Chapter 1
The Coming Revival
At the end of 2014, the Lord led me into an extended season of fasting and prayer, specifically regarding the Prophetic-Charismatic Movement. I was burdened for the people of God that I am convinced the Lord has reserved for himself in this system, even as Paul was for his “kinsmen according to the flesh”, the Jews... “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:1-3).
This is “the rock and the hole of the pit” (see, Isa. 51:1) from whence the Lord has delivered me. O my heart breaks and my eyes fill with tears even now as I write! For even now does my heart affectionately remember and long for the once beloved and dearest to my heart that so many of my friends and family made up in times past! My prayer is that they might find grace from God in the hour of his visitation. Amen.
During this season, God spoke to me by many means and at many times, but his word was but one word. And as God lives, I am assured that there will be a revival among the dry bones of God's spiritual Israel – to be absolutely clear, I mean the Prophetic-Charismatic Pentecostal Movement. I say this with boldness, for I have stood in the presence of God and heard these words. I speak not a vision from my own heart. Notwithstanding, as certainly as God spoke this, he spoke to me, “There shall be no latter rain” (see, Jer. 3:3; 5:24)...
My reader, before you “go about to kill me”, hear me out. That wisdom, which James (the Lord's brother) says is from God, is peaceable and easy to be entreated... Are you? You must be slow to speak, swift to hear, slow to wrath (or any sudden rising of frustration, anger, uneasiness, or any other passion not born of the Holy Ghost, or full of good fruits). I will go on in further chapters to detail and defend what I have just said, but my only desire in stating this first is that you might begin to comprehend the manner of revival God is bringing to his church. I have never heard this from a man, nor do I now seek to persuade you of what I have seen and heard; I know the burden of God is that I would but speak his word and he shall take care of the outcome.
Let him that hath ears hear what the Spirit is speaking to the churches.
Ezekiel's Two Sticks
“And join them one to another into one stick;
and they shall become one in thine hand.”
Ezekiel 37:17
In the above scripture, Ezekiel, who was living in the days of the carrying away captive of Judah and Jerusalem, was told to take one stick and on it to write, “For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions,” and then to take another and on it to write, “For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions” (Ezek. 37:16). Then he was commanded to do something very significant and which surely would be easily passed over by us except we stood still awhile and soberly considered what the Lord God is speaking. The inscribing of names fulfilled, God then said, “Join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.” Though Ezekiel's eyes had seen the carrying away of the people of Judah and Jerusalem, yet had he been spared (and that by above a century and a half of history) from beholding the captivity of Israel (which was comprised of the ten northern tribes, also called Ephraim and Samaria in the scriptures). He was spared from beholding, not just the violence they endured in being swept away in the wrath of God, but the vile adultery, heinous sin and moral debauchery they committed against their God – their Husband! – which consequenced such wrath.
Though the prophet never saw the carrying away of Israel, he did see the carrying away of Judah, and prophetically, the latter was greater than the former. This said, he knew full well the consequence of the things here signified by his prophecy, and what those then recently carried away would make of his words. This concept fully grasped, the prophet binds the two sticks together and makes of the two separate parts, one whole. What an affront to those proud “Pharisees” of his day! Sure, there were no Pharisees while Ezekiel ever lived, but that spirit of religious pride was surely alive and well (and, sad to say, still is today). There were still those Jews, who though they were at that time burning, as it were, in the very fire, yet maintained their stout countenance and spiritual pride against the Almighty, unwilling to mourn for their sins by remembering the glory lost and the promises breached... Imagine it! These impudent Jews, scattered to the ends of the known earth, yea, to the “outmost parts of heaven” (see, Deut. 30:4), still holding onto the shredded threads of their own righteousness, and saying, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are” (Luke 18:11)! Now, before the eyes of such a congregation, Ezekiel makes manifest the secret of the Lord, which would be revealed in the latter days – God bringing both houses back again. This is the boldness contained in this sign of Ezekiel.
But there is more. This was not just a witness against the impenitence of the house of Judah, but it was (and that much more) a staggering word of mercy and hope to the remnant left of the house of Israel – so long cast off from God. This people, so long consumed in the fire of God's anger, and that with hardly a glimmer of prophetic hope for so many years, were now being declared by prophetic revelation the time and manner of their deliverance. This was a deliverance, I say, but by no means an acquittal. There was no thanks to be given to justice, but to mercy! This salvation was based, not upon the merits of Israel, but upon the free grace and sovereign mercy of a holy God. If they got their just deserts, they would have remained in that fire as long as God lent breath, and from thence only to be carried to that place where the fire is not quenched. But God looked down and saw his son Ephraim, and what pain and grief filled his soul, only God knows! Nevertheless, the prophet tries to express it by the medium of human utterance, and says, “Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD” (Jer. 31:20)!
“Therefore say unto the house of Israel,
Thus saith the Lord GOD;
I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel,
but for mine holy name's sake…
Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord GOD,
be it known unto you:
be ashamed and confounded for your own ways,
O house of Israel.”
Ezekiel 36:22, 32
This was great mercy and very unexpected, for by the eyes of sight the sins of Israel were far greater than that of her sister Judah. But God prophetically revealed through the prophet Jeremiah that it was not so (I will get into this next). They were far greater, for the northern ten tribes, from their inception, were upon a false foundation. Sure, they had an altar, temple, and sacrifice, but as was affirmed by Christ to the Samaritan woman (she being native to that place which was to Israel what Jerusalem was to Judah), “Ye worship ye know not what” (John 4:22).
Jeroboam the son of Nebat (the first ruler of Israel after the kingdom split) designed two golden calves, one in Dan and one in Bethel (the upper and nethermost parts of Israel), in order to keep the people back from thinking in their hearts to go to Jerusalem to worship their God. This, God said, was sin to the people and to all the kings in Israel, till the time of their being carried away captive in the Assyrian captivity. What a delusion! What a shade was cast over the majority of God's people!
My reader, this highly alarms me when I look upon the people of God today, knowing, “all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come” (I Cor. 10:11). Could it be that this is the condition of God's people today? I believe and am assured by the Holy Ghost that it most certainly is.
Jeremiah's Parable of Two Sisters
“And I saw, when for all the causes whereby
backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away,
and given her a bill of divorce;
yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not,
but went and played the harlot also.”
Jeremiah 3:8
I do not mean to say here that there is no salvation in his spiritual Israel of today and that God has not wrought great wonders of grace in the Prophetic-Charismatic Movement – quite the contrary! I am convinced that God has saved many! But this has been in spite of an overwhelming ignorance of saving gospel truths (at best), and utter misrepresentations, heretical teaching, and often blasphemous sermons being preached to the people (at worst). I myself was saved in this movement, but can testify by personal experience that I never clearly understood the principal doctrines of the faith, thus had no understanding to even articulate them for close to two years even after I was converted! And this was after being in a worship band for three years before that, having many nights and weekends of prayer, going on mission trips, attending camps, leading small groups, etc... All the while being told by many that I have the “gift of wisdom”! May God have mercy!
The sad thing I find, though, is that the other side is no better! yea, in many instances far worse! This is what the text above is speaking of. God was displeased at the false foundations of Israel, and thus he drove them from the promised land and those that remained of them were annexed to Assyria (losing their national sovereignty). But Judah, on the other hand, having maintained a form of sound religion, outlived Israel close to 150 years! But with the time came greater light, and with greater light came greater accountability before God, and with the foregoing example of Israel came greater responsibility in the sight of God. Thus when the hour of Jerusalem's visitation arrived, they were severely judged - God describing his anger against their deeds to be greater than that he had showed towards Ephraim.
If the men of Judah had been wise, they would have certainly humbled themselves by beholding the captivity of Israel, which proved to be a harbinger of their judgment in the latter end. Yet, alas! They rather vaunted themselves against the humiliation of their northern counterpart. What more could God do? When God sends men to hell for your sake that you might not end up in that lost estate yourself, what more is God to do for you if, notwithstanding, you still refuse to be instructed? In the analogy of Jeremiah chapter 3 this is what is described. And herein the cause of compassion in the heart of God towards “Backsliding Israel” appears, namely, they never had the degree of mercy as “Treacherous Judah”. God would turn the captivity of Judah, but in order to do so, he must turn the captivity of Israel at the same time. This was the mercy of God on display to both houses, but especially to those of Israel, for they had long since departed from the right way, in leaving off even the form of religion.
The Breakdown
Now allow me here to say a word on the sins of God's modern-day Judah, which will further justify the manner of revival I see coming. There is hardly something so hard for me to stomach – religiously – as the religious leaders of the day, in all their pomp of theological intellectualism, arguing away the Third Person of the Trinity! It is exceedingly repulsive to the holy sensations of my soul! To do away with all shades of ambiguity: I have rarely been so troubled by this as I have been by the “Strange Fire Conference” hosted by Grace To You Ministries (the ministry of John MacArthur).
These men are truly drunken with the spirit of this age and have not their “eyes in their head” (Eccl. 2:14)! They broadly set aside everything that claims to believe in the power of God for today, as witnessed to in the New Testament. They are shameless and impudent in their rants against the Prophetic-Charismatic Pentecostal Movement. They lack clarity of thought and true unction (only given by the Holy Spirit) in their arguments against this Movement. Truly, “the shew of their countenance doth witness against them” (see, Isa. 3:9). If they had the burden of God in truth, the Lord would bear them witness in power – why, then, is he not? They are smiting the movement indiscriminately, not discerning the body of Christ, nor evincing a true burden for the souls of those that have been snared therein. They are proud and hardened against the remnant of God's people tangled in this web, lacking true, fervent charity and compassion.
I am certain that the Lord would cause their rod to blossom if indeed they were the anointed of the Lord (see, Num. 17).
Mark my words, in this coming revival God will not be reuniting the remnant from the Prophetic-Charismatic Movement to the fallen system of these heady, high-minded, often-Calvinistic, completely or partially cessationistic, Spirit-resisting, form-glorying brethren. God will unite the two, this is true, but he will also convert the two from the error of their ways before him, which ways drove them into captivity. God is going to reestablish the throne in Judah, only not as they formerly knew it to be. God will build the temple again in Jerusalem, only “the glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts” (Hag. 2:9). God will both purify the land of Israel from her idols, high places and groves, and he will take away the lifeless form of religion Judah so long ago traded for the vital reality she once had with her God.
God shall purge his floor from all chaff, beloved... Who will hinder him?
This is the key to understanding the coming revival. This will not be a divided revival, where God feebly brings his people halfway back to him: bringing them back to the promised land, only to again serve their idols therein! I have seen in the secret place - and have devoted my life to what I have seen – such a move of the mighty hand of God where these two separate entities are united into one in Christ! How can this be, for they both see the great disease in the heart of the other? They are both mutually convinced one of another, there is no hope... O, but when God razes the foundations of them both, and begins to awaken them both to righteousness (not just power, and not just truth); God's going to bring an end of this division, and he will bring his divided, dismembered and maimed body to soundness again!
You say this cannot be, and perhaps you're right – it can never be the case when looking at the situation as a man – but “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds” (II Cor. 10:4)! If this was a battle waged solely on a physical plane, or solely based upon natural circumstances, then I am a madman to even imagine the things I now speak of, but if that's not the case, and there is a spiritual realm where God is establishing matters before they are ever manifest before the eyes of any man, and there really are powers and principalities behind the divisions that now hinder this plan from being fulfilled, then all it takes is God to speak a word and this dream can be fulfilled. It is so.
The Battle Ground
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities, against powers, against
the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places.”
Ephesians 6:12
I see something in the 10th chapter of Daniel that is very instructive to me and causes my eyes to be taken off of the impossible odds that I see at present stacked all against the captive people of God in their respective camps. Daniel prayed that his people would be recovered from the impossible situation of his day and unified together again in the land of Canaan. Thus he made his prayer to no king, but to God, for he knew that no earthly potentate could accomplish such a feat as this. After 21 days of prayer, a holy angel came and spoke a very significant word in Daniel's ear, which is key to us clearly deciphering the way of escape for our present-day desolations. Gabriel said that he was sent forth from the presence of God with an answer to give to Daniel the first day that he began to pray, but was hindered in coming due to resistance in the heavenlies. There was a war in the heavens, the implications of which caused fires to burn on earth, felt by all of God's people. The resistance was headed up by one, the Prince of Persia (Dan. 10:13). Let me be very clear: this was not Cyrus (then prince of Persia). O my soul! there was one higher than he, the back of whom, once broken, those he bound are loosed! This is what Daniel saw, and, dear reader, this is what we must see.
When the saints of God get through to God, we'll see a move of God. Now these saints may be, overwhelmingly, the minority of professed Christians in the land; nevertheless, when, by God's grace, they blast a whole through this dense, dark spiritual ozone which overshadows us, you'll wake up one morning feeling it. You won't know what's overtaken you, only you will feel your heart is strangely warmed to the things you once were dead-set against, and less hardened against those you formerly opposed. Beloved, this is the beginning of the end!
This is the true potential power of prayer, which only few have recognized, and even fewer have made their kinetic reality. May God awaken his sleeping Beauty, which lies defiled in a bed of adultery, before it's too late!
One of these days, God is going to find a company of such men who will take all of his promises - and every one of the conditions - seriously. They will be full of violence and spiritual zeal to see a restoration of all things – a true John the Baptist generation! These will be comprised of men and women, not full of “party-zeal”, or “party-pride”, but full of God! They will be dead to their own names, ministries, churches, denominations, parties, creeds, and confessions, and will lust for nothing but the name and glory of Christ to be manifested again as declared possible – and to be expected – in the New Covenant of Christ. This will be a true “back to the Bible” Movement that will stop not one wit short of New Testament glory and power (manifested alongside of true righteousness and holiness of life, reaching to the very heart motives and thought life). They will not be dazzled by the latest fads and fashions, gear and gadgets, books and movies, sports and music, but will be absolutely and utterly consumed by Onething! They will not have to wear t-shirts to declare it, or attend conferences to confess it, but their very lives, words, and behavior will scream it! These will be constituted with an unquenchable thirst for Christ and the things of heaven and his house, and a holy dissatisfaction for the status quo of modern American Christianity that calls fellowship and a “fun-time” a backyard barbecue and a volleyball game after church on Sunday! They will love the presence of God and find the things accepted by those so-called Christians around them the very enemies of the vital reality they have found with their God and thus shun it at all costs, and not suffer it in the slightest, lest they be found to slight their precious Christ in the process, and thus lose the friendship with God which they have found to be of more worth than heaven and earth!
My reader, when God finds this company of men, the gates of hell will not prevail against them, as they for so many centuries have prevailed against “the church”.
This is almost altogether unheard of in our day. This is not learned in seminary and it is certainly not expressed by the “non-denominational” church in your city. This is manufactured, not by flesh, but by a familiar acquaintance with the secret place and the God of the secret place. I say this is where this is manufactured, for without a close tie to the closet and loneliness with God, you cannot stand when all forsake you and your social life stands in jeopardy. O but if you have nothing in this world but Christ (not in word only, but in deed and truth), then you will stand!
When this is the reality and the driving force motivating this remnant to pray and call upon their God, not for a resurgence of Arminian or Calvinistic dogma, but for the unity of the house of God and the breaking down of these refuges of lies and hiding places of the devil (which have not unified the body of Christ in all their centuries extant), then, beloved, we will see this revival. Remember, God is able to do in one moment what you call impossible and unrealistic, and there is nothing you can do about it. I counsel you to bow to the will of God and forsake your man-made theology that you have sold out to and sell out to what the first church lived and died for: The Apostles’ Doctrine.
The Apostles’ Doctrine was no mere reaction to the heresies of their time, but a declaration of their agreement with, and devotion to, the Living Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I am not saying that there was no doctrine to be defended and no heresy to be harassed, but this did not shape their theological system! They were not governed by a form, but by a Spirit! We have forsaken the “Theo” of theology! O when will Christ's bride awake and fall in love with the person and presence of Christ again and stop fondling the clothes they found from his body?
Brethren, he's alive!
Most men aren't willing to trade what they labored so long for, though the consequences are often eternal. It is a sad truth. This, sadly, is happening in both camps. The one side cannot part with the “doctrinal integrity” they have found and have been convinced of, while the other side just cannot part with the experiences they have and those have around them. The one has supposed truth, but little or no power. The other has perceived power, but little or no truth... O that God would break through this darkness and shine the light of his glorious countenance upon his people again, for Christ's sake!
This is what the remnant of God's people is up against in this hour. I desire to make known that I have seen visions of glory before my eyes, and these are not cunningly devised fables that I bring to you. He hath made my feet beautiful and shod them with the preparation of this gospel of peace that I bring to you now, even salvation to all of the elect of God, from every quarter they may be!