If you are reading this post, it might not make much sense unless you first read A Prophetic Vision of the Church. This post is the interpretation of that vision.
1. God’s throne is firmly established; immovable (Psalm 93:2I). It is no surprise that from the beginning of the vision, the horizon and all of time was moving, but God’s throne was fixed. He exists outside time and outside any of the created laws that govern our world. He can roll up the world with His hand. He can snuff out the sun with a single word.
2. I was not surprised, nor fearful, seeing the very tall demons. I have seen large principality demons before. I was not fearful BECAUSE I have seen much bigger angels. God is all-powerful. He doesn’t show us things to make us fearful. He shows us so that we trust Him, and trust Him to fulfill His plans. Seeing into the supernatural world is a great gift, and it is available to all of us. God wants to show us many great things. It builds our faith. It takes down the enemy and frustrates his plans because when we see, we also know how to fight—we are given specific spiritual strategy through prayer, worship, praise, fasting, and obedience to Holy Spirit.
3. The thousands of churches I saw were very distinct. They all stood out from each another. The differences were not the problem. We are all created uniquely. The problem was that pride, competition, discord, and insecurity ruled in many of the churches (many believers know no different!). Love-deficient hearts and man-centered ministry has created a majority of the distinctions down through history. The Holy Spirit has not authored many of the distinctions that so many people stood proudly upon, or cling to, as if it makes them better from the church down the street, or the church one hundred years ago.
When the Holy Spirit authors our differences, there is great beauty in the various expressions of our worship. When it is man-authored and man receiving the glory and honor, we (the church) are in trouble.
4. The broken-down walls: we are meant to live in close, honest, and loving relationships. The broken-down walls in the vision reveal relationships are in disrepair. Anywhere shallow and inauthentic relationships are the norm, people’s brokenness has been denied, minimized, or ignored.
A) Many times it has been the Church that has promoted this. It is obvious God’s people do not matter, rather, the church program is what matters. God’s people are merely a means to an end. A lack of deep and meaningful relationships reveals a love-deficient church. It is the opposite of how the Apostle John explained we should be known by our committed relationships and love for one another. Faithful and true disciples of Jesus will be known by our love for one another (John 13:35).
B) Equally however, in many instances it is “me”(/”we”) the individual who has been the reason that brokenness remains in me. I am responsible for me. A person who wants to walk into maturity in Jesus cannot sit in blame and finger point at any other person, or organization. We must grow up into Christ Jesus and stop the ungodly, very worldly victim mind-set that is so popular today. Popular as it is, this victim mind-set is weakening believer’s faith life, as they will not be responsible to Jesus for the status of their own heart. This stunts their spiritual growth, and if they victim-blame out loud—tell others, complain to others, verbally process out loud—they run the great risk of spreading bitter resentment into anyone who gives a listening ear to them.
In the vision, no one was bothering with the broken-down walls. Rubble lay about everywhere. But the busy church activity carried right on. The rubble represents disconnected people, unable or unwilling to come together in love. At the heart of this issue: the priority was not upon the people of God, but upon the busy church activity. It was upon what the people did for the accomplishment of worldly success. This was wearing out God’s people while fulfilling the devil’s plans (Daniel 7:25).
In The Kingdom of God, success is two things: 1) Finding and doing what you were put on the planet to do—the will of God for your life (John 17:4), which only comes through an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ—GOING DEEP IN RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS. And, 2) Doing God’s will in relationship with people, building relational health, with relational accountability—life-upon-life, brick-upon-brick, becoming the spiritual walls of God’s spiritual house. Intimacy with Jesus will lead to deep, loving, and accountable/responsible relationships with people.
5. The giant spear was just one demonic weapon. There were many more in the vision. The enemy has assignments set against God’s people. Spiritual blindness to the attacks of the enemy is prevalent in the church. The most common cause of spiritual blindness is idolatry. Idolatry is where we give our affection and loyalty to someone or something over Jesus. I wish this was uncommon in the church, but it is not. We need to repent of this.
The churches were busy and oblivious to the enemy attacks. Hosea 4:6 says, “My people die for lack of knowledge.” This is not intellectual knowledge—there is no shortage of intellectual knowledge. The knowledge Hosea is speaking of is our spiritually knowing and perceiving God. This only comes from an intimate relationship with Him. No busy church activity can be substituted. In fact, busy church activity can run counter to our knowledge of the Lord. We can begin to think our service to Him is the same as knowing Him. It is not. This is where our serving Him becomes an idol. Sadly, “The Ministry” has become many a man’s idol.
6. The giant spear was unearthly, something we cannot fight against in our own strength. “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4). Our greatest weapons are repentance, prayer, worship, the word, praise, love for one another, to walk in the peace and rest of the Lord Jesus Christ. It would be remiss of me not to mention the Ephesians 6 Armor of God here, too. There is a spiritual battle. It is unearthly. God has given us spiritual weapons to fight it.
BUT… many of God’s people fight each other and suppose they are doing it in the “Name of the Lord.” This is religious garbage. Demons are attracted to and feed off garbage the exact same way flies are attracted to and feed off garbage. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). If we fight people, we set ourselves up to oppose people, compete, take pride in our distinctions, it is clear, we are fighting in the flesh. Having completely missed the mark, we have fallen into the trap of the enemy. Not only that, we are guilty of fulfilling his plans for the church, and not God’s. We need to stop this and repent.
7. The larger principality demons and the smaller foot soldier demons. The enemy has a highly organized army. They don’t sleep. They don’t take a vacation. They follow orders. They hate us. They have no regard for the vulnerable among us. In fact, the vulnerable are easier targets. They seek to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). If we are oblivious, demons get to play havoc in our lives and our churches. But we are to take comfort in knowing there are many more angels than there are demons and the moment we lift our voices in prayer the enemy is scattered.
What is prayer then? God listens to everything we ask, say, pray, and even complain about. But He doesn’t answer it all. I’m glad about that. More than listening to our words God knows the intent behind them. Our sincere cries of repentance, or for help, get God’s attention and we receive divine intervention.
True prayer is in humility, repentance, and expectant faith because we realize our complete and vital need of dependence upon God alone. True prayer deepens our awareness of Him in our very moment. It deepens our intimacy with Him, and we become His friend. It also does not ask for things contrary to LOVE.
8. Seeing countless demons in the vision bothered me, but more, the absence of angels bothered me. I usually see both. I tend to see more angelic activity than demonic. So I asked the Lord, “Where are all Your angels?” and that’s when He opened my eyes to see the angels. They had been there all the time, but they had been handcuffed as if unable to do anything except watch as the demons ran amuck among God’s people. I immediately knew it was because of prayerlessness. (This is an example of what we call “unction” or “knowing in my spirit”.)
Then God spoke, “My people are prayerless and so enact their own wills for their lives, especially in their churches. They have no power of God in them. They only have human plans and the wisdom of men, and therefore are powerless against the attacks of the enemy. They are blind to the giant spears that run through their churches in the spirit realm. BUT… the slightest turn of their hearts back to me, the weakest whimper for help, is heard in Heaven and resounds upon the earth. The smallest cry for help causes a spiritual earthquake that reverberates and pulses through the spiritual realm.”
It was after these words I saw the horizon full of churches being picked up and shaken out like a blanket. Like a spiritual earthquake that rippled out to the ends of the horizon affecting every church, and this scattered the enemy.
Our prayers and cries for help scatter the enemy. When we turn our hearts back to the Lord, the enemy runs away confused, his plans frustrated, his demonic weapons are completely shattered, and he is shown to be powerless against the Lord God Almighty, and powerless against the Lord’s army of believers.
9. Next I saw the sides of the churches coming together, being mended, being made whole. I had the sense there was a spiritual healing taking place in the lives of many people within them. As the walls were repaired, it was clear they weren’t physical buildings with physical stones. The walls were the people of God who make up the spiritual house of God: brick-upon-brick, life-upon-life. We are living stones, 1 Peter 2:4-5.
Life-upon-life we are built into God’s spiritual house as people are fearlessly open, honest, loving, responsible, forgiving, vulnerable, accountable, authentic, and extending extraordinary amounts of grace to one another.
10. At the end of the vision, I saw Jesus. He was standing on the left side of the horizon. He was so large He filled and overshadowed the horizon. The biggest church would have been smaller than His little finger. As all the churches—the living stones, the people—turned to orient themselves toward Jesus, the individual churches and all their distinctions disappeared, and they grew into one very large congregation that began worshipping Jesus in unison. The congregation took on a semi-translucent light-blue color.
As the church worshipped all the distinctions disappeared. Jesus stood alone as the One worthy of receiving all glory. All temporal things gave way to the eternal because we had our eyes fixed upon our Eternal King Jesus.
