The Prophecy
The following prophecy was given to me in about 1997. At the time that I received it I was deeply impacted by what I felt God was saying. Over the years I have returned to it a number of times and I believe that what I saw is beginning to unfold; and it is for that reason that I share it here. The vision that God has given me for 6:19 is to encourage and equip the church for a season of revival, and I believe that this prophecy gives us hope that such a season is beginning to dawn on our nation.
The prophecy came in the form of two pictures:
I was looking across a vast landscape; there were mountains in the distance and the whole scene was dark and foreboding – like an overcast day in the middle of winter. As I watched I became aware that the landscape was not solid, but rather consisted of thick black mud, under which there were shapes moving and struggling to break through the surface. I became aware that the shapes were in fact people, and the faces of those that I could see were in torment, desperate to be free and crying out to God for mercy. I felt God saying that this was a picture of the spiritual state of our nation, but that He would hear the voices of those who cried out to Him for mercy.
The picture then moved on and the whole scene began to brighten, as if the sun was rising behind the mountains in the distance. As the sun rose I saw that those who had been struggling to break free of the mud were able to do so. I was left with a sense that God was saying there is an urgency for the church to cry out to Him to have mercy on our nation. We live in spiritually desperate times and only He can save us.
The second picture followed immediately after the first. It was similar to the first picture, but this time I saw Satan pouring out the mud from a huge bucket over the nation. I was aware that the mud was also being poured over the church, and that the church was bogged down and unable to be effective for Christ. Like the first picture there was a figure struggling to break free of the mud, but this time the figure clearly represented the church. Her struggle to be free was a very violent one, but finally she did break free and I saw that she was dressed in white as a bride. As I watched the figure moved away into the distance, and as she did so the train of her dress was filled with the saints walking in the victory of Christ.
I felt very strongly that God was saying that for many years the devil had been suffocating the life of the church and making her witness ineffective and irrelevant, but that now in this generation there was a spiritual reawakening beginning. I had a strong sense that we are moving into a season where there will be significant opposition to the church and the Christian message, and that as a church we need to persevere and remain faithful to Christ. God is moving in this generation in a fresh way, and I firmly believe that we are going to see a move of God greater than any of us have yet known, that will restore hope to our nation.
