can go back to meeting together again, don’t look for the old forms of things, because they won’t be there any more. The wind of the Spirit is blowing at the moment, and they will have been blown away.

“Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.” (Isaiah 43: 18-21)

So if you feel the pressure of the winepress, seek His presence and the peace that the World doesn’t know. Read Matthew 5 again. We really don’t have to worry about next week. And hold onto this thought: whatever comes out of the winepress, it’s going to be different to what went in, and it’s going to be good!

Boot Camp
Isaiah 55:6 exhorts us to “Seek the LORD while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near.” Until the beginning of this year, the world was teetering on from crisis to crisis, but everything was more or less working. Now, three months later, all the shops in the UK are closed except for food stores, pharmacies and supermarkets; countries are closing their borders, and the word “plague” is starting to appear in the media – Christian and secular. We are all wondering where it will lead – is this indeed the “beginning of sorrows?” Of course there is only one answer to that: we don’t know. We just know that we are nearer the Lord’s return now than we were.

 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Matt 24 36-39)

What is crucial in these times is not that we know what’s happening next, but that we are prepared for it, whatever it is. I don’t mean in the sense of building bunkers and filling them with provisions, but that we do indeed learn to hear the voice of the One who is returning. God is kind, and He is giving us a period of Grace while it seems that He is pressing the “reset” button in many of our systems, including in our churches, where at the time of writing we are no longer allowed to gather. It seems that there is less traffic on the road than there has been for fifty years. Nearly all centres of social interaction are closed. Many of us have time on our hands. What do we do with it?

We can fill it with social media, we can binge on box sets, or we can put these diversions lower down the list of priorities and we can learn to hear God. We can do all the things that we hear about on Sundays and read about in books but say we don’t really have the time for. Well, for a lot of us, now we do. The Lord can be found now. He has given us space to seek him now. Now, while so much is on “pause”, we can be like the wise virgins and make sure there is oil in our lamps. Now is the time to make sure our wicks are trimmed.

So, whether or not we are in the end times, this is certainly a boot camp for end-times training. The Lord wants His Church to learn to seek Him now, so that when life gets more difficult we are already used to hearing His voice and will be able to follow it readily. If we keep putting it off until real crisis comes upon us from which only He can deliver us, it will be too late to train our spiritual ears to get to know His whisper, because there will be too many other voices clamouring for attention.

(Written in March 2020)

They shall be one…

A murmuration of starlings – click this link for the 2 min video

The video shows a murmuration of starlings gathering to roost for the night. It is only a portion of the 200,000 or so that will have gathered altogether. You can see waves and waves of birds flying over to join the group. They continued to fly in for probably 20 or 30 minutes. Below them, flying backwards and forwards over the water is a group of other birds (lapwings) which for some reason known only to the birds seem to want to join in the dance. It is an amazing spectacle, and I have felt the Lord speak through it, to say something like this…

The massed groups of starlings represent the body of Christ. In these days, the Lord is gathering together all of those who will flock to him, who know the freedom of movement in the spirit, and to choose to belong to one another and love one another as they belong to Christ and love Christ. God is calling His body away from the groups and identities and differences that we have subscribed to, to join together in a flow and movement orchestrated by His Spirit that the world will see and wonder at. Those who have joined the flock have died to self and are part of its flow and pattern as it moves as one.  There are no individuals who stand out, no leaders pointing the way or driving on the groups: they all move together in perfect unity in response to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. This is a work that has started and is gathering momentum as more and more of His children move into the work that God is doing, which is a work of beauty and love and unity.

This is how our light will come as darkness descends on the Earth.

“Who are these who fly like a cloud,
And like doves to their roosts?

Surely the coastlands shall wait for Me;
And the ships of Tarshish 
will come first,
To bring your sons from afar,
Their silver and their gold with them,
To the name of the LORD your God,
And to the Holy One of Israel,
Because He has glorified you.”
(Isaiah 60: 8-9)

The Funnel

I was asking the Lord about how we should be preparing for His planned outpouring and the concurrent time of shaking that is just going to get stronger, and I felt that He showed me a funnel, like one that is used to pour liquid into the neck of a bottle. I believe He is saying this:

“Many of you are like bottles, standing on the ground with a funnel in the neck of the bottle, desiring to funnel in all that I can give you: all the power, all the gifts, all the teaching and all the provision that is available for you. But you wonder why your bottle isn’t being filled. My precious ones, do you not see that the base of your bottle is much wider than the neck, and is actually open, not sealed? You actually are the funnel. But you need to let me tip you upside down, so that as you pour out what is in you through the neck, I pour in from the base. The base is wider than the neck. What I can pour in is so much more than what you can pour out, and yes, I am waiting to release it. Have I not said? Give, and it shall be given unto you: pressed down, running over shall men pour into your lap. I am letting the world run dry so that my children can pour in my living water. See! I am already pulling out the plugs. The faith I am looking for is the faith that will allow me to tip you up and pour you out, so that I can pour in: fresh water, fresh provision. Love one another as I have loved you and gave myself for you. Let me tip you up so I can pour into you, then as you continue to pour out so I will pour in more. This is the faith that I desire to see on Earth when I come. This is how revival will happen; this is how the world will know that you are My disciples.”

The Rope Ladder in the Sky

Walk on the words that I give you and you will be safe.

“I have called you to walk the narrow way. Some see this as a tightrope, and say: ‘This is too  narrow, too difficult and too high, and I will fall off. I can’t do it. I can’t climb up to it and if I do I can’t stay on it.’

But I say, you don’t have to climb anywhere, because I have lifted you. And it is not a tightrope: it is a rope ladder. The rungs are the words I speak to you. Step on the words that I speak and you cannot fall. A tightrope walker has a balancing pole. To keep your balance you need to have your arms spread out. This signifies two things: one is constant praise to me, and the other is the cross that you carry. If you remember to praise me at all times and remember to carry the cross of death to self you will not stumble or fall. And even if you do, remember my words: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. If he falls he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him with His hand.” ((Psalm 37: 23-24)

So be encouraged. I have lifted you into heavenly places to walk on my word. Don’t look down through the spaces between the rungs at what is going on in the world, but concentrate on putting your feet on the words I give you as I speak into your life, step by step.”

I shared this word at Wildwood Church on Sunday. The idea of the outstretched arms representing the cross as well as praise was brought to me by a sister after the meeting, She was absolutely right: we cannot walk one step in the Spirit without carrying our cross. That is our ultimate balancing pole. And as the elder who led the meeting said: “If you walk this ladder it is safer than any concrete path.”

Not by might nor by power

We know that “nothing is impossible with God,”  and that “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. We also know that it’s “not by might nor by power” that the Kingdom of God is established on Earth, and we know that we walk by faith and not by sight. The stories and the imagery of Scripture is full of the opposition between flesh and Spirit, or the kingdoms of the world and the Kingdom of our God and His Christ; Saul and David; Babylon and Jerusalem; Egypt and the promised land. We only have to spend a few minutes reading the news headlines to have an idea of what is happening and, sometimes, what to expect in the world of the flesh. But there are headlines being published in the spiritual realm as well, and if we pay attention to them we can also have an idea of what is going on in that dimension, which is important as It will directly affect what we see on the news. As Amos 3:7 says “Surely the Lord GOD does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets.”

The headlines in the spiritual realm

Just as we don’t believe every newspaper headline we read, there are some “prophetic messages” that have more credibility than others. Nevertheless there is a clear narrative from recognised individual prophets and groups that has two main threads. One is that we are moving into an unprecedented time of darkness and chaos, most probably that which Jesus prophesied in the “wars and rumours of wars” passage recorded in Matt 24: 4-25. Woven in with this thread is a second one, announcing that a great revival is coming onto the Earth as prophesied by Smith Wigglesworth in 1947, and that it this outpouring will be unlike anything hitherto experienced. Both these headlines can be found in Isaiah 61:1-3:

Arise, shine;
For your light has come!
And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you.

For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,
And deep darkness the people;
But the LORD will arise over you,
And His glory will be seen upon you

The Gentiles shall come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising…”

The point is not that these words have been around for thousands of years, but that, as Peter declared in Acts 2 when he preached at Pentecost, “This is that which was spoken of.” The headlines of prophesy today are essentially this: now is the time that was spoken of by Isaiah in verse two. It’s now. And in this context, it’s imperative for the church to separate itself from the darkness. Just as God separated the light from the darkness at the dawn of creation; just as Jeremiah – and the voice from Heaven heard by John (Rev 18:4) – called God’s people to “come out of the midst of Babylon” (Jer 51:45), so it is time for the church to separate itself from the world and be serious about consecration to a holy God.

Swept up, or swept away

As we allow God to reveal more of His holiness to us, so He reveals more of His majesty, and as He reveals more of His majesty so He reveals more of His love. The attributes of God are bound up in His identity, and we find them all in Jesus, “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), and equally in the Holy Spirit, whom the Father “sends in the name (the identity) of Jesus” (John 14:26). The Kingdom of God is established “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit” (Zech 4:6), and His Spirit is holy. Holy comes before Spirit: as the Holiness movement preceded the Pentecostal revival at the beginning of the last century, so the “story” behind those prophetic headlines today is that God is calling the Church today to wake up to His holiness: those who do will be swept up by the power of His Spirit, but those who do not will be swept away.

Under the Old Covenant, the only route to holiness was through obedience to the many external requirements of the Law.  In Christ, holiness dwells within us by His Spirit and we are given just two commands to obey: to love God, and to love one another. When we obey these two, we “obey the whole of the law,” (Romans 13:10) and the holiness that dwells in the immortal part of ourselves, our spirits, can reach out through our mortality to bring light and life to a dying world. In calling the church to holiness, God is calling us to love: to worship Him and to love one another. It is where “lawlessness abounds” that “the love of many will grow cold,” (Matt 24:12) and it is because of that lawlessness that “darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the people;” and it is when we separate ourselves from that darkness by submitting to the Royal Law of love that “The Gentiles shall come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising.”

There is no other way. It is not by might, nor by power, but by the Holy Spirit that this prophesied revival will come. To bring these thoughts to land in Scripture, 2 Cor 3:18 spells out exactly how it will come about:

“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

We will see the Holy Spirt at work through us and the light of Christ reflected in our faces when we remove the veil that separates us from His holiness.

God’s Budget

A line has been crossed.

Just as this was the week when government in the UK set out its budget, I believe that this may also be the time when the Lord is setting out the budget for the government that is on His shoulders. There will be be a release and a directing of physical resources alongside the spiritual, as God moves in the business and financial realms. Even now, God is establishing Kingdom outposts in the unlikeliest of places, and is starting to build an ark that will bring resources to His people and salvation to the lost, even as a flood of chaos and darkness seems to sweep the Earth. He is calling people to bring their wood – operating their businesses and finances under Kingdom principals of love, faith and generosity – so that it can be added to the Ark. He is raising up apostles and prophets around the world to play a part in proclaiming, spearheading and directing this move of His Spirit.

I was talking about this with a friend over a coffee recently, and felt the Holy Spirit on me as I made an illustration on the coffee table (pictured), using a jug and a teaspoon. I felt that  we have “crossed a line” in the spiritual realm: the spoon handle represents the demarcation between what Man has done up till now, and what God is going to do from now on. Also the jug represents what God pours out, and the teaspoon represents what man portions out. I believe that the Lord is saying something like this:

“Up to this time, Man has put his teaspoon into my provision and portioned it out – ‘ one for you, one for me; or one-hundredth for you, one hundred for me’ –  but now the time has come for me to start pouring. Do not say “The jug looks so small!” for as it was in the days of the indebted widow in the time of Elisha, so it will be in these times: every jug that is brought to me I will pour from. There is no limit to what I can and will pour. And as it was I who determined how many vessels were available to meet that widow’s needs, so it is I who will determine how many vessels are needed to resource my work and to prepare my bride in these days; and I will call and appoint all the jugs that I require for what I am about to pour out.”

Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:38)

“I shovel out the money, and God shovels it back. but God has a bigger shovel!” R. G. Letourneau. (Businessman and designer of earthmoving vehicles, 1988-1969)

Our eyes will see the King


The river of God’s mercy flows from Cross, and because we stand in that river we are able to come before a holy God. But as we stand there God is doing a new thing in us: He is bringing us to a higher level of sanctification. He is bringing us to a place where He will say “Take off your shoes, for the place where you stand is holy.” Our shoes have walked in the dirt of the world, but His presence in us will become so strong that we will be able to separate ourselves from the sin that has stalked our lives and so often overpowers us.

When that time comes we will be able to say with David: “I was also blameless before him, And I kept myself from my iniquity,“ but it will not be because of our own righteousness, but of the righteousness of the God that dwells within us.  Our eyes will see the King, and conviction of sin will be strong in all who are submitted to Him, as it was in the days of Azuza Street; but the Lord says that Azuza Street was just a forerunner of what is to come: as we stand in that place of sanctification He will lift our eyes to new heights of love that only a very few prophets and apostles have known until now. What a few have just glimpsed, many will grasp, and those who do will know His power going before them and into the fallen world to establish His Kingdom.

We are standing before the walls of Jericho, and He says to us now “I am drawing you into the Holy Place, where I will give you your instructions and prepare you for moving into the land ahead.” For when we obey the commander of the Lord’s army we will see the walls come down.

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!” And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. So I said:

“Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The LORD of hosts.”
(Isaiah 6: 1-4)

“And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?”
So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped, and said to Him, “What does my Lord say to His servant?” Then the Commander of the LORD’s army said to Joshua, “Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so”
(Joshua 5: 13-15)

“For I have kept the ways of the Lord,
And have not wickedly departed from my God.
All his judgements were before me,
And I did not put away his statutes from me.
I was also blameless before him,
And I kept myself from my iniquity.“
(Psalm 18:21-23)