In early 2020 the world had fallen into chaos, in fact it seemed to have gone fairly mad. My family and I found ourselves in lockdown in Nelspruit, South Africa during this time, enduring curfews and strange rules that made hardly any common sense at all. The news was proclaiming panic and death; the town looked like a war zone with people dutifully lining up (with social distancing practices of course), to enter shops in order to do their essential shopping, all the while not knowing quite how they were to pay for their groceries after having lost businesses and jobs due to the mandatory lockdown rules being impressed upon them.
I looked upon all of this from my little flat in Nelspruit with growing excitement. The world has been flung into chaos; the people are being oppressed; mandated to do things against their own consciences or they would be barred from buying and selling… does this mean… could it possibly be… is Jesus soon to return?? Are WE, this generation, ME, to be in that number, that incredible privilege of watching His glorious descent from the clouds, trumpets blaring? Am I to meet Him in the sky??
I was nearly giddy with the excitement of it! I could scarce draw breath! And then I paused my celebratory joy for a moment in order to enquire of the King Himself,
“Lord, ARE You coming back now?”
And He took me up into an encounter.
I saw the Lord Jesus Christ in all His Splendour and glory standing on the precipice, the very threshold between Heaven and Earth. Just one step more would have Him over that supernatural border and into our realm once more. His arms were outstretched wide, and He was all in white.
All of heaven was behind Him pressing Him forward, urging Him on. The Spirit and the Bride say, Come! All the angels and saints, all the heavenly creatures were pushing Him from behind, eagerly awaiting that one final step, that moment that would change history and determine the coming of the new age: The ending of the Year of His Favour and the beginning of His Vengeance.
They pressed, I waited, holding my breath, but Jesus leaned back against their pressing. With arms stretched wide, He cried,
“No! Not yet!”
He turned to me and grabbed me by the shoulders. Shaking me in His earnestness, He gazed intently into my eyes with His eyes of burning fire! I gasped in awe and fear as He declared most vehemently,
“I refuse to come back until every last soul who could possibly be saved, gets saved!”
”I refuse to come back until every last soul who could possibly be saved, gets saved!”
JESUS
And I knew, in that instant, that there are precious souls here on the earth right now who would get saved if only they were given a chance, and that it was up to us, the Church, His Body, to give them that chance! Only months later was I reading a passage of Scripture and recognised it to be the written Word describing this very vision that I had seen:
2 Peter 3:3-4,9
Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation… The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
In that instant, I saw God Almighty draw in a deep breath from His Throne of Grace, and He blew a mighty wind from His mouth across the face of the whole earth. Everywhere that wind blew and encountered a saint who had even a tiny flicker of a fire in their heart, that wind fanned the flame and suddenly they were engulfed with a mighty blaze, as though they had been doused in petrol. They began to burn with such a brilliant flame of passion and glory that they could not stand still, and were compelled by a mighty force of the fires of His love to run out into the darkness, and none could stop them! And wherever these living flames ran, people saw and knew that Jesus Christ was Lord, and people began to surrender their lives to Him and to be saved. The last great Harvest was brought in and then He could Return.
And the Lord said to me,
“This revival will be unlike any other revival in the history of mankind in that it will not be restricted to one location or one ministry or denomination, but it will be for the heart of every believer in every church, in every denomination, in every town and city, in every nation, for the HEART OF THOSE THAT WANT IT, and it will be for two purposes:
1. To bring in the great Harvest in preparation for His Return
2. To purify the Bride in preparation for Her Bridegroom
I came out of that encounter shaking and trembling, weeping and crying out,
“Let it be so!”
“This revival will be unlike any other revival”
GOD
I spent months after meditating on this encounter, and to this day the Lord continues to expound to me all that is contained therein.
It is exceedingly important that we, His Church, understand the times and the season in which we are privileged to be living, and that we prepare ourselves in fasting and prayers for what is coming, and indeed is already here.
This is the season we are in:
Habakkuk 2:14
For the earth will be filled
With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD,
As the waters cover the sea.
Note, it does not say THE GLORY of God will cover the earth, but THE KNOWLEDGE OF HIS GLORY will cover the earth. All the peoples everywhere will KNOW of the glory of God. Every eye shall see, every ear shall hear, and every heart shall KNOW that Jesus Christ is Lord! Whether they hear or whether they forbear, they will KNOW.
And how shall they know? We, the Church, shall show them, tell them, demonstrate to them His glory, because we shall be the carriers of His glory, and we shall take it to them, because we shall have finally surrendered our lives into His hands and shall be set on fire with the fire of His great love, and that love shall compel us out into the darkness until the captives are set free and the lost shown hope in Christ Jesus. It is our mission and our mandate from the Lord Himself, and it is time to take up the Clarion Call of our King!
Isaiah 60:1-5
Arise, shine;
For your light has come!
And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you.
For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,
And deep darkness the people;
But the LORD will arise over you,
And His glory will be seen upon you.
The Gentiles shall come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising.
“Lift up your eyes all around, and see:
They all gather together, they come to you;
Your sons shall come from afar,
And your daughters shall be nursed at your side.
Then you shall see and become radiant,
And your heart shall swell with joy;
Because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you,
The wealth of the Gentiles shall come to you.
1 Chronicles 16:24
Declare His glory among the nations,
His wonders among all peoples.
It is time for the Knowledge of His Glory to cover the earth, and we are to take that knowledge to them!
One of the most astonishing and incredible promises in Scripture is found in Romans Chapter 10 and verse 13:
“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
What a glorious promise, too wonderful to comprehend! Whosoever! No matter how great the sin, how deep into the pit one has fallen, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved! What a mighty God we serve, full of compassion and rich in mercy!
However, this desperately promising verse is followed quickly by one of sobering horror:
Romans 10:14-16
How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written:
“How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace,
Who bring glad tidings of good things!”
But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “LORD, who has believed our report?”
Anyone can be saved, if only they should call on the name of the Lord, but they don’t even know that they can call upon Him! They do not even know the name of Him upon whom they should call! They do not KNOW! How do they not know? How shall they know unless they hear? And how shall they hear unless someone preaches and declares it, signs and wonders following to demonstrate that word, as Jesus said, and how should they preach unless they are sent?
My God, what horror is this, that the most hopeless of sinners can be saved, but they are clueless because we have left them so? We have remained silent! And why? Because we are not consumed with His love for them, which is the force that will compel us! We need the fires of His love to burn in us so that we will go, so that they will hear, so that they will KNOW of the glory of the Lord!
2 Corinthians 5:14-15
For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
We need a great move of His Spirit to wake us up, to fan those embers into flame, to consume us so that we can loosen the hold which we have on this world, and run for Him into the darkness. We have become too complacent, too consumed with feeding our own selfish desires, filling ourselves with all the comforts of the flesh that this world has to offer us that we have grown sleepy and deaf to the cries of the heart of God, the desperate urgency burning in Jesus’ heart, in His eyes, and we have lived to please ourselves and not Him who is altogether Worthy! No more! May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering!
It is the hungry who get fed (Matthew 5:6), and so that is to be our first posture. The Lord showed me in that encounter that this great move of His Spirit would catch the hearts of THOSE WHO WANT IT. Those who don’t will miss out because it is the hungry who get fed. Those who have gorged themselves on other things will not be hungry for the things of the Spirit and will miss Him when He comes.
Therefore, the first step is to get hungry! How do we accomplish that? I have found that the simplest way is to stop eating! Stop eating of the comforts of the flesh, stop gorging yourself on the momentary pleasures and comforts of this world, stop allowing the thorns to choke out His Word. Stop eating earthly things, and you will soon become hungry for the things of God. Fast and pray and watch diligently for Him. In order to do that, you must first stop eating of this world.
Isaiah 55:1-2
“Ho! Everyone who thirsts,
Come to the waters;
And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without price.
Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.
Those who want to partake of His Will and His Kingdom will do this.
Step One: get hungry! That is our responsibility. Fasting helps. Prayer helps. Eating from His Word daily… denying the flesh and walking in the Spirit. That depends upon us. Some will diligently begin to do so, to seek the Lord while He is near, whilst others will choose to remain sleepy and content in the flesh, eating from the entertainments of this world.
As for me, I will say,
“Your face, Lord, I will seek!”
2 Chronicles 15:12
And they entered into a covenant to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul;
2 Chronicles 12:14
And he did evil, because he prepared not his heart to seek the LORD.
Isaiah 55:6
Seek the LORD while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
Psalms 27:4
One thing I have desired of the LORD,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the LORD,
And to inquire in His temple.
Psalms 27:8
When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, LORD, I will seek.”
Step One is our responsibility. Do you want to participate? Do you want to be in that number?
Step Two is His response and promise.
You will be filled!
Matthew 5:6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
For they shall be filled.
Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
You shall be filled with His love, His power, His grace and His beauty! Filled to overflowing because our God is gracious and merciful, rich in love and glorious in power! You will be filled so fully that you will be overflowing and unable to stand still! You will be full of fire! You shall run and not grow weary, walk and not faint! He longs to fill His Church! We are meant to be the point at which heaven meets earth! We are meant to be carriers of His glory! We are the temple of the Holy Spirit! Once we empty ourselves of the muck of this world, we shall be filled with His power and glory, and our legs will begin to move, our feet will be shod with the preparation of His Gospel, and we shall GO, just as He always intended.
We shall not be moved by necessity or obligation, but by LOVE! The fire and vehemence of His love shall compel us out the door and into the highways and byways. The valley of dry bones shall become an army. The voice of the voiceless shall be raised in praise and declaration of His goodness! The few elite preachers will give way to the masses of the faceless, nameless lovers of God who are overflowing with fire because they bothered to make themselves, hungry, to seek His face, to wait on Him just as the disciples did leading up to the day of Pentecost and they shall be filled with tongues of fire just as they were then, but with a great, burning fire – for the latter day rain shall be greater and it shall fall, and great shall be the outpouring of it!
Habakkuk 2:9-11
“Woe to him who covets evil gain for his house,
That he may set his nest on high,
That he may be delivered from the power of disaster!
You give shameful counsel to your house,
Cutting off many peoples,
And sin against your soul.
For the stone will cry out from the wall,
And the beam from the timbers will answer it.
No longer shall the Elite one stand up on high to make his nest above the others, but the Only One who shall be exalted is Jesus, the name above all names! And instead shall cry out the lowly stone from the wall, the beam from the ceiling, the nameless saints who have been stirring themselves to hunger, to prayers and fasting through the night! For we are His workmanship, a building fitly framed together, Jesus Christ Himself being the cornerstone, that we might become a habitation for the presence of the Lord, that we may display His glory to the world, just as He intended for His Church from the day of Pentecost to this day when those flames of fire fell from heaven!
Ephesians 2:19-22
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
Ephesians 5:14-21
Therefore He says:
“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”
See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.
Acts 1:8
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Isaiah 61:1-3
“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me,
Because the LORD has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.”
Step One: Stop eating of the pleasures of this world and get hungry!
Step Two: be filled by the power and love of the Lord
Step Three: GO!
You cannot possibly keep this burning fire of the Lord’s Passion at bay; you cannot withstand the blazing flame of His love! It will command your every sense, consume your every waking hour until it bends you over and you cannot but GO to those He loves, to those He sacrificed His very life for in His great Passion!
Jeremiah 20:9
Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him,
Nor speak anymore in His name.”
But His word was in my heart like a burning fire
Shut up in my bones;
I was weary of holding it back,
And I could not.
2 Corinthians 5:14-15
For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
Song of Songs 8:5-7
Who is this coming up from the wilderness,
Leaning upon her beloved?
I awakened you under the apple tree.
There your mother brought you forth;
There she who bore you brought you forth.
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
As a seal upon your arm;
For love is as strong as death,
Jealousy as cruel as the grave;
Its flames are flames of fire,
A most vehement flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor can the floods drown it.
If a man would give for love
All the wealth of his house,
It would be utterly despised.
1 Corinthians 9:16
For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!
Matthew 28:18-20
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
We are sent in the power of His Spirit, burning with a love that cannot be quenched no matter what is thrown against us to hinder us, and they will hear, and they will KNOW, because we go demonstrating His love in both Word and by the power of the Holy Spirit with signs and wonders following, and the KNOWLEDGE of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, because we will be the carriers of His glory, as the Church was designed by Him to be from the beginning, and they will either turn and be saved, or reject Him and perish, but they SHALL know.
Ephesians 3:21
to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
And we shall be preparing the way of His return by bringing all those to salvation who remain.
And then He shall Return.
Maranatha
The Spirit and the Bride say, Come.
My prayer for the Church in this hour:
Ephesians 3:14-21
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.