Prophetic Insights
Another Wave
Here's a dream I had which I believe deserves our consideration.
I was standing on a beach being upbraided by a pastor for using language when I preached which he considered unacceptable. As he reproached me, I was able to watch over his shoulder; the waves were breaking continually onto the sand. He had his back to the sea.
As he went on chiding, I pointed out to him language used by the Lord which was definitely on the rough side of smooth. E.g. Calling Herod "that fox". (Luke 13.32) Bearing in mind that the Old Testament synonym for "fox" is "jackal"! And telling religious leaders that they were like "beautiful mausoleums, full of dead men's bones, and of foulness, filth and corruption, rotten". (Matthew 23.27)
As we debated, I saw a wave 100 times bigger than the others, appear out of the sea. It came onto the beach, caught me up to its tops and then carried me as far inland and away from the coast as it was possible to go.
My reflections on this dream are:
1) We need to position ourselves for Revival by turning and holding our faces towards the mighty ocean of God's immense love for this world. Simultaneously we need to turn away from all of our own piffling, whiddling like's and dislike's, no matter how sugar-coated with spirituality and religiosity we might contrive to render them.
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and you have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.
"You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel." (Matthew 23.23-24)
2) A mighty Revival is at hand, which is going to incorporate and eclipse every previous revival we've seen in the past 100 years. Are we actually anticipating and preparing for this, or merely believing it may or may not happen? The "let's wait and see" movement is not faith enough to open Heaven over the whole of New Zealand until the Lord returns!
3) This next Revival is going penetrate our society to its very depths...even to its pits. God's grace and truth are going to impact groups of people that New Zealand and the Church have forgotten about and written off as hopeless cases. A great question is, Are we presently ordering our lives (personal and local church) so that we are ready in an instant to spring up and serve God's vision to save the whole of our nation, employing divine methods we may not understand or be comfortable with?
"(God our Saviour) who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2.4)
"For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men." (Titus 2.11)
"For the Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3.9)
Full House
I hope you might find the following two dreams of interest and possibly instructive:
1) "I'm going into the Thames picture theatre (where the Elim Church used to hold awesome revival meetings in the 90's) for a Holy Spirit meeting. The abbot who founded Kopua Monastery (where I lived as a novice in the early 70's) is greeting people at the door and handing out little manna cakes. He's not dressed in robes and vestments, but ordinary gardening clothes."
I anticipate the upcoming Spring revival will have the following characteristics which we need to consider aligning ourselves with ahead of time:
a) It is going to be an “out there” revival. That is to say it will take place as much (if not more) out in the community, as in the Church...along the lines of the 1940's Hebridean Revival in the north of Scotland, "The Presence of God was in homes, meadows, moorland...even public roads. 75 percent of converts were gloriously saved before meetings," history records.
Luke 14.16-24 “Go out to the country roads and lanes and make people come in, so that My House may be full.”
b) The next revival will be led by men and women of prayer whose outstanding credential will be their hard-comeby meekness (broken-ness); their strong characters and wills having been completely harnessed by the stronger Will and Nature of Almighty God.
Matthew 21.5 “Here is your King, who comes to you in meekness (the gentleness of great power).”
Isaiah 66.1-2 “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite (broken) of spirit, and who trembles at My Word.”
c) It is going to be a visitation attended not only by signs and wonders and miracles in Jesus' Name...but also on top of this it will be distinctive because of direct and immediate (and hitherto unknown and mind-boggling) interventions of Heaven itself.
John 1.50-52 “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You shall see greater things than these. You shall see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man.”
The second dream is as follows:
2) "I'm waiting at a railway station to catch a train to make the last-leg of a journey. Once on board and seated, a Maori man nearby begins to call out, "This seat's like a coffin." He's approached by a group dressed in religious robes and vestments. They force his tongue down the back of his throat to silence him and then kill him."
This is an appalling dream which speaks about an appalling situation we must face up to in New Zealand. Up until now the Christian community (especially us, the leaders) have tended to favour exotic (imported) spiritual action and ministry over (and sometimes against) the indigenous (what the Holy Spirit raises up and does Himself out of this nation's "good soil". Luke 8.15)
Everything God does is excellent...overseas and here...and ought to be esteemed and admired and received as such.
James 1.17 “Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.”
But what kind of gratitude and reponsibility are we showing forth and exercising when we consistently crave the inheritance of others, and neglect (even despise) what is our own? We need to learn to esteem what the Lord does in our own backyard.
Even now the first, tender "green-shoots" of a new revival in Aotearoa-New Zealand are being brutally trampled underfoot by Christian leaders (both here and overseas) pre-empting God's Word and Work in their eagerness for action...or could it be lust to advance their own cause and ministry?
John 1.11 “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.”
Stirred And Shaken
1) I preached in Matamata on Sunday, March 14. In the morning meeting my concluding text (which I preached with considerable vigour) was Hebrews 12.26-27, "And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven. And this expression, Yet once more, denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain."
I note with interest that according to GeoNet two earthquakes shook Matamata on Sunday, March 14...the first was at 3.28 am (2.2 on richter) and was within 5 ks of the town and 5 ks deep. The second hit at 6.45 pm (2.5 on richter) and was again within 5 ks of the town and 5 ks deep. I have always understood the number five to represent grace in the Bible.
I hear all over New Zealand at the moment a fascination with finding out when the next Move will begin. If I was a local church leader I would not be overly concerned with that date right now. It's already been set and will come not a day too soon nor too late. The great question for today is will our foundations be strong enough to carry what God sends? Hence the great shaking many are experiencing is His grace. The greater the shaking the stronger the foundations. The stronger the foundations the greater the work God will set upon them.
2) Early on Saturday, March 20 I dreamt as follows:
I was at a local beach looking out to sea...to my right in the water was a large pool of mud and blood...directly in front of me was another large pool of mud and blood...then to my left I saw two little fair-haired boys luring a large dolphin-like fish towards the shore and the shallow water...as I went down to speak to them I was aware of an "older brother" who was very intimidating standing on the land...nevertheless I spoke kindly to the children and told them not to lead the fish like that because it needed to swim away and out into the deep water.
When I woke up I was agitated and immediately went to prayer.
The mud and the blood is what really happens when large fish are stranded...the water is muddied and life is lost.
At all costs it's time for the Church (a "fish" was a very early symbol of Christianity) to stop paddling around in the warm, shallows of life being fun and games (Matthew 11.16-17, "This generation...like children!) It's time to "put out into the deep water AND LET DOWN YOUR NETS FOR A CATCH" (Luke 5.4)
If we as a Church and a Nation continue to allow ourselves to be lured by the world and the devil into the shallow waters of preoccupation with ourselves and our church and our rights and our ministries and our blessings etc etc then we will suffer shipwreck in regard to our faith (1 Timothy 1.19)...we must pray and swim and paddle with all our might away from the foreshore and get out into the mighty oceans of the immense presence and power of Almighty God.
3) Having read this you might say, "Old Pete's sounding a bit raw and rough around the edges today!"...and you'd be dead right...and that would be because early this morning I was hurled about by the following dream.-
I was walking through Howick strongly aware that we were counting down to THE END...I could feel the overpowering rumble of God's Glory and wrath approaching just beneath the horizon...as I walked the streets determined to get on with God's Will, I saw houses around me just suddenly explode into tremendous gusts of smoke and flame and realised that whole families were so overwhelmed by what was coming upon them that they'd decided to shut themselves away and burn their homes down over their own heads.
"And the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the Throne and from the wrath off the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come; and who is able to stand?" (Revelation 6.15-17)
