The prophet Habakkuk had a burden and complained of current events to the Lord, who answered him at Hab 1. The prophet asked another question and wrote:
I will stand my watch
And set myself on the rampart,
And watch to see what He will say to me,
And what I will answer when I am corrected.
2 Then the Lord answered me and said:
“Write the vision
And make it plain on tablets,
That he may run who reads it.
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
Because it will surely come,
It will not tarry…” (Habakkuk 2:2-3 NKJV)
New Year’s Day 2015 brought an insight that confirmed my extending and splitting this post in two – one part for the Old Year, this for the New Year – was indeed correct.
During December, however, my intention had been to share thoughts on the Incarnation and In the Beginning. But it wasn’t to be. Events in the USA on that first weekend were still simmering in my mind. Let’s recap briefly:
In Holy lightning beyond ‘The Pond’… I reported what happened upon hearing Lindell Cooley leading worship at the first Sunday morning service for Church of His Presence (CHP). They’d just moved into a brand-new building near Daphne, Alabama (location).
Then, the first part of this post referred to two prophecies which accurately foretold the Brownsville and Bay of the Holy Spirit Revivals, also to inspired remarks before that church’s move out of Mobile Convention Centre.
Judgment
That first part also gave an introduction to revival, but some readers may think America is long overdue for divine judgement. This is a deep topic which I cannot hope to cover in a short blog. My present purpose is to make some observations only. Many teachers and commentators in the US regularly refer to it; eg. Anne Graham-Lotz, John McTernan and William Koenig to name a few, and with whom I’m familiar.
In his book As America Has Done To Israel, John McTernan tells how his grandfather’s account of how a large enclave of the German-American Alliance on Long Island was devastated by the Great Hurricane of 1938, just days after the largest Nazi rally outside Europe. This gave him an understanding of how dealing with Israel in an un-Godly way brings catastrophic consequences, usually within days. His blog continues to cover this in-depth and often refers to his expectation of a much greater judgement coming to the USA.
In What Time Is It? the guest preacher at CHP, Dotty Schmitt, gave a superb message on prophecy on 16 May last. She spoke about the modern Sons of Issachar being able to discern the times and what’s happening in the heavenlies. A ‘new sound’, she said, is coming from every nation and she learned from Scotland what God is doing in this new season of revival. God is telling us to “Wake up to what is happening in the earth!” and to be saturated in His Word.
What caught my attention was her reference to what I’d already devoted many posts to: an ‘invisible jigsaw’. She told about waiting in God’s presence and having a vision of a big picture puzzle and seeing different pieces – very like my post of 20 March. The Lord explained it to her,
“You have begun to see how the End-times pieces of Biblical prophecy, history, current events, various situations, are fitting together – and it’s opened up within you a River of Life.”
(Proverbs 16:22 ‘In understanding there’s a fountain of life’.)
She asked the Lord, “How does it all fit together?” and Luke 24 spoke to her: “Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said ‘Now wait until you are endued with power from on high’.”
One sign of the End-times is deception, which has moved across the land and caused the nation to make wrong choices and decisions that have opened a door to the enemy and will bring troubles. Dotty quoted Anne Graham-Lotz’s remark at the National Day of Prayer that all the warning bells are going off.
Like McTernan, accredited Christian journalist at The White House, William Koenig, has kept close tabs on the events that bring about judgment upon a nation. The ones that have definitely been triggered are all those relating to the treatment of Israel. His Inside the White House report of 26 December categorises ‘evil endorsed from the highest political office in the land’ but expresses candid surprise as follows:
- The only surprising thing to me has been the delay in the consequences — but when they do happen, they will be even more earth-shaking. (Emphasis RB)
Perhaps that delay may be explained by what’s in the Lord’s pipeline for America? So let’s check out another prophecy for America by re-visiting the Brownsville Revival:
Toronto and Pensacola
As the Friday and Saturday meetings of CHP’s dedication weekend 5-7 December were in the evenings we had to wait for them to be archived before watching. (As mentioned above, we saw Sunday’s live ahead of those preceding meetings.) The speaker for the second evening was, most unusually!, unable to attend at the last minute and so pastor Rev John Kilpatrick had only the afternoon to prepare a message.
Nevertheless, the Lord gave John a download about how culture gets changed for good or evil. So he opened his message on ‘Power Shifters’ by referring to the undesirable effects of ungodly cultural attitudes upon society, eg. the establishment of casinos by criminals, introduction of immorality and rebellion at the Woodstock festivals, as well as Martin Luther King’s godly campaign against racial segregation. All provoked or enabled demonic principalities to react and even manifest in those areas.
After that background, John told of his deep desire in the 1980s for revival and starting prayers for the Lord to send one to the Assemblies of God church he led in Brownsville, Pensacola, in the panhandle of Florida. Intercessors prayed yet, as demonic opposition was reacting, people in church and the media turned against plans for revival.
This pastor spoke in-depth on those days and how the Lord answered their prayers 20 years ago, for the Lord had told him in 1986,
“Son, the heavens are clouding over from New Orleans to this way…towards Pensacola.” He said, “The heavens are brassing over. Disobedience and rebellion is causing the heavens that were once yielding to begin to brass over.
“If you preach what I give you and you will preach it unafraid, and un-intimidated on television, I will hold that brass heaven back and I will open the heavens from the I10 (Interstate 10) all along this Gulf coast.”
In about 1993 the Lord reminded John of those words and said,
“I’m about to open the heavens over Pensacola. I’m about to pour out My Spirit in this place, but first you must make it a house of prayer.”
He recounted the difficulty experienced introducing a new way of praying and the need for prayer warfare because of spiritual opposition. They included communion and kept going for over two years. Consequently, the church grew by over 20%. Eventually he and Lindell Cooley began to sense a quickening in their bodies and spirit.
His wife Brenda went to check out a revival and very different way of conducting church at the end of a runway of Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Canada. On January 20th 1994 a Vineyard preacher named Randy Clark, who’d been invited by pastor John Arnott, delivered a message and invited folk forward fro prayer. But the Lord made His presence felt in the house and disrupted the scheduled programme! So the preacher had to stay on for several weeks. Daily services were convened and the presence of the Lord remained for over 10 years.
News spread rapidly world-wide of what became known as The Toronto Blessing, which was principally marked by believers being filled with, and even overwhelmed by, the joy of the Holy Spirit. It was so strong that most would appear ‘drunk’ in deep merriment. Coming from God, however, this ‘supernatural drink’ has no ‘toxic limit’ and is free from any hangover effects!
When Brenda Kilpatrick went there she stood in the sanctuary for prayer. The Toronto Airport Church Fellowship’s way of ministering prayer to hundreds of people was for them to stand on lines several feet apart as many would fall down as though ‘slain’ as the Holy Spirit came upon them when the ministry team worked their way along them. (In my case I ‘sparked’ well beforehand!) A lady approached Brenda and John tells what happened next:
“Before she could lay a hand on her, fhfhfhfhfhhh, it was like a torch was lit over her head and fire came down over her head, her ears, down to her collar-bone and worked its way back up”.
This was in the first years of The Toronto Blessing and before the repentance revival was to break out in a Brownsville church on Father’s Day 1995. Brenda was powerfully set on fire by Holy Spirit in Toronto and John described the radical, joyous effect of the Lord’s presence that he noticed upon her return.
“When I saw her, her face glowed like an angel, her hair glistened like gold and silver, and I ran to her and said, “Brenda, what’s happened to you?” And she said, “I’ve been with the Lord!”
At a prayer meeting led by Brenda upon her return, a lady who rarely spoke told John that, whilst in Seattle, she’d heard about a prophetic word from a visiting pastor from South Korea. John told the gathering what she’d said to him,
“I was in a meeting where Dr Yonggi Cho was and he told of when he was in a hotel room in Seattle getting ready to preach that night. He then asked the Lord if He’s reserved America for judgment or, “Are You going to pour out Your Spirit on America?” and the Lord said,
“I’m not going to judge, I’m not going to bring My judgment on America – I’m going to pour out My Spirit. Get your atlas out of your attaché case!”
“He opened up the atlas and opened up the map of the United States and the Holy Spirit said, “Point!” His finger landed right on the dot for Pensacola, and the Holy Spirit said to Dr Cho,
“I’m going to pour out My Spirit first in Pensacola – it will burn like a match-head, fiery, there and it will go west along the I10 to the Mississippi river, (which the Spanish called the ‘River of The Holy Spirit’). Then it will back up along the Gulf coast, go down the peninsular of Florida, go up the Eastern seaboard and come down into the Mid-West and South-West and shoot out through the North-West; and before My Coming ALL of America will be ablaze with The glory of God!”
John says that night the Spirit of God fell upon the leaders of that Pensacola church and he saw God do great things. John attested that his dear wife was obviously instrumental in bringing this about.
“I didn’t know how close we were to Revival but God sent us Steve Hill, a passionate revivalist, a simple evangelist with a simple message – like Reinhard [as last night]…
“I said all that about [ungodly/demonic areas] for one reason. There’s a lot of places in America that you can go back to and test the DNA of certain cities, and test the DNA of certain places, and there’s things there that remain to this day after decades – sometimes 100s of years – but what happened on Father’s Day of 1995 <clap!> (John clapped his hands loudly)…a SHIFT happened…in America. Things shifted.
“Steve Hill was ‘the match’ – ‘the fumes’ were in the room because we’d prayed for two and a half years – ‘fumes’ were in the room – Steve Hill was ‘the match’ <CLAP>, Lindell Cooley was ‘the psalmist’, I was the pastor that had ‘headship’ over it all.
“God put together a pastor, an evangelist and a psalmist together …and Revival broke out! And things shifted in America and the religious world, it changed denominations, it changed Pensacola, it changed the whole Gulf coast – and that’s what we’re all doing here tonight!…Things shifted – God used one man, Steve Hill, to shift things.”
Furthermore, pastor Kilpatrick referred to a much older prophetic word from the historic Pentecostal Revival over 100 years ago:
“There was a prophecy in California years ago that God was going to pour out His Spirit at Azuza Street, and the Lord said it will start at Azuza Street and wind up at Zee Street on the East coast…and Brownsville was located at Desoto and Zee Street (Pensacola).
“So God used one man – Steve Hill – as a power shifter and things changed…When Lindell came before the Revival broke out you could feel right at the end of praise and prayer you could feel the atmosphere thinning out and every Sunday another layer could be peeled off like an onion – it even began to feel like there was no ceiling over .. you could literally feel the heavens opening over Brownsville…I promise you that is the truth…and on Father’s Day <CLAP> the match was lit and it was like there was no roof at all and the heavens opened!”
John then quoted the vision of the river from the Throne of God seen by Ezekiel, about which I’d been struck when someone spoke on 9th November about the church’s return to Daphne (as in part 1):
“Let me tell you where I think we’re heading – into waters over our head! I believe it…This place isn’t going to bring Revival, it’s going to be a place where God’s going to send revival”. He went on to speak quietly about what he believes is going to happen in Alabama.
The Gulf coast
Nina briefly popped out of the room but upon return she was hit by another ‘holy lightning bolt’ because what John was saying. She had to lean against the wall and transfixed there as a surge Holy Spirit’s power went right through her, as with Lindell Cooley’s praise song “We Will Ride”.
This is what John was saying,
“I believe there’s going to come a powerful shift that will begin in Alabama, and the shift that takes place here (CHP’s location) – among other places – is going to begin to shift this nation back to where it should be – amen!
“Now don’t make this mistake – don’t make this mistake, don’t make the mistake that whatever God does next He’s done before, because it’s not!
“There’s a new sound that’s coming! There’s a new level of worship that’s coming! There’s a new level of revelation preaching that’s coming!
“AND there’s a NEW LEVEL and a NEW BREED of Millennials that God is raising up and what Martin Luther King was to the movement that helped bring the blacks to emancipation, what Abraham Lincoln was to the Emancipation Proclamation. God’s about to touch some Millennials that are prophetic, they’re evangelistic, they’re anointed – and there’s a vacuum – they’re going to rise up under a fresh anointing and God’s going to use them in a POWERFUL WAY – and don’t you doubt it!…
“The Bible plainly says that in the Last Days, “I shall pour out My Spirit on all flesh, on all your sons and all your daughters (etc)…As we know things tonight you may think you know who God’s going to raise up and touch and how things are going to be, but I tell you, you’re going to be totally surprised by what the Lord’s going to do! It’s going to catch you off-guard because you’re going to be thinking and looking in one direction and God’s going to come around from another direction and catch you.
“So be open to whatever God’s doing…you know I’m so excited about the possibility of God beginning to pour out His glory in these Last Days that I’m looking for it appearing as an actual, visible sign, just like He did for Israel in the wilderness of a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. The Bible says that in the last days the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
“You’re going to begin to see signs of the glory of the Lord that will confound the nations!…And the glory of the Lord shall be for your defence…
“Here’s what I’m saying to you as a mouthpiece tonight of the Lord, I’m saying this prophetically to you: even in America to those churches that will turn to God with all their heart, God’s about to give them a revelation of the glory of God where protection will be so powerful (detailed promises to those assembled)…the glory of the Lord is going to be our rear-guard…”.
Amen!
Conclusion
Thus we may soon see a fresh move of revival in the USA, as prophesied not only by Bob Jones, Paul Keith Davis and Dr Paul Yonggi Cho but also by an intercessor for America, Dutch Sheets (at 2 below).
It is particularly noteworthy that the Lord has graciously used John Kilpatrick to host two revivals, so he has a good track record as a leading revivalist. No doubt he’s also well aware of Steve Hill’s warnings on the need to deal with these hindrances:
- neglect of God’s work of atonement
- disobedience
- daily denial of God’s presence in our lives.
Pastor Kilpatrick’s first series of teaching in the new building is based upon the radical revelation Jesus gave his first disciples – that God is ‘Father’. So John is teaching about and ministering into effects of dysfunctional fathering upon believers. This will enable them to come closer to heavenly Father and move fully into their adoption as children of God.
One of the enduring and renowned benefits of the Toronto outpouring over its several years is a better understanding within the Body of Christ of the Father Heart of God. So John Arnott refers to that revival as ‘The Fathers Blessing’. [See my wife’s account of how she no longer remained officially registered as ‘permanently disabled” when John visited Bath and decided not to preach after hearing the Lord say He wanted to heal.]
Could it be that a repetition of such deeply practical teaching will be foundational for a full revival to re-visit the USA and thus be far more empowered than previously?
I pray so…
CONTINUE reading at next post, A couple of visions about Revival in the USA >>
UPDATE 2nd March: see “Revival of Prayer” in Lion Bite: Watchmen Arise!
Sources:
- CHP’s archived message Power Shifters will prove useful to all students of the history of Revival. Pastor Kilpatrick commences speaking as above at 1:26:00.
- Dutch Sheets (within) 46,000 churches called to prayer for Great Awakening.
- John Peters: ‘Great Revivalists’ (CWR 2008); see brief review here.
- John Peters: ‘The Story of Toronto through the lives of John & Carol Arnott’.
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