Posts Tagged ‘eternity’

“I had a dream”

I shot up from my bed last night, disoriented, shattered and horrified. I cried out, “No, no, no. Stop! No!”

I’m a dreamer. God gives me dreams on a regular basis, and often the subject matter is jarring. The Lord isn’t hesitant to stir and trouble me if it results in an alarm being sounded and sleepers being shocked awake. 

This dream should do just that.

This divine vision of the night started with me in an apocalyptic setting, waist-high in water that had settled where city streets should have been. 

The mood was foreboding. In fact, there has to be a better descriptive word to use here. What I was experiencing took me well beyond foreboding for sure. Hopeless. Terrorizing. Evil. 

Everywhere I looked I saw able-bodied people slowly pushing, guiding emaciated, zombie-looking people through the water. One near-dead, weakened, contorted person for each individual that still had a measure of strength.

I also had someone with me, someone who had lost all life from her eyes. Her body was nearly limp, floating through the water as I ever-so-slowly pushed her along. She didn’t speak. Nobody did. Neither the guides nor the guided. Hope was gone. There was nothing left to say.

I didn’t fully understand what was happening until, finally, after some time moving toward the intended target along with all of the other guides, the horror struck me.

I understood why hope was gone and why death had overtaken the innumerable limp, demon-like individuals. 

We were guiding them to Hell.

I looked ahead to an opening in an old wall which led inside an old building. This is where we were headed. Nobody asked questions. Nobody said anything. There was no turning back. There was no hope. The judgment was final.

Once inside the building, there was an opening, a portal. A portal to Hell. One by one, guides pushed the guided into the eternally dark hole, into never-ending pain, torment, fear and despair.

I didn’t know the person I was guiding. Or at least I didn’t recognize her. She looked barely human. I could easily visualize what she might have looked like just prior to entering into eternity. 

Maybe a vibrant mother, full of laughter, full of life, playing with her children at the playground.

Or, she could have been a motivational speaker. Possibly an energetic entrepreneur. Could she have even been a minister? A small-group leader? A Sunday School teacher?

Who knows. But I could imagine her as free, alive, vivacious, full of energy, driven by dreams, loved by many and excited about what the rest of her life would bring her.

Her eternity, however, wasn’t given sufficient thought.

It’s My Fault

As I waited my turn to push this person, this person Jesus died for, this person who just moments ago was alive and well, into the abyss, I understood the message.

Even before I woke up, I was wrecked, dismayed and troubled beyond any possibility of explanation. Her journey to Hell could have been avoided. Her eternity different. It was my fault. I was her escort to Hell.

Before that one haunting, final push, I awakened. 

I shot up, and cried out. The horrors and indescribable, suffocating and eternally hopeless reality of Hell overtook me. 

After several tense moments I prayed and asked God to speak to me clearly about what just happened. Most of the message was obvious. Hell is real. Eternity is forever. The experience will make you go mad. 

But, what about the escorts? Why was I involved? The weight of the matter was crushing me. 

My sense was that the escorts represented Christians, and often, ministers. Our failure to preach truth, to love deeply, to warn loudly and to allow the Holy Spirit to move in our lives results in what I encountered in my dream. We escort people to Hell. We are partners in their eternal torment.

Is this a message to awaken the evangelist in us? Sure it is. But I believe it’s more than that.

One Night

Last night, prior to my destined journey into the dream realm, I was giving leadership at a powerful, weighty and sober prayer meeting. We prayed in the Spirit with passion. We hit our knees in desperation. The glory and presence of God was thick and it was hard to stand at times. God was up to something.

One of the strongest prophetic words that I’ve received in quite some time hit me in a moment. In fact, I instructed our team to erase a whiteboard that contained prophetic messages, decrees and other revelation from earlier in the night. I felt what God was about to release demanded a fresh slate and our undivided attention.

With supernatural unction, I decreed, “One night!” I said it again, “One night!” 

One night. God was brooding over us and his Spirit was rallying this raw, hungry group around one focus. One mission. One night.

I felt God yearning to show up and, for lack of a better human expression, show off. He wanted full liberty to move with great power exactly as he desires. 

I was tempted, while in my prophetic moment, to announce the obvious. “One night will result in an ongoing outpouring that will be felt around the world.” God immediately shut my mouth. He said, “One night.” 

He wants us fully surrendered to his simple plan. He wants us ready to respond to a sudden invasion of the force of Heaven in our city. He wants us focused, zeroed in on the simplicity of a moment.

One night.

The enemy knows very well how powerful a moment can be. One night. One day. One hour. One minute.

At 8:46AM local time, on September 11th, 2001, the first hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower. 

At 9:03AM, the second airplane was intentionally crashed into the South Tower.

At 9:37AM, another airplane hits the Pentegon.

At 10:02AM the final plane lands in an empty field, it’s ultimate planned destination unknown.

The entire world changed in one moment.

At 9:02AM local time on April 19th, 1995, a bomb exploded, killing 168 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

One moment.

God understands the power of sudden impact as well.

In 1993, two years before the revival began, Brownsville’s pastor, John Kilpatrick, began directing his congregation to pray for revival.[4] Over the next two years, he talked constantly about bringing revival to the church, even going as far as to threaten to leave the church if it didn’t accept the revival. 

On Father’s Day June 18, 1995, a Sunday, the revival began, evangelist Steve Hill was the guest speaker, having been invited by Kilpatrick. Later, Hill and Kilpatrick, told of “a mighty wind” that blew through the church, an account that quickly spread across the Pentecostal community.

During the revival, nearly 200,000 accepted Christianity, and by the Fall of 2000 more than 1,000 people who experienced the revival were enrolled at the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry.

All told, more than 2.5 million people have visited the church’s Monday prayer and Tues-through-Saturday evening revival services, where they sang rousing worship music and heard old-fashioned sermons on sin and salvation. After the sermons were over, hundreds of thousands accepted the invitation to leave their seats and rush forward to a large area in front of the stage-like altar.

One moment that change the world after two years of fervent prayer for revival. 

One follow-on revival, often called the Smithton Outpouring, occurred in the small town of Smithton, Missouri, at Smithton Community Church. It was significant because it was not connected with the Assemblies of God. The pastor, Steve Gray, visited the Brownsville Revival in 1996 while in the midst of personal turmoil, returned to his church of 150 members and hosted a 3-year revival which saw about 250,000 visitors. (Wikipedia https://w.wiki/AKMb)

One moment, one hungry pastor and one outpouring that launched because of another.

ESCORTS TO HEAVEN

The church must see a revolution, a revival that awakens those who are slumbering. A strike from Heaven must come to each of us!

Many people are convinced they are safe, following Jesus and ready for Heaven, all while they are aimlessly walking through life like the Rich Young Ruler. They think they are saved, but they are not. Will we warn them? Will we guide them away from the fires of Hell? Will we preach the truth necessary to stun them out of their “eternal security” mind-set? Will we love them enough to help initiate authentic revival that will contain the evidence they need to repent?

Many of those in my dream were certainly people who were convinced they were saved. Many of those being guided were shocked and instantly sucked lifeless. Many of the guides, the escorts to Hell, possessed no urgency either. Their failure, my failure, became another’s torment.

We must have revival. One night. One moment. 

When revival comes, the outpouring follows. When the outpouring lands, everybody’s trajectory changes. 

Pastors start shouting truth from the rooftops. Christians repent and discover the power of the Spirit of God. Love for Jesus explodes. Sin diminishes. Demons are cast out. Death is squashed. Life erupts.

And, we stop guiding people to Hell. 

We become commissioned, transformed and on-fire escorts toward eternity with Jesus in Heaven.

The inner-evangelist in us will come out of hiding. Prophetic messages will no longer be tempered. Church services will not be toned down. Wickedness won’t be tolerated. Witchcraft will be exposed. A lukewarm church and an apathetic people will be rescued just mere moments prior to being vomited out of the mouth of God.

We will discover the wonder of full, joyful surrender to Jesus. Our passion, our anointing and our message will captivate the lost. Reformation will hit the church. Revolution will overtake the city. Revival will raise the dead.

Yes, we are all guides. We are escorts. We aren’t only leading one person toward eternity, but many. 

The question is, where exactly will we be guiding them?