Direction of the United States

This is from the blog My Dreams and Visions:

As I was praying this morning I saw a very large sailing ship that was sideways in the water of what looked to be a very large waterfall. The ship had to have been heading in that direction for it to have gotten there but now it was at the edge but not going over the waterfall to its destruction. This in the natural would be an impossibility as the sheer force of the flowing river would have forced the ship over the waterfall. Inside the ship I saw a captain at the wheel trying to turn the ship, which as I stated above was a sailing ship, around and there were others at the wheel fighting him for control of the wheel. The ship in this vision is the United States and the captain is Donald Trump. Many are fighting for control of the ship but President Trump had at least turned the ship sideways and was attempting to turn it around. This in the natural would be impossible as the direction of the flowing water would have pushed the water over the falls. Nevertheless this is what he was attempting to do. I think it significant that this was a sailing ship because the pilgrims came over on a sailing ship and dedicated America to the Lord. Secondly it is significant that I saw a sailing ship because a sailing ship needs the wind to fill its sails in order for it to move. The wind here is the Holy Spirit and it is the wind of the Spirit that will turn the ship around and head upstream against the current that was leading the ship towards its destruction.

We need to keep this president in much prayer as there are many forces against him and the fight is going to get worse as the plans of the enemy once concealed are brought to light.

As with any dream/vision I post, take this to the Lord in Prayer and see what He says to you.

A Dream about Donald Trump

Cyril of Alexandria: "The Holy Spirit dwells in the saints"

This is from the blog Dover Beach:

“The Holy Spirit dwells in the saints and remains with them for ever, if they cleanse the eye of their understanding by cleaving to every sound doctrine and by resolutely pursuing every virtue, and thus maintain the grace within themselves. For Christ says that those who are in the world, that is, those who are preoccupied with the things of this world and choose to love earthly things, are unable to contain or to behold the Spirit.”

--Saint Cyril of Alexandria

God's Storehouses in Famine

This is from the blog Grace and Truth:

God has been showing me that right now we are entering a new season. Right now we are leaving behind the years of “plenty” and entering into the years of “famine”.

In Amos 8:11 we read:

"'Behold, the days are coming,' says the Lord God, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the Lord."

I believe He wants me to share with you that whilst there is coming a wide-spread famine of the Word of God, He has a plan – a plan of mercy. And this plan is already well underway.
In Genesis 41 we read about another famine. One that spread throughout the whole world too. But of course back then God also had a plan.

God gave Pharaoh two dreams. When no one could interpret their meaning, Joseph was summoned:

“Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The dreams of Pharaoh are one; God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do: ²⁶ 
The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good heads are seven years; the dreams are one. ²⁷ And the seven thin and ugly cows which came up after them are seven years, and the seven empty heads blighted by the east wind are seven years of famine. ²⁸
 This is the thing which I have spoken to Pharaoh. God has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do.
²⁹ Indeed seven years of great plenty will come throughout all the land of Egypt; ³⁰ but after them seven years of famine will arise, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine will deplete the land. ³¹ So the plenty will not be known in the land because of the famine following, for it will be very severe.” (verses 25-31)

The first seven years were years of plenty. The second seven years were years of famine.

We know that seven in the Bible is used for perfection, divine completion. I believe God is saying now the first season of plenty is complete, it is over. Now we are entering the second phase: famine.

A famine of the Word of God.

However:

• Just as God had a plan of mercy for the famine in Egypt, so too God has a plan for this famine. Just as God sent a man, Joseph, ahead to Egypt to prepare for the coming famine, so too has God sent a Man to prepare for this one.
• Just as Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh to prepare for the coming famine, so too has Jesus Christ gone out from the presence of the Father to prepare for this coming famine.

If we look at Joseph’s plan, we see that it was quite simple. In the first season of the seven years of plenty, he stored up one-fifth of the food that was grown in local storehouses all across Egypt.

“So (Joseph) gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities; he laid up in every city the food of the fields which surrounded them” Genesis 41:48

In His sovereignty God knew this famine was coming. In His sovereignty God had sent ahead of it a man to bring about His plan of mercy, so that the: “food shall be as a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine which shall be in the land of Egypt, that the land may not perish during the famine.” Genesis 41:36

Likewise Jesus Christ, by His Holy Spirit, has been gathering and building into God’s storehouses during this past season, in preparation for this coming famine.

Whilst Joseph used Pharaoh’s stone or clay buildings to store away the grain, God has a very different type of building in which to store up His food.

It is us.

We are God’s storehouses. We are His plan for the coming famine. Into each of us He has been building day by day, year by year. Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little.

“…we have this treasure in earthen vessels…” 2 Corinthians 4:7

Whilst Pharoah used earthen buildings, God uses earthen vessels.



Whilst Joseph used the local storehouses to hold the grain, God uses the local Body of Jesus Christ to store up His divine Life.   Every time we pray, we hear from God, we read the Word, we worship Him, we talk to Him, we spend time with Him He is building into us the bread of Life. He is storing away the grain in us of the Bread of God.

“For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” John 6:33

Remember: God always has a plan. He is in control. He is Sovereign.

When the second season began – the season of famine, the “famine was in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread.” Genesis 41:54

There is a time coming soon where there will be no bread for this world apart from what Jesus Christ has stored up in His own storehouses – in us, His people.

At that time Jesus will open up all of His storehouses and “all that is in them” (Genesis 41:56) will be given out to the starving masses.

Notice that it is the work of God to prepare for the coming famine. He is the one who gathers, who stores and puts away the food in us. All that is required of us is that we are there, receiving from Him.

Like Pharaoh’s buildings we just need to allow the food to be stored up in us, and when the time comes, we need to allow our Lord Jesus to open us up and to use us.



We will be emptied for the sake of others. But it is when we give out, that He is able to pour more of His life into us again.

I want to encourage you brothers and sisters that the years past of your time with Christ, of pain, of suffering, of being built into… it is not in vain. It is for a purpose. God has been preparing His storehouses for such a time as this. Take heart, God sees you, He loves you, He is about to use you.

Building in, building in….in order to give out, give out.

God bless you!

Broken Bread and Poured-Out Wine
Brian's Dream about the United States and Africa

Full of the Holy Spirit

This is from the Pioneer Library:

In the Old Testament, most instances of being filled with the Spirit involve outward ministry and potent action. But Jesus is full of the Spirit, and goes to the desert to be tested and tempted.

The filling of the Holy Spirit does not just prepare us to preach and do miracles. In his Passion week, Jesus told his disciples many roles that the Holy Spirit would fulfill: “He shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you.” “He shall glorify me.” “He will convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.”

The Holy Spirit also helps us to minister to the Father. He is “the Spirit of sonship, whereby we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’” (Rom. 8:15) Any believer that is full of the Holy Spirit has a full-time ministry, because the Holy Spirit is in them to help them minister to the Father.

There are two Greek words translated ‘worship’ in the New Testament. One means to bow, to personally prostrate yourself in homage. The other means to serve, in a liturgical sense, fulfilling a role in a temple or church worship ceremony. Revelation 22:3 uses this word when it says “his servants shall serve him, and they shall see his face.”

John was exiled to Patmos, a Greek island measuring only a few miles from end to end. The island is volcanic and mostly lifeless. But John wrote, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” (Rev. 1:10, ESV) Whether or not anyone else was with him, John could walk in the Holy Spirit and worship the Father. Even in exile, he had a full-time ministry as far as God was concerned.

Jesus went to the desert, full of the Holy Spirit. That means that the Holy Spirit is with me and in me even when I am ministering to no one except the Father. Exile and desertion can never take that away.

Fasting is a ministry to the Lord—not just a spiritual warfare tactic. Our fasting is misguided if we only think about what we are going to get out of it, and not about ministering to the Father.

Now we know that when we walk alone, he is not merely preparing us for something more important that we will do. If we are ministering to the Father, we are already fulfilling our most important calling. Oswald Chambers said, “Prayer is not preparation for greater work. Prayer is the greater work.”

This desert, this place of solitude, is our greatest work. Our greatest calling is simply to know him in prayer and praise.

Father, thank you that I can know you and walk in your Holy Spirit, even in solitude, even in conflict. Teach me that my first and greatest ministry is simply to know you.

Amen.

Holy Spirit’s stirrings #1 – prophecies for UK’s critical time

This is from the blog Richard's Watch:

You may know of my fascination with timing of ‘God-incidents’ – events that suggest the Lord is putting pieces into His ‘invisible jigsaw’. They may indicate He’s up to something!

So let me tell you more about last Saturday, the day of Trooping the Colour and when Nina had in intense power surge from Holy Spirit and saw “This is MY country”.

Fridays to Sundays I’m ‘cyber silent’, or digitally incommunicado, and so the short post on the prophetic picture Robert English received had been set for auto-publication on Sat 11th June. However, that morning’s news warranted the insertion of a quick update. This was soon followed by issuing a quick ‘news flash’ about what was happening to Nina.

Furthermore, additional material was incoming last Saturday as though confirming what we had learned and for which I thank Suzanne Payne and Michael Marcell. So I ran off hard-copies to peruse at leisure over the weekend.

First, an encouraging follow-up to Robert’s picture as published on Prophetic Releasers for UK Revival’s Facebook page the previous day (Friday):

Prophetic Vision (to do with the EU also the UK GB).

‘I saw complete and utter darkness, over the EU, that was so thick like a smog that you could not see at all. I could hear the thunder and see the lighting hitting the EU hard, coming down (I saw people running for cover).

‘I looked across the channel and I saw the UK GB – it was calm and quiet. I saw the Lion waking up from a deep deep sleep, waking up chains were broken, and roaring and roaring and roaring, the ground is shacking underneath as a result.

‘For evil men stand down as a result from public office and can’t do anything, wise leaders take over the UK GB.’

That email was accompanied by a prophetic word dated 9 June (Thursday) from Veronika West of Ignite Ireland Ministries. This related not only to the above closing line from Robert but also to my hopeful wish of 26 May in closing Is the Lord exposing rotten politics? UK, USA – next EU?:

‘Wouldn’t now be a good time for all the rotten dirty laundry of crumbling EU finances to be exposed in full glare of continent-wide publicity? Maybe it would make messrs Cameron & Osborne do a volte-face, an abrupt U-turn, over the EU…?’

Seven days later Veronika received this mighty word from the Lord (click title to read on Facebook).:

A WORD FOR THE UNITED KINGDOM

Then the king said, “HANG HIM ON IT!” So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. The the king’s wrath subsided”….

Queen Esther (Edwin Long,1878)

‘Early hours of this morning I heard these words, “DAUGHTER ARISE, WATCH FOR NOW A NEW ORDER OF ESTHER’S SHALL RISE UP IN POWER AND AUTHORITY FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS AND SHE SHALL UNCOVER, EXPOSE AND DESTROY THE HAMAN SPIRIT THAT IS OPERATING IN THE LAND”!

‘Immediately the Holy Spirit quickened to me Esther 3..!
“So the king and Haman went to dine with Queen Esther. And on the second day, at the banquet of wine, the king again said to Esther, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request, up to half the kingdom? It shall be done!”
Then Queen Esther answered and said, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request. For we have been sold, my people and I, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. Had we been sold as male and female slaves, I would have held my tongue, although the enemy could never compensate for the king’s loss.”

So King Ahasuerus answered and said to Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, who would dare presume in his heart to do such a thing?”

‘And Esther said, “The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman!”

‘So Haman was terrified before the king and queen.

‘Then the king arose in his wrath from the banquet of wine and went into the palace garden; but Haman stood before Queen Esther, pleading for his life, for he saw that evil was determined against him by the king. When the king returned from the palace garden to the place of the banquet of wine, Haman had fallen across the couch where Esther was. Then the king said, “Will he also assault the queen while I am in the house?”

‘As the word left the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face. Now Harbonah, one of the eunuchs, said to the king, “Look! The gallows, fifty cubits high, which Haman made for Mordecai, who spoke good on the king’s behalf, is standing at the house of Haman.”

‘Then the king said, “HANG HIM ON IT”!

“So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king’s wrath subsided”!

‘I PROPHESY GOD IS ABOUT TO MOVE IN AN UNEXPECTED AND AN UNPRECEDENTED WAY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

‘I SEE A DIVINE MOVE OF GOD IN THIS HOUR IN THE NATION OF BRITAIN, IT IS A MOVE OF SIGNS, WONDERS AND MIRACLES, IT IS A DIVINE MOVE OF GOD THAT COMES TO UNVEIL AND REVEAL THAT WHICH HAS BEEN PREPARED AND EMPOWERED IN THE SECRET PLACE.

‘WATCH! FOR NOW A NEW ORDER OF ESTHERS WILL RISE UP IN THE LAND AND WITH THE POWER AND INFLUENCE OF THE KING’S FAVOUR AND AUTHORITY SHE SHALL UNCOVER, EXPOSE AND DESTROY THE HAMAN SPIRIT THAT IS OPERATING OVER THE NATION.

‘GET READY, I SEE HEAVEN RELEASING A NEW BATTLE PLAN AND A NEW STRATEGY TO THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF GOD IN THIS HOUR, A BATTLE PLAN THAT WILL THWART AND DERAIL THE PLANS AND PURPOSES OF THE ENEMY IN THE LAND. THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND REVELATION IS COMING NOW TO REVEAL, REVEAL, REVEAL!!

‘I SEE A MIGHTY WIND OF AWAKENING THAT IS NOW BLOWING ACROSS THE UNITED KINGDOM, THIS IS A CONFRONTATIONAL WIND THAT COMES TO AWAKEN THE WARRIORS OF GOD TO WAR IN A NEW WAY.

‘I SEE ANGELS DESCENDING UPON THE NATION IN THIS VERY HOUR and I hear the Spirit say, “FEAR NOT, See, I am sending Angels before you to protect you and lead you safely to the place I have prepared for you”!

‘I SEE A FRESH ANOINTING BEING POURED OUT UPON THOSE THAT ARE STANDING ON THE WATCHMAN’S WALL AND I SEE A NEW MANDATE BEING GIVEN TO THOSE THAT ARE READY, WAITING, WATCHING AND LISTENING FOR HEAVEN’S COMMAND. I SEE MANY ARE NOW RECEIVING A PROPHETIC MANDATE TO KEEP WATCH OVER THE EKKLESIA IN THIS HOUR TO ENSURE THE ETERNAL PURPOSES OF GOD ARE FULFILLED AND COME TO PASS IN THE NATION OF BRITAIN.’

In that communication received Saturday I learn that, “The Lord spoke to us recently in our prayer group and said,

"This is the Church's finest hour."

A City with Broken Down Walls
Christian History
Vision of spiritual battle for Britan's birthright

Illumination of the Spirit

This is from the blog a broken man:

I have been making my way through several of A.W. Tozer’s books lately. Never in my life have I read a book so profound, written by a mere human man. Tozer is often described as a modern-day prophet, a man used by God to bring about dramatic change in an otherwise flippant and godless generation. Here are several quotes that I studied long and hard. I hope they speak to your heart as they did to mine.

“The inability of human reason as an organ of divine knowledge arises not from its own weakness but from its unfittedness for the task by its own nature. It was not given as an organ by which to know God. The doctrine of the inability of the human mind and the need for divine illumination is so fully developed in the New Testament that it is nothing short of astonishing that we should have gone so far astray about the whole thing. Fundamentalism has stood aloof from the liberal in self-conscious superiority and has on its own part fallen into error, the error of textualism, which is simply orthodoxy without the Holy Spirit.

"Everywhere among conservatives we find persons who are Bible-taught but not Spirit-taught. They conceive truth to be something that they can grasp with the mind. If a man hold to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, he is thought to possess divine truth. But it does not follow. There is no truth apart from the Spirit. The most brilliant intellect may be imbecilic when confronted with the mysteries of God. For a man to understand revealed truth requires an act of God equal to the original act that inspired the text.”


“The belief that the human mind is the supreme authority in the judgement of truth. . . . is the confidence in the ability of the human mind to do that which the Bible declares it was never created to do and consequently is wholly incapable of doing.”

“But for the searching of the Scriptures and true knowledge of them, an honorable life is needed, and a pure soul, and that virtue which is according to Christ; so that the intellect guiding its path by it, may be able to attain what it desires, and to comprehend it, in so far as it is accessible to human nature to learn concerning the word of God. For without a pure mind and a modeling of the life after the saints, a man could not possibly comprehend the words of the saints. . . . He that would comprehend the mind of those who speak of God needs begin by washing and cleansing his soul.”


--A.W. Tozer

Breaking off the Greek Mindset

This is from the blog Sons of Issachar:

Mike Parsons

Last time I shared with you a couple of PowerPoint slides relating to the Greek (Western) and Hebrew (Eastern) mindsets. This week I want to look just a little more closely at the contrast between them, and then I would like to pray for God to reveal where we are being robbed by our Western way of looking at things, and break it off us.

Separation vs unity

Here is the first of those slides again.

Let’s take these a line at a time.

In our Greek understanding, the goal of salvation is to escape this world and go to God’s dwelling place in heaven. So everything is focussed on what will be: very little about what is now. In Hebrew thought, the goal of salvation is to prepare a place fit for God’s dwelling here, among His people. He wants His kingdom to come on earth.

Linked with that, where does the kingdom of God exist? The Greek view says it is in heaven, not on the earth, whereas the Hebrew view is that the kingdom of God is God’s reign among people here upon the earth.

So is Jesus coming in order to take us away from this world? No, Jesus is coming to reign over and through us in this world. We need to focus on God’s kingdom being ‘now’, not separating it out. “Get your ticket now or you might miss the train”: that is, if we are honest, how many of us had the gospel presented to us.

And then: “Now you have your ticket, just hold on tight. In the end Jesus will come and rescue you”, rather than what Jesus preached: “The Kingdom of God is coming! It’s right here, right now! Get ready to serve the King and manifest the kingdom”.


Do you see how each misunderstanding arises from the previous one? Once you begin to go down the route prescribed by Western thought, you find there is more and more separation becoming entrenched in your thinking, and less and less of an understanding of the unity of God’s purpose.

Form vs purpose

If we look at the second slide, we can see how this works out in practice:



The Greek mindset looks at the form of something. For example, let’s take a tree. It has roots, a trunk, branches, leaves – that is what I mean by looking at its form. In the Hebrew way of thinking, it is more about what it is for. What is the purpose of a tree? To bear fruit. They are really not interested in the fact that it might have roots, a trunk, branches and leaves. Does it bear fruit? If not, it is of no value at all. Remember how Jesus cursed the fig tree that was not producing any fruit? It is the difference between an actual, practical outworking and just a mental, theoretical understanding.

So: Greek: what I do; Hebrew: how I do it. We can do lots of things from the wrong motive – but we know that God looks on the heart.

Greek thinking separates out our religious life from our secular life. Family, work, school, friendships on the one hand; and church on the other. But God wants His kingdom to be flowing through all of our lives, with no separation. There is no secular for us. Our lives are a whole, they are unified, and we bring the kingdom of God into everything.

In Greek thinking, the heavenly was separated from the earthly. There was no overlap. Bill Johnson wrote a book called When Heaven Invades Earth. Bottom line is, that is impossible in Greek thinking. But for us, we can live in both places: we live in the realms of heaven, and we bring that spiritual realm into our lives on earth, at the same time: not in the future but now.

‘Knowledge’ to the Greek mind is information. But to the Hebrew, you cannot know anything without experiencing it. It is all about knowledge through spiritual encounter. If all I am doing in this blog is imparting information to you, we are missing the mark. That is why from time to time I also include praying for you, which gives you the opportunity to encounter Him through the Holy Spirit and experience the reality of His truth for yourself (of course you can always pray these things through even when I don’t specifically include a prayer).

It’s not what you know, but who you know! We know God, but it is perfectly possible to read the Bible from cover to cover and have all the information, but never actually know Him. We need to encounter everything in the Word of God for ourselves.

Works, or grace. A creed or the deed. Stating what you believe, or actually living that way? Faith without works is absolutely dead. Jesus said, “If I do not do the works that my Father does, don’t believe me” (John 10:37). You don’t hear too many sermons on that verse.

We don’t analyse: we live. It is about who we are and what we do. God Himself says He is the I AM.
I want to pray now. If you think you may have any mindsets, any of the Greek way of thinking, we want to break that off right now.

[If you would like to hear an audio version of this prayer, click here.]

Father, I pray that the power of Your Holy Spirit will come.
Break any deception off our mindsets
Any way in which we have come under false doctrines,
False teachings, mindsets of the enemy,
Greek thinking that would cause us to separate our lives out.

I come, Lord, with the sword of Your Spirit,
To break that off our mindsets right now
In Jesus’ Name.
To be loosed from any control that the enemy has had over us
Through traditions of men and demonic doctrines
That put things into the future instead of the present;
That put things into heaven instead of on earth;
That have separated us out;
That have caused us to believe and not do.

I break those mindsets right now.

I break any doctrines over us that would hinder Your church
From pursuing and seeing the kingdom of God fill the earth
As it is in heaven.
Holy Spirit, come and reveal to anyone reading this
Anything which is a hindrance, an obstacle, a stumbling block
To our being able to fulfil our destiny as God’s people.
I pray that You would send gathering angels into our lives
To gather any stumbling blocks from us.
Gather them from our mind, gather them from our heart,
So that we believe and stand on the truth of Your Word
That through kingdom and covenant,
You are going to fill the earth with Your kingdom.
You are going to come back for a victorious, overcoming church
That has risen above every other thing.
Because ‘of the increase of Your kingdom there is no end’.

Empower us with the power of Your Holy Spirit
To take Your kingdom
And manifest Your kingdom through our lives,
Every day of our lives:
In work, in home, in our neighbourhood.
That we would manifest Your kingdom in power and authority
Doing the works that Jesus did.

I loose us from everything that would hinder us
From that fulfilment of Your purposes for our lives
In Jesus’ Name.

Amen.

_____

"Though swordless, these soldiers of Christ fought the might of imperial Rome and won . . .Unlettered they unblushingly declared the whole counsel of God and eventually staggered the intellectual Greeks."

--Leonard Ravenhill

De-Greecing the Church - Part 1 - David Pawson

De-Greecing the Church - Part 2 - David Pawson

Watch and wait

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Micah 7:7: But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.

Here the prophet expressed hope in God. He set out to look onto the Lord, to focus expectantly on him, because he was assured: “God will hear me.”

In the book of Acts (Acts 3) we see a lame man by the gate called beautiful in the temple looking intently at Peter and John as they came to the temple, but Peter said silver or gold I do not have but what I have I give to you, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. Though he did not seek for healing he got it, because both healing and almsgiving worked by the principle of expectation.

What the woman with the issue of blood had going for her was expectation (Matthew 9:20-22). She expected that when she touches the helm of the garment of Jesus, all the problems she had been facing for many years will be over. She could not be shaken from that belief. And she got her miracle by her faith. Her expectation held her on the path of faith, as faith is linked with expectation.

What Cornelius had going for him was expectation (Acts 10). While he was praying in his house and fasting, God sent an angel to him that he should sent for Peter who will tell him the next step to take. And from that day he did not eat till that happened.

Fasting is a statement of expectation. When Jesus was giving the disciples a perspective on fasting, he showed that not only is fasting attached to rewards from God (Matthew 6:16-18), but it is something the disciples was going to practice when Jesus leaves, when he is no longer in the flesh, as an expression of hunger (expectation of, desire) for his presence (Mark 2:20).

So Cornelius was fasting, his expectation had hit the roof and as Peter was sharing thoughts about Jesus, the Holy Spirit was magnetized by an amazing force of expectation and he came hard on the people in his house.

They all (Cornelius, his household and friends) busted out in tongues as they we filled with the Holy Spirit even while Peter was still speaking. That was the gentiles coming into the fold of the church. The manifestation of God is linked to desire, hunger in the people.

Elijah told God: I have been zealous for your name (1Kings 19:14). His hunger for God drew fire from heaven. He could spend time in prayer to see God glorified in Israel, in the midst of the idolatry and corruption that had ravaged the land. He was not going to join the idolaters but was going to stand with God, doing everything for the glory of his name.

He told the king Ahab, “As the Lord lives before whom I stand it shall not rain because I said so (1Kings 17:1)” to set up a confrontation a few years later with the prophets of Baal. He actively expected change in Israel and become the medium through which that change came. What he longed for became his mission.

He was hungry for God’s name to be glorified. He could not do anything, change anyone, on his own, but he could reach out to God who will cause things to happen and God sent fire from heaven, causing the multitude to proclaim: the Lord, He is God (1Kings 18).

In Acts chapter two fire came from the above, the fire of the Holy Spirit came on 120 people who were in the upper room in Jerusalem. They were with one accord in expectation of the promise of the father as Jesus had told them.

Jesus told them: you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you (Acts 1:8). But for that to happen they had to watch and wait in the Jerusalem for it, for the glory of God to come down on them as it came down in the temple which Solomon built, in the same Jerusalem, hundreds of years before.

Waiting is a spiritual posture. Habakkuk said: I will stand upon my watch to see what God will say to me (Habakkuk 2:1-4). He did not want to come to his own conclusion he wanted to see from God’s perspective so he took a pause from his normal activities. The bible says those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength (Isaiah 40:28-31). When we wait upon him for the next instruction, we are strengthened to do his will and die to ours. Habakkuk moved from his own thoughts to God’s, from his own ways to God’s.

Jesus said: watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation (Matthew 26:41). That is an appeal to seeking God so that we do not fall into the wrong conclusion and action.

The time used to seek God is well utilized. When we pray, in the eyes of the world nothing is happening, but in the eyes of God in the realm of the spirit much was happening.

Paul said: when we speak in tongues we speak to God in the Spirit (1Corinthians 12:2,4). In the physical it may not be much but in the spirit things are getting shifted. Demands are going up to heaven and answers are coming down to the earth.

Waiting can be trying, it is staying in one place and not resorting to self-help because you know that God will come through for you.

Saul was asked to wait for seven days for Samuel to make a sacrifice (1Samuel 13:4-14), but he was overly concerned about losing the battle against the enemy that he did the wrong thing in panic. Waiting is a sign of trust, Saul did not trust God and he could not wait, he decided to take action against divine instruction and lost out on the best of God.

But David said: I will lift up my eyes to the hills from where comes my help my help comes from the Lord maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 121). And that is why he will waited on God for his instruction, and was unshaken in his trust and belief in him.

He asked from God before taking steps to battle his enemy (2Samuel 5:17-25). He did not presume to know what to do. He asked. Jesus said ask and you shall be given (Matthew 7:7). To ask means you rely on him to do it. Solomon wrote: trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your path (Proverbs 3:4-7).

An Open Letter to John MacArthur From A.W. Tozer: He Being Dead Yet Speaketh

A.W. Tozer (1897-1963)

This is from CharismaNews:

Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from God's Pursuit of Man by A.W. Tozer and used by permission of WingSpread Publishers.

That every Christian can be and should be filled with the Holy Spirit would hardly seem to be a matter for debate among Christians. ... I want here boldly to assert that it is my happy belief that every Christian can have a copious outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a measure far beyond that received at conversion, and I might also say, far beyond that enjoyed by the rank and file of orthodox believers today.

It is important that we get this straight, for until doubts are removed, faith is impossible. God will not surprise a doubting heart with an effusion of the Holy Spirit, nor will He fill anyone who has doctrinal questions about the possibility of being filled.

In light of this, it will be seen how empty and meaningless is the average church service today. All the means are in evidence; the one ominous weakness is the absence of the Spirit’s power. ... The power from on high is neither known nor desired by pastor or people. This is nothing less than tragic, and all the more so because it falls within the field of religion, where the eternal destinies of men are involved.

Fundamentalism has stood aloof from the liberal in self-conscious superiority and has on its own part fallen into error, the error of textualism, which is simply orthodoxy without the Holy Ghost. Everywhere among conservatives we find persons who are Bible-taught but not Spirit-taught. They conceive truth to be something which they can grasp with the mind.

If a man holds to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, he is thought to possess divine truth. But it does not follow. There is no truth apart from the Spirit. The most brilliant intellect may be imbecilic when confronted with the mysteries of God. For a man to understand revealed truth requires an act of God equal to the original act which inspired the text. ... "Now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things which are freely given us of God.”

For the textualism of our times is based upon the same premise as the old line rationalism, that is, the belief that the human mind is the supreme authority in the judgment of truth. Or otherwise stated, it is confidence in the ability of the human mind to do that which the Bible declares it was never created to do and consequently is wholly incapable of doing.Philosophical rationalism is honest enough to reject the Bible flatly. Theological rationalism rejects it while pretending to accept it and in so doing puts out its own eyes.

Few there are who without restraint will open their whole heart to the blessed Comforter. He has been and is so widely misunderstood that the very mention of His name in some circles is enough to frighten many people into resistance.

It is no use to deny that Christ was crucified by persons who would today be called fundamentalists. This should prove to be disquieting if not downright distressing to us who pride ourselves on our orthodoxy. An unblessed soul filled with the letter of truth may actually be worse off than a pagan kneeling before a fetish. We are saved only when our intellects are indwelt by the loving fire that came at Pentecost. For the Holy Spirit is not a luxury, not something added now and again to produce a deluxe type of Christian once in a generation. No. He is for every child of God a vital necessity, and that He fill and indwell His people is more than a languid hope. It is rather an inescapable imperative.

Now the Bible teaches that there is something in God which is like emotion. ... God has said certain things about Himself, and these furnish all the grounds we require. “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zeph. 3:17). This is but one verse among thousands which serve to form our rational picture of what God is like, and tell us plainly that God feels something like our love, like our joy, and what He feels makes Him act very much as we would in a similar situation; He rejoices over His loved ones with joy and singing.

Here is emotion on as high a plain as it can ever be seen, emotion flowing out of the heart of God Himself. Feeling, then, is not the degenerate son of unbelief that is often painted by some of our Bible teachers. Our ability to feel is one of the marks of our divine origin. We need not be ashamed of either tears or laughter. The Christian stoic who has crushed his feelings is only two-thirds of a man; an important third part has been repudiated. Holy feeling had an important place in the life of our Lord. “For the joy that was set before Him” He endured the cross and despised its shame. He pictured Himself crying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.”

The work of the Holy Spirit is, among other things, to rescue the redeemed man’s emotions, to restring his harp and open again the wells of sacred joy which have been stopped up by sin.

Aiden Wilson Tozer (April 21, 1897–May 12, 1963) was an American Christian pastor, preacher, author, magazine editor and spiritual mentor.

Reprinted from God's Pursuit of Man by A.W. Tozer, copyright © 1950, 1978 by Lowell Tozer. Previously titled The Divine Conquest and The Pursuit of Man. Used by permission of WingSpread Publishers, a division of Zur Ltd., 800.884.4571.

God's Pursuit of Man is protected by copyright and may not be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, translated, transmitted or distributed in any way.

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A Step Towards the North

Praying in Tongues

Dreams from the LORD 2007-2010
22 February 2008

A little over a week ago, I was walking out of Kooskia, Idaho when this lady picked me up. Her name was Fran and she lived in the Kooskia neighborhood. We started talking and she told me that she had been trying to quit cigarettes for quite some time. I asked her if she would like for me to pray with her. She agreed and pulled over by the river and let her dog run around for a while. I put my hand on Fran’s shoulder and began to pray in the Holy Ghost (praying in tongues).

I prayed for a short while and then Fran looked at me and told me that she could pick out some of the words that I was saying. (Since around April of 1989, I have been praying in a French tongue. Before that, I spoke in another tongue.) She told me that it sounded like the French spoken in the Caribbean or in Asia (probably the former French Indonesia). Fran recognized the words: “Father”, “heaven”, “church”, “mother”, “feeding” and maybe a couple of other words. She said that she had studied French for nine years. I told her that I had studied German for two years in high school and one year in college—and that I had never studied French in my life.

I remember I was hitchhiking in Montana a few years ago, and this one guy picked me up and he asked me to pray in the Holy Ghost. He said that he was a French major in college and that he had spent several years in France. He told me that the tongue that I prayed in sounded like the French spoken in the Middle Ages.

Two or three years ago, I was staying in Pomeroy, Washington with a family and I laid my hands on the husband and the son and prayed in the Holy Ghost. The wife had studied French and she said that she heard me say, “it is so, it is so” and, I think, “praise.”

Back in the fall of 1989, I was taking a linguistics class at Iowa State University and there was this young lady from Kuwait in that same class. I asked her what languages she knew and she told me that she new Arabic, English and French. So I told her that I was a Pentecostal Christian (she was probably a Muslim) and that I prayed in tongues. She asked me to pray, and after I had prayed just for a short while, she got this surprised, flabbergasted look on her face.

She looked at me in great wonder and asked, “You don’t know what you are saying?”

I answered, “No.”

She asked again, “You REALLY don’t know what you are saying?”

“No. I really don’t. I have never studied French.”

She kept staring at me in wonder and astonishment.

So I asked her, “Do you know what I am saying?”

With a beautiful smile, she answered, “You are singing to your Father up in the sky.”

We were all (there were several girls and myself) sitting on the floor outside the classroom door waiting for the class to begin. A couple of the girls asked me some questions about praying in tongues. The young lady from Kuwait kept staring at me.

A week or so later, the young lady from Kuwait told me that she went back to her apartment and told her younger sister about my praying in tongues. Her sister was more surprised than she was. I remember telling her to read about tongues in Acts 2:4 and she told me that she had heard about praying in tongues before she had met me. Maybe the Lord used her to minister to her sister and she didn’t even know it. It seemed like her sister was more interested in tongues than she was. Sometimes that is how the Lord works. The Lord’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts; He can see much farther than we can. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Acts 2:1-11: “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygian, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.”

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Mark 16:17:  "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues."

Romans 8:26-27:  "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God."

I Corinthians 14:2:  "For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries."

I Corinthians 14:4:  "He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church."

Ephesians 6:18:  "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints."

Jude 1:20:  "But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost."