1 - THE JERUSALEM REVIVAL
I have just returned from seven days in Jerusalem, praying for Holy Ghost revival to fall on that city in these, the last of the Last Days. In the weeks immediately before my pilgrimage I had begun to prophesy and preach that we will experience End Time revival in our own nation by the measure and to the extent that we seek and pray and work for, and also financially support the outpouring of God's final world-shaking revival in and from His City. (In essence this is simply an invitation to ultimate participation in God's ancient promise to Abraham concerning His People Israel.- "I will bless those who bless you...and in you all the families and tribes of the earth shall be blessed.") Jerusalem was the scene of History's first visitation of Holy Ghost salvation power in Jesus' name. It will be again, for the last.
On just my third day in Israel, I had a divine appointment in the northern city of Haifa with Lars Enarson from Sweden who is the founder and president of The Watchman International and runs the Elijah Prayer Army, a world-wide network of prayer cells for Israel and the Middle East. Within just hours of our meeting he rang and asked me to send an outline copy of the "Jerusalem Revival" message which he has since circulated globally through the Elijah network. To quote.- "For the past eight years I have been preaching and prophesying global End Time revival and the Lord's return. But through this year, and especialy since Rosh HaShanah, my message has changed and become more acute. I am now prophesying to New Zealand, the uttermost place, that if this End Time revival is to come to them, then first they must pray and work and financially underwrite Holy Ghost revival in Jerusalem."
My trip to Jerusalem was sudden (five days between booking and departure), brutal (thirty six hours non-stop from door to door), and miraculous (funded from the proceeds of a single love-offering from my "home" fellowship, The River of Life Christian Church). But all of this seemed completely in keeping with the escalating tempo and temperature of these days.
I believe the trek to the centre of God's activity in the world became inevitable as I began to preach the "Jerusalem Revival" and as I watched TV news images at exactly the same time of the "Al Aksa uprising". This started over Rosh HaShanah (Jewish New Year) 2000, and "coincided" exactly to the day with the expiry of the seven year old Oslo peace process. The distorted, anti-Israel images of this PLO pre-planned and stage-managed war, pierced and disturbed me as never before. I came to understand quite quickly that events in the Middle East have crossed a political and spiritual "Rubicon" or point of no return. I also saw that Islam's declaration of war against Jerusalem, the existence of the Jewish State and Judaism itself, is in fact a last-ditch, satanic strategy...to try and either completely govern or else destroy the Temple Mount which I believe will be Jesus' Throne during His imminent 1000 year earthly reign. When the Prince of Peace takes the city, there will be peace there and on earth, and not before...
Over the past eight years it has been a privilege to move with the Holy Ghost up and down New Zealand prophesying Last Days' global revival. It is very difficult to adequately describe the deep joy and powerful anointing of my days in Jerusalem, beating my daily prayer-path down through the Jewish Quarter of the Old City to the Western Wall...praying all the way with the Spirit for revival. To worship Jesus as Saviour and Lord in the neighbourhood of His rejection, and just over the Wall from His soon to be occupied Throne, was exceptional. The "Jerusalem Revival" is now in my spirit and I hope this essay will help it get into yours. The lost here and there are waiting upon us.