May 16 2008 Some friends at IHOP sent me a message to say that last night Todd Bentley prophesied that a healing revival would break out in Cape Town in five different places. I could not agree more – I believe that the Lord has prepared fountains of healing revival in specific places here too (they are starting to well up and they are so beautiful). From prophetic words I have received from the Lord I know one of those places are Woodstock and the other is MUIZENBERG.
Church of the resurrection
This is so exciting – the Lord is really doing it. I have received two separate dreams from God about what he wants to do in Muizenberg over the years and recently I received a third. Please read it over and pray and receive it as what I believe is God’s holy intention (I am so excited). He has called his church in Muizenberg “the most beautiful church, the church of the resurrection”:
This is so exciting – the Lord is really doing it. I have received two separate dreams from God about what he wants to do in Muizenberg over the years and recently I received a third. Please read it over and pray and receive it as what I believe is God’s holy intention (I am so excited). He has called his church in Muizenberg “the most beautiful church, the church of the resurrection”:I dreamt I was back in Israel on a tour of the land and they brought us to a town, that I later found out was Muizenberg and there we were taken to a most beautiful church that was actually a monastery. The entrance to the monastery was shrouded in darkness. I went ahead of my tour alone into the monastery and the place was absolutely beautiful - only there was a dead tree in the middle of the courtyard which didn’t have a living thing in it.(no grass or anything - and no paving either). But for the rest it was absolutely beautiful - full of light and sunset colours. I spoke to the tour guide and I asked her what church this was because it was much more beautiful than the church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity - and she said, “its the Church of the Resurrection” - and i felt a strong emphasis on the word “Resurrection”. I went back to the entry and there were people loitering around because it was dark and they didn’t believe me that this was the most beautiful church in all of Israel - because of the darkness. They were reluctant to go through and I told them - to just trust and move through the darkness which was just at the entry. the tour by the way was on a train - which is nice image of being “on track” - of guidance along a path. Amazing - the dream continued to a beautiful nature reserves on the hills outlying Muizenberg (still the holy land) - and I thought that I didn’t explore the Holy Land before but now I would - each weekend I would come here.
I believe the dream is really expressing God’s purpose to not just a pour out a revival but to build a church of resurrection power. The tree is dead –but life can still spring from it. Perhaps also it is dead because the cross (that is the tree) is empty and Christ is risen. That the church is a monastery was for me totally speaking about the fact that the bride of Christ is a dwelling place for God – a place of 24/7 communion with him. The darkness at the entrance is a warning to press in in faith – that at the outset we are required to press in faith, just as Sean was saying. We cannot see the future – but we have word and the prophetic to guide us by his promises into the church, and beyond the entrance. Only believe.
Felt the Lord say that the next few months are going to be absolutely critical – there is a window of grace – an invitation extended for the next few months to move deeper into the things of God – things that he has set aside for this time – truly beautiful gifts of the Spirit and special favour. There really is a grace for it, but we have to seize it. We have to partner with God by contending for it, so that his kingdom can come and the revival in Muizenberg can leap like fire does into Mitchell’s Plain. This is another place I feel the Lord wants to pour out in.
For the Bay Community Church
I also believe that it is time for the Bay to give away what it has received – and to do it in particular to the youth on the Cape Flats. To be a church that is a big momma to the fatherless on the flats by creating an enabling space for these youngsters to come in and be totally filled, saturated, overwhelmed and swept off their feet by the lover of their souls. Hallelujah. I saw young men from the flats totally lost in worship in what looked like one of those Heidi baker tents. Young men!! The types we expect to see in Pollsmoor, lost in worship before the King. Oh see this with me and praise God. What can be more beautiful than this?
The dream vision I am referring to all took place on New Years Eve – and we were being called to build a road between Muizenberg and Mitchell’s Plain. In the dream there was no such road and we had to bundu bash – in the dream the message was that people were locked into the Flats so that all the evils there could fester like a bog. The toll to get out (there were toll gates to get out of Mitchell’s Plain) was too expensive and nobody could afford it. Well Jesus can – and he is inviting us to partner with him by building this “road” – this way out, the way of Jesus. Its difficult because it runs along a treacherous coast with cliffs and wild winds – a lot of opposition and danger. But there are many people whose lives depend on it. People not only called to the Kingdom waiting to be born – people whom God will use to reign in life, people who will become the sent ones.
Here are the remaining words for Muizenberg that the Lord has given me over the years (they and words about a 24/7 in Muizenberg (not mine) are the reason I live here and go the Bay):
The first was a couple of years back - and in the dream i felt like the Lord say that this area is a place from which spiritual warfare into the interior of africa can be launched. that other spiritual forces - the very ones at work in africa have tried to establish themelves here - but that the Lord was going to launch a warring thrust of his kingdom into the heart of Africa that was marked by absolute humility and gentle mercy.
Then I had a three series vision/ dream. The first image was of young men lost in worship on the flats in a Heidi Baker tent, and the second I forgot. In the third, it was New Years Eve. We were a group of missionaries, and Jesus the evangelist was our tour guide. He explained that one of the design problems with Cape Town, intentionally so, was to cut communities off from one another. Had a sense this began in the 60’s – forty years ago. The Lord showed us there was no real road leading to Muizenberg. The road just ended and it became wild bush and impassable cliffs. To get out we had to pay a toll - and this toll, which we paid, was too expensive for people living there. We were beating a path to Muizenberg (we had to get out of our car and walk). I had a sense that we had to come back to build a road between the Cape Flats and Muizenberg to enable people to break out of the oppression of everything that place represents - poverty, bitter hatred and division, bloodthirstiness and murder, addiction. I had such a sense of God’s anger and offense at the complete injustice of the situation of the people in MP.
Thank and praise God for his amazing amazing purposes. He is Holy!
My personal feeling is to build a house of 24/7 prayer here. To begin somewhere with something just by praying, partnering with God and his word to see his kingdom come through prophetic intercession based on scripture, through pure devotion to Christ and a fasted lifestyle that is satisfied more by faith than food. Bay is quite a unique church in that it has a grace to push through in the things of the Spirit and the direction the Lord leads the church in. This is important - this is not a church that stands still. It has a prophetic and pioneering “mantle”. Like God’s Throne, let’s be a bride on wheels. Its so easy to get stuck, lose sight, lose faith, sing in circles…. pray arbitratrily. Let’s press in and respond to the call to deeper communion, faith and the promise of resurrection for our city.
Monday, June 16, 2008
God or African pride - what will it be?
I have been thinking about what if God is saying anything to South Africa at this time. Does God speak to nations? Does he care about human society in that way. Is he interested in how history unfolds - does he have a part to play. What’s he saying? What is God saying to the church of South Africa at this place in time. I believe that God is profoundly interested and involved in the unfolding of history or the future (whichever way you look at it) – and that if we were to seek him, he would answer us. He would express himself to us - his heart. Its hard not to have your attention drawn to South Africa as a nation at this time. This has been a year of crisis upon crisis.
The riots, the politics, the food crisis, the power crisis. Each one worse than the next. Yet, all the while, in our pride and in our greed we drunkenly are staggering toward the 2010 World Cup, singing victory songs, sloshed on the wine of optimistic greediness. What vain imagination! What would the Lord say to that? Why would he care to say anything? He cares - there’s proof enough in the Bible that he cares. Daniel 2:21 says that God determines world events - and that his ultimate plan is to bring his kingdom to earth. More than that - all through the Bible is this one desire of God’s whispered and echoed, spoken and shouted, finally declared, that God will dwell with man on earth, that he shall be their God, and we His people. We shall dwell together. So we are his future, and he is ours, and that is why he determines world events, raising and deposing kings, revealing his plans in detail. He will come and dwell with us soon - He shall return.
I believe, the Lord Jesus is saying – “wake up, look to me and see that I am the only solution”. They are like plagues, these crises – the plague of power, the plague of famine, the plague of thirst, the plague of murder, the plague of idolatry, all from man worshipping himself. In his boastfulness and depravity he builds himself an idol to worship. South Africa is building an idol, but God is saying you may not build this idol to worship, you may not plan this idol to worship, you may not execute your plan – it’s the idol of Afro-humanism – the idol that says I will not be trampled afoot anymore. I will also be superior, I will also be great, be worshipped, be equal with the west, but better than too. I will show you that I am really much better than you – even while I fear I am nothing. See this nation – in the halls of government and in the media, in the halls of power trying to build the idol of African self redemption and self worship. Its so important for Africa to redeem herself, to show she has the power save herself, to show that she is also to be worshipped in the way the West worships itself. In her pride she says no-one will save me. I will save myself.
The Lord says no, you can’t and you won’t. in his kindness, he allows these crises to draw us back to himself. For us to say God I am powerless, I can do nothing. I give up. Forgive me - perhaps all things being equal and following the logic above we should suggest the West in its “strength” should say, “God and Father, I am weak” and we here in Africa should say, “God and Father I am weak, my strength is in you”. Slave or free, rich or poor, man or woman, Jew or Gentile, advanced or under-developed, we all are equal in our complete inability to be free, good, redeemed and glorious. God alone.
So what place is there for pride or shame?
Does God speak to South Africa?
Before God surrounds the nation with crisis, in his kindness he will always surround the nation with a prophetic witness (Corey Russell).South Africa is in the midst of crises and with each new crisis, our situation becomes worse than before. Is God speaking? Does he speak to us? What is he saying? When Mozambique had the floods of 2002 when the country was devastated and all the infrastructure that had been built since the end of the civil war was destroyed, Heidi Baker made the comment that God had perhaps allowed that to happen to bring that nation to its knees - to at last turn around and seek God, repent and seek him. And that is what happened, starving people ran past food to ask for prayer.
Revelations 9:20 "the rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshipping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood- idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts"
Revelations 16:9
Rev 16:11 "men gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done"
Who says that the Lord would not send plagues and disasters?
Yet it is so offensive to so many to think that a God of love could send his "judgements" to man in this apparently cruel way. Is it not more offensive for God to witness the wickedness of man, to have to endure their cruelty and refusal of his love? There is so little knowlege of God, so little love for Him, and even for one another, so little reverent fear of him - that we would rather be offended on man's behalf than on the Lord's - and yet it is he who never does wrong, who longs to "never stop doing good to us", and who "rejoices in doing good" (Jer 32:39-41). God is love. Who are we to be offended? What is man's defence? We should sing with heaven "you are just in these judgements" (Rev 16:5). And if judgement bothers us then we should come to the Father's house to repent and ask the Lord for mercy. I have heard it said that the state of the nation is a reflection of the state of the church. If this is so - then WHERE IS THE PROPHETIC WITNESS TO THE HOLY AND MERCIFUL NAME OF OUR GREAT GOD?
Who is He talking to?
The question perhaps then is not what is God saying to South Africa so much as what is he saying to his church in South Africa. We after all are the ones in covenant with him, we are called his children, we are loved and strengthened by him. He is our inheritance and our cup of blessing (Psalm 16:5). He has given us "everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness." (2 Peter 1:3) Together with the Holy Spirit, we represent Jesus on earth. So it falls to us. We are his bride, called to partner with Him for his Kingdom to come - that's his plan right?
The Lord's message to us - is I suppose nothing new. Only there is a gaping hole in the world, and in my own heart where the knowledge of God should be - where reconciliation with Him should be there is estrangement, where there should be freedom there is captivity. There is no fear of God.
How will they know if we are all keeping mum?
Which brings me back to this question: where is the prophetic witness to God in this nation, to our politicians, to all the tribes and tongues, to the church itself? To Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe? Where is the witness to the name of God?
I believe God is raising up that witness - he is bringing forth Daniels to interpret the dreams of pagan politicians to bring glory to God. Daniel revealed not only the meaning of the pagan kings' dreams but in that bore witness to God's purpose to "set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever." (Dan 2:44)
That's news you can use. I am asking God for a prophetic voice to establish that truth in the halls of our own government. Let their answer be what it will be - but we cannot be silent. We know what the future holds, and who holds that future.
But how, who and when? you and me - that's why I am writing. I believe the Lord has his hand on the church in South Africa just like he had his hand on Ezekiel (1:3c, 2:9, 3:14, 3:22, 8:1, 8:3, 33:22, 37:1 40:1). I ask the Lord to choose the church in this country, not a generation, not a city, not a denomination - but the church in this nation. I ask him to choose us, to put his hand on us, to give us grace to proclaim his truth in the marketplace, in the government, in the churches and schools, in the city and in the country, and in every language of this country. I ask him to put his hand on us so that we may prophesy what he said he would do:
"I will set My glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see My judgements which I have done, and My hand that I have laid on them." (Ezekiel 39:21)
If you agree, then pray this with me:
"Lord, lay your hand on me, as you did with Ezekiel, show me visions of your glory so that I also may be overwhelmed and say "May the glory of the Lord be praised in his place!", persuade me fully of your glory, fill me with the knowledge and the vision of you, and use me Lord to proclaim your word and your truth here and wherever you send me. Lord establish your truth in the government, the marketplace, the schools, the church, the city and the countryside of South Africa. Establish your name here Lord Jesus Christ, so that you may be glorified, honoured and loved as you deserve."
The importance of discipleship in the Lord's strategy to raise a prophetic witness
The Lord is calling us to awaken to what is happening, what is coming and how we are to respond as the church in South Africa, and as part of the greater bride of Christ who is being readied for the return of Christ. For the last six months to a year I have become more and more deeply persuaded by the importance of the commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your strength and all your soul. It blazes before me, compelling me continually towards the one thing that matters. It’s a revelation whose depth cannot be touched – and it is the key revelation I believe to prepare us for the times we are living in. It captivates, it purifies, it strengthens – it removes idols from our lives while flaming our passions, and growing our affection for our Lord.
I do not know if it’s just because of the kind of person I am, but it really bothers me that I could be raising up disciples of Christ who are anemic – who are not going to be equipped for what lies ahead- worst of all who lack love for God. Who see God as a range of images that if you were to think it through, don’t quite hold together, so that the image of God they have fits into their lives as they would like to live it, a comfortable image of God that doesn’t offend them, that does not ask them too much. Judgement is coming yes – but is that the main reason that we should respond to God with total devotion?
Does God deserve such coolness- in response to the fiery depths of his love, the sweet purity, the healing wonderful miraculous nature of his love? Love him! Love him! Love him! But yes, judgement. We live in the midst of such wickedness – surely a loving God can do nothing but respond with his judgement. A part of me cries for judgement. Judgement somehow sounds as if God in his vengeance wants to destroy us – but right now, the judgement I see is what happens when God’s mercy is not extended to treat us in a way that we do not deserve. God’s mercy meets us when he exchanges our hatred for love, our conflict for peace, our alienation for reconciliation – and judgement is when mercy does not step in so that the consequences of our sinfulness reap precisely what they sow – lies sow deceit, distrust, destruction and violence. And so it goes on, till finally the Lord puts an end to it because he hates it and because he loves the church.
The cyclone and the disasters throughout the world and continent especially is hitting me in my gut as a call from God to turn to him – to turn away from our own solutions, to turn to him as the only solution. Will we turn to him, in the middle of this food crisis? What will drive us to our knees? Does it offend us that these crises and disasters are happening – does it cause us to turn to God so that he will heal our land? You can see it as you want – that man is at fault for the food crisis, the Burmese situation etc. that God would never “do” these things. Is it hard to see that God may not be raising his hands to stop man’s descent towards slow destruction in the hope that the consequences of our actions will cause us to repent as we realize that we have not power, nor mind, nor heart, no capacity to change even ourselves, least of all our communities. Say, for argument’s sake, that the crises in the world are not accelerations towards the end-time crisis to end all crises judgement. Let’s say they are arbitrary and Christ isn’t returning soon like I am saying – in the name of God consciousness – be called to him. Let everything call you to Him – both good and bad, surely God being God we should hear that all creation is calling us to Him, groaning for our completeness in Christ? So then whether you agree with me or not – see God. Shut down business as usual. Go to the wilderness. Forget about what all we wonderful humans can achieve – and turn to Him.
Return to the first
So strongly, I have heard for the last few months this increasingly attractive command the first last and always call to love him with all our heart, strength and mind. There is such a strong call from God’s heart to his people to make this first command first in our lives. The other thing God is stirring up in the most profound way I have experienced ever before is the call to prayer. He wants so profoundly to partner with us – to speak into his holy heart with the words of his heart – the words of scripture, in bringing heaven to earth. This is our glorious priestly inheritance – his Father’s house (where he has prepared rooms for us) is a house of prayer.
Because this is what the Lord has being saying, and I believe not only to me – I will send my notes to a prophetic teaching by a man called Corey Russell. Corey Russell has been a senior leader at the International House of Prayer located in Kansas City, Missouri for the last six years. IHOP is a prayer and worship ministry that has 84 prayer meetings a week and has continued 24/7 for the last 7 years. The IHOP missions’ base is filled with approximately 1000 intercessory missionaries, students, interns who raise their own support to give themselves primarily to the place of prayer and fasting. (www.coreyrussell.org) Read these notes I made – they speak so profoundly a word for right here, right now. This I believe is what God is saying. Look at me, see me, meet me on my terms, see my image and not the image you make of me to worship.if you want to hear the hour long sermon click here http://www.luke18project.com/Media/PlayMedia.aspx?download=file&media_id=1000003754&file_id=1000004723 or go to the Luke18project website: http://www.luke18project.com/
email "corey notes" in the subject heading to: cvanschoor23@yahoo.com
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