In the mid 1980s God began restoring the office of the prophet back into its rightful and proper place of function in the Church that Jesus is building. Today, thousands of churches and ministers accept and themselves advocate this premise. But is there such a thing as “judgment prophets” today in the New Testament era. Even within Charismatic and Neo-Pentecostal churches espousing the validity of the prophetic and apostolic offices in today’s ecclesia, the issue of the prospect of judgment prophets being anointed, appointed, and sent by God with a special message from Him and equipped with supernatural powers such as what Moses was given by God produces sharp and sometime contentiousness debate. So, do judgment prophets exist today? Here’s one perspective. (more…)
Oh, how desperately the Church—including the Neo-Pentecostal Church—in this last hour needs a full-color picture of a genuine black-and-white prophet, to portray to its constituency what one looks like, to allow them to fully receive “the reward” or benefits of a prophet. The late Leonard Ravenhill, himself a prophet to the Church, before graduating to Glory bequethed to us this extraordinary snapshot of a genuine prophet. (more…)
“The Glory of the Latter House shall be greater than the Former!” (Hag. 2:9)
The hour we live in without equivocation is the most spiritually profound of all of history, and certainly of all “His-story.” Indeed, it can be no less when we are told that all of the historical Biblical events comprising His-story—i.e., the history of Israel—“happened to the them as an example (illustration) and they were written for OUR instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor. 10:11; cf., Rom. 15:4). God is therein declaring that the entire content of the Old Testament—the events it chronicles and the wisdom and instruction those events illustrate—are and always were intended for the true end-time believers comprising the end-times Church that Jesus is building! (more…)
This edition is Part 2 of a series regarding the new things God is decreeing for the days ahead. I believe the topic of this series is both prophetic and timely, in that God is right now is decreeing and effecting major and in some cases paradigmatic changes both in the world and the church, and is causing particular events to transpire that have never happened before; i.e., “new things.” God is “suddenly” releasing and launching much that has been held in abeyance for many years. He is also bringing a sudden end to much that has been for a many years as well.
Isaiah 42:9
Behold, the former things have come to pass,
Now I declare new things;
Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.
Isaiah 43:18,19
Do not call to mind the former things,
Or ponder things of the past.
Behold, I will do something new,
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it?
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert.
Isaiah 48:6-8
I proclaim to you new things from this time,
Even hidden things which you have not known.
They are created now and not long ago;
And before today you have not heard them,
So that you will not say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’
You have not heard, you have not known.
One of the tribes of Israel, the sons of Issachar, were “men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do” (1 Chrn. 12:32). Prophets are spiritual “sons of Issachar.” The spiritual inheritance of that tribe is alive within them. They have a special anointing for discerning the times and knowing when God is bringing forth new things, new paradigms, and bringing the Church into new dimensions of the Spirit.
Because they are discerners of these things, they frequently “see” things before others do, including other leaders. Also because they see and discern things before others do, there is a pioneering aspect to the personality and gifting of prophets. They are also predictive, rather than reactive, vis-à-vis most other people. Most people believe it when they see it. Prophets believe it before other people see it, because they’ve already seen it and its outcome in the Spirit. Prophets are still “seers.” They perceive things in the Spirit realm others do not, at least not yet. They specialize in revealing the “secret counsel” of God in His timing. (more…)
-by Greg Gordon
A New Movement of Fearless Uncompromising Preachers
God is raising up a new breed of preachers in our day. People are sick of modern-day soft preaching that does not move our consciences anymore then a worldly movie would. God is going to raise them up, they will not be bred in modern day seminaries or bible colleges. They will speak against the whole system that is raising anemic preachers and teachers. Their messages will be bold, strong, pointed; it will offend many but save many. Their preaching will bear witness to their calling. God will be in their messages and the fear of God will come with their message. God has always been faithful to have a voice in every generation. Surely we find ourselves in a time as the Psalmist lamented: “There is no more any prophet, neither is there among us, any that knoweth how long.” Yet they will come! They will come with messages that will sear our consciences, Oh how we need a modern day prophet!
Will the modern day prophet agree with all the theology and comfort of American Christianity? No, his message will so contradict all of what we know of Christianity that we will hardly believe he is from God. Jeremiah was a prophet that heard from God and he prophesied: “behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.” These new breed of preachers will be men that are shut-in with God and hear from him and their words will be as “fire” and the people “wood.” (more…)
Toward the end of the year 2005, the Lord began telling me that “Purification” would be the byword of 2006! He told me that during 2006 He would begin to bring forth a new emphasis on purification of the Body of Christ, both individually and corporately. He said that the process of purification He would initiate in 2006 entails deliverance and that deliverance must begin to take place in order for the Body of Christ to be prepared for Christ’s return to claim His Betrothed Church as His Eternal Bride.
In previous moves, God restored, in the Spirit (albeit, certainly not in all denominations and churches), the office of the Prophet and the Apostle back into their rightful place of function. I say, “in the spirit,” because what God does in the invisible, unseen, realm of the Spirit is not always what so-called Christendom is doing, nor what they are seeing. One of the distinguishing marks of “apostles and prophets in the Spirit” (Eph. 3:5) is that they are “ministers…not of the letter, but of the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:6), more so than other ministers and believers. They see, hear, discern, perceive things in the Spirit, others do not.
Moreover, genuine apostles and prophets always regard the revelation they receive as a “now thing” — that is, when it becomes revelation to them, they begin to walk and operate in it immediately. They don’t wait for others to see or know it or begin to walk in it, or for it to become popular. Like the Apostle Paul, once they know something by the Spirit, they “no more consult with flesh and blood” regarding it, but simply make an immediate adjustment to begin walking and operating in the light of that revelation, “as He is in the light.” There’s just something built into their psyche and spirit that requires them to begin walking in revelation right now, rather than relegating it off to sometime in the future when God will “move” (read that, “force”) them into it. Their delight is in the Law of the Lord and in it do they meditate day and night (Ps. 1:2).
To apostles and prophets in the spirit, revelation IS the Law of the Lord! It is not optional! Apostles and prophets are pioneers, trailblazers, initiators, forerunners, and thus they often take the lead in “new things” God is doing and saying. Apostles especially are always “first” in spiritual shifts. They possess a breakthrough anointing to pierce the status quo to bring forth the new thing God is doing (Is. 42:9; 43:18,19; 48:6-8).
As we know, nothing is happenstance with God, His Kingdom, and all that He does. Rather, there is a set order for it all. So also it was with the reestablishment of these two ministry functions of apostles and prophets within the Church Jesus is building. The prophets had to be restored first, in order to declare, decree, and birth the spiritual pertinences required for the apostolic function to come on the scene to establish what only it is able to establish and “set in order what remains” (Titus 1:5).
2006 will mark the 100th Anniversary of the so-called Azusa Street Revival, and the Pentecostal Awakening that God brought forth at the turn of the 20th Century. The Winds of the Spirit blew repeatedly during that one-hundred-year period bringing forth the Pentecostal, Healing, Charismatic, Prophetic, and Apostolic Movements. But, what the Church has failed to recognize is that none of these refreshings, renewals, or revivals, whatever you want to call them, were an end in themselves, but rather just a part of the continuum of restoration God is bringing forth in the Church Jesus is building (Ac. 3:19-21). Though it is rarely discussed, not all “churches” or amalgamations of churches are a part of the Church Jesus is building. Likewise, not every individual attributing to himself or herself the nomenclature of “Christian” is genuinely a part of the true Body of Christ. Not everyone who has adapted the lexicon of Christianity is a genuine Born Again Believer, either. It’s not what we say that determines and demonstrates who we are, but what we do.
Each of these emphases that transpired since 1906 were vital elements in the restoration that God has been taking the Lamb’s Wife through in order to prepare her for the return of Christ to claim her as His Eternal Bride. The Pentecostal movement initiated a renewed awareness regarding the imperativeness of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Yet, that Truth was and is not an end in itself, nor a panacea by any means. Rather it was one piece of the spiritual puzzle, so to speak.
The Pentecostal Movement spawned the Charismatic Movement, which brought a renewed emphasis and revelation concerning the Gifts of the Spirit, which inure from the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. But, the Gifts of the Spirit are likewise no end or cure-all in themselves.
Out of the Charismatic Movement came the Prophetic Movement of the 1980s, restoring the function of the prophet and bringing attention to the prophetic gifts whose preeminent role is to edify the Church and speak edification, exhortation, and comfort into believers’ lives (1 Cor. 14:3,4). Yet, the raising up and establishing of prophets and prophetic gifts was not the ultimate purpose and goal of the Prophetic Movement.
The company of prophets God raised up during the last two decades of the previous millennium disclose, declared, and decreed things in the Spirit required for the most recent movement, wherein the Apostolic Dimension is arising in the Spirit realm, to be birthed. The apostolic function has been reestablished in the Spirit realm, and a new Apostolic Ambience is gradually manifesting. But the pertinences of the apostolic emphasis likewise are neither an end in themselves or self-completing.
Rather, all these emphases, and the “special effects,” so to speak, that have arisen from them, are vital elements of the Master Plan of purification of the Bride of Christ God has been effecting from before the foundations of the Earth. From the beginning of time God has been doing one thing overall — preparing for Himself a people, redeemed humanity. Before the foundations of the Earth, the Lamb was slain, in order to redeem and purify a people who were “qualified” by grace through faith to live in eternal communion or relationship with God.
Not all professing to be Christians will have a part in the final chapter of that Master Plan. Ecumenicism and syncretism, in the end, will prove false. There will be a separating — the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the tares — before Jesus returns to claim the Church He is building as His Eternal Bride. In the end, the Bride of Christ will be comprised of a remnant of individual believers. The Church Jesus claims as His Bride will be a remnant Church comprised of only on-third of all those claiming to be a Christian Church or group of churches. The Prophet Zechariah saw it in the Spirit:
“And it will come about in all the land,” declares the Lord, “that two parts in it will be cut off and perish; and I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon My Name, and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’”
Refining, purification is the essence of God’s Master Plan of the Ages. God has been carrying on the process of purification of a people for 6,000 years since He breathed the Breath of Life into Adam. The Church that Jesus said He was building is the entity He shall return to claim as His Eternal Bride. It is not those who profess to be a part of that Church who actually are, but rather only those who bear the fruit of the Kingdom of God, and thus the ones of whom God says, “They are My People — the people whom God is preparing through purification for Himself.
A vital element in this purification God is bringing forth in 2006 and beyond is deliverance. Until now, the relatively few churches and ministries who claim to recognize the validity of genuine deliverance ministry, wherein demons are actually cast out of people, relegate this absolutely vital aspect of the ongoing ministry of Jesus to a backroom down the hall next to the restrooms and broom closet, metaphorically (but sometimes, literally) speaking.
Even those acknowledging the occasional and (to them) aberrational need for deliverance of some poor soul — usually the extreme cases — keep it at arm’s distance and as a hush-hush matter not to be discussed openly among the congregants, and regard those individuals who deal in this verboten activity of casting out demons as being somewhat “a bit off-center” and weird. This is how the vast majority of even Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal churches regard the matter of deliverance, despite the fact that casting out demons was the preeminent aspect of Jesus’ fleshly ministry, the first thing He commissioned the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb to do when He first sent them forth, and it was the first priority of His five-faceted “Great Commission.”
Beginning in 2006, God is bringing deliverance out of the back room and into the front room; out of the dark-room and into the Son-room; out of the bathrooms and into our living rooms; out of the broom closets into our prayer closets; out of the out-house and into His house and your house!
The next move (emphasis) of the Spirit in the Church Jesus is building, is an emphasis on deliverance — casting out devils. “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecc. 3:1). The season for purification of the Church has come. The time for wide scale deliverance of God’s people, as an initial step in effecting that purification, has come. God’s faithful servants who have, in the face of contempt, scorn, and derision, maintained their heart for deliverance and continued to diligently labor to set the captives free — their TIME HAS COME!
“And these signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name, they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will cast down (lit.) serpents (principalities)!” (Mk. 16:17,18)
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because he hath anointed Me to…preach deliverance to the captives…to set at liberty them that are bruised (abused, oppressed, downtrodden, despairing).” (Lk. 4:18)
The Son of God appeared for THIS PURPOSE, that He might destroy the works of the devil (that are manifest in people’s lives). (1 Jn. 3:8)
And when evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demonized (lit.); and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill in order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying, “He Himself took our infirmities, and removed (marg.) our diseases.”
A call of the Spirit for true deliverance is what God is declaring and decreeing, so true, God-called, -anointed, and -appointed intercessors must begin to get in line and agreement with the Spirit and pray this move into existence by praying for believers, leaders and laymen alike, to receive what God is doing. Jesus, in His earthly ministry, operated by receptivity, going only to those who were willing to receive Him, and taught the apostles to so operate as well. So also is it by receptivity that the Holy Spirit operates in our individual lives as well as churches. He will not force Himself upon anyone, but it is up to us to invite Him in and receive what He is saying and doing.
So also must the intercessors begin to specifically petition that the churches who have an ear to hear what the Spirit is speaking allow God to remove the veil that has been covering their eyes and blinding them to the truth and realities regarding the absolute REQUIREMENT of deliverance of every believer in order that the kingdom of Satan be purged from them, thereby enabling them to inherit the Kingdom of God into their hearts and incorporate it into their everyday lives.
This emphasis of the Spirit must come! NOW, is the time! In 2006, deliverance will be placed as a centerpiece in the Church Jesus is building, for Jesus is the Great Deliverer! Substantive progress by churches, even lampstand churches, will be impossible without a full and complete yielding to what the Spirit is speaking!
The Head of the Church — the true Deliverer who Moses typified and prefigured — is now standing before the true pharaoh, our adversary, the devil, and shouting the Divine Demand, “Let My people go!” And a mass-release of Moses-type deliverers, deputized as spiritual law enforcement officers to enforce the Law that has come forth from His mouth, is about to transpire, in numbers that will absolutely terrorize the devil and his cohorts! God is turning the tables on the devil and his demons behind the terrorism he has been perpetrating around the world, and is raising up Holy Ghost Terrorists — men and women filled with the dunamis-power of God who have forsaken all to become fierce freedom fighters of the Spirit determined to set God’s people free from every demonic bondage and assault.
God is about to send before Him a company of End-time John-the-Baptist-type prophetic messengers who will clear the way before His return to His temple, the Church:
“Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the Lord of hosts. “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. “He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness.
God’s people must be delivered from all satanic bondages in order to come into the purification required to be able to possess the Kingdom! Deliverance is the pathway to purification. 2006 marks the beginning of an emphasis on the purification of the Body of Christ and DELIVERANCE as a pathway to purification!
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