A Presence Revival Is Coming!

“Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days— You would not believe if you were told.” 

Habakkuk 1:5

Where is God Today?

With all the darkness closing in around the world, you may be among those asking where God is today, and how can I trust the prophecies I hear being spoken? Even and sometimes especially for those who put their faith in Jesus, what is happening around us can be confusing. We too can have a tendency to react the same as others – with fear, offense, deception, or disengagement.

In the United States, prophecies spoken after the election in November of 2020 and through January 2021 appeared to be all over the place.  It was as if no one was on the same sheet of music and everyone was confused, scattered.  The good news is that I have noticed an alignment beginning to take place over the last several weeks. So what is God saying?

Before I answer that question, let me ask you one. Have you ever given a lot of thought to why Jesus encouraged us to pray “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it IS in Heaven” (Matthew 6:10)?  I believe the Heavens are pregnant with His spoken word, just waiting to be revealed.  He shares revelations with those closest to Him (Psalms 25:14), and those who have been gifted with the prophetic are often the first to pick up on what has already been spoken and is just waiting there for the rest of us to hear.

Why do those closest to God still get it wrong sometimes, and why does scripture tell us to examine everything carefully and evaluate what is said (1 Thessalonians 5:19-21; 1 Corinthians 14:29)? 

I believe there are four primary reasons:

• Because of our fallenness, we see things in part and through a dark lens (1 Corinthians 13:9-12)
• Because of the noise!  Satan is superb at creating a cacophony of noise for the purpose of drowning out or disguising the spoken word of God, because he does not want us to call into existence on earth what already exists in heaven!  When you see the flood of media and information that screams wrong is right and literally barrages us, pulsating out moment by moment up to, during, and after the election then it is easy to see how confusing it can become to hear the word of God above it all.
• Because of the timing (fullness of time).  There are many examples I can think of where the word of the Lord was not released until the timing for it was right.  The most prominent are centered around Jesus Himself, not only as the lamb and then the lion, but every revelation in between.  This is most clearly seen in Galatians 4:4, noting that He came in the “fullness of time”.  This is one affirmation that there are revelations that are meant for us to have and to know, but not before the time is right. 
• Because we tend to see fresh prophecies through old lenses, we can fail to both recognize and act upon them when they are first spoken.  Viewing through old lenses creates a tendency to camp out around where God WAS rather than moving to where God IS. Oswald Chambers once said that “If you are depending upon anything but Him, you will never know when He is gone” Three examples:
  • In Matthew 16:21-23 just after Peter had the remarkable revelation that Jesus was the promised Messiah, we learn that, when Jesus began to then tell his disciples he must suffer and be killed, Peter took Him aside privately to rebuke Him, saying “God forbid it!”. 
    
    The old lens was that the Jews were not and still largely do not see Jesus the lamb.  Many were expecting Jesus to be the Lion that would set up His physical kingdom then, so the concept of having to die first seemed contradictory to the scripture being taught at the time. Can you imagine where we would all be now if God had answered Peter’s prayer? 
    
  • In the year 1633, a chief inquisitor appointed by Pope Urban VIII began the inquisition of Galileo Galilei. Galileo was ordered to turn himself in to the Holy Office for holding to the belief that the earth revolves around the sun.
    
    The old lens was that it was a widely held belief then that the earth was the center of the universe, and therefore the sun rotated around the earth.  To us today this seems absurd because everyone knows the earth revolves around the sun!  But to the leadership of the church in that day, such a thought was equal to heresy
    
  • In Genesis 15, the Lord appears to Abram and tells him that a son of his own flesh and blood will be his heir, and proceeded to make a covenant with Abram.  In chapter 16 we learn that Sarai becomes anxious about this promise, and, deciding to help the promise along a little, gave her servant, Hagar, to Abram, and Ishmael was born as a result. In Genesis 17, however, the Lord appears to Abraham and tells him that he will become the father of nations, and that kings would come from him through Sarah (notice their names have now changed). 
    
    The old lens is, in Genesis 17:15-27, we learn that Ishmael was 13 years old when Isaac was promised.  This means that for 13 years Abraham believed that Ishmael was the promised son!  For us looking back, we see this too is ridiculous, for of course we know that the promise was through Isaac and not Ishmael! 

In all of these examples we see how, for years, both public and personal religious beliefs were wrong and had to be corrected before the fresh revelation being given could both be seen and accepted, enabling us to comprehend the new thing God is doing.  This is the same lesson we see about the wineskins in Luke chapters 5 and 6 where Jesus was trying to teach the Pharisees about the revelation of grace, but they could not see the revelation of grace through the lens of the law.

37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’ ” Luke 5:37-39

Not only could they not see it, but it made them so angry that afterwards they began to devise ways of harming Him.

So What IS He saying?

There was so much noise and chaos prior to and after the 2020 elections to fully distinguish God’s voice at the time, which is why I believe prophecies that were being spoken had the appearance of pinging off of every wall imaginable. We had to wait for things to settle and quiet down so that we could tune in.  As a result, here is what I hear being said and see beginning to align:

• The Lord is asking the question afresh: Who do men say that I am?  This question was not a one-time ask of His disciples, nor was the answer they gave a one-time answer.  As fresh revelations of who He is continues to be given from one generation to the next, He asks us this question still today.  Do we answer through the lens of revelations past, or do we allow Him to pour new revelations into new wineskins?  The answer I am hearing in the moment is that He is the Lord of Nations!  He was given nations by the Father as His inheritance (see Psalms 2), and Matthew 25:31-46 tells us that He will judge the nations to determine if they are sheep or goat.  Do I believe the Lion of Judah is also about to be revealed?  YES, indeed!  In the fullness of time, the Lion will also be revealed.  But in this moment, He wants us to comprehend that He is Lord of the nations.
• That being said, I believe that Goat and Sheep nations are in the process of being revealed
• I believe a great awakening is coming – a harvest that is designed to be a three-stranded rope, intertwined with reform, restoration, revival.  Reform is change from the top down.  Revival is change from the ground up.  When the two meet, you have a great awakening (Lance Wallnau) and in the midst of this you will have restoration.
• Revivals in the past were focused on salvation.  Although salvation is certainly part of the revival that is coming, I believe this revival will be known as a PRESENCE revival.  Presence rather than purpose, because purpose that is not aligned with God leads down a false path. People will be so hungry for God’s presence they will lose themselves in Him in a way we have yet to see, and a new age of signs and wonders will come about as a result.
• I believe God is not yet finished with the United States. Like the church in Sardis in Revelation 3:2, He is giving us a wake-up call so that we can complete the purpose for why we have been created, what we have been called to do (of purpose, I have also personally pondered many times if the wings of the eagle mentioned in Revelation 12:14 are prophetic of the United States giving shelter to Israel).  This is why it is so critical to know our history, and to know we are a Christian nation created and established by God!

Where have we gotten it wrong? 

You may be asking where have we gotten it wrong? What are the fresh revelations we cannot see because we are trying to view them through old lenses?

I see two major areas that are about to be greatly shaken:

1. The Church

In particular, the mega churches. Praise God for everyone who attends any church of any size and hears His Word being spoken, and for all the solid churches out there!  This post is not meant to bash mega churches, only to point out that many of them are about to be shaken. Why do I believe this? 

• I believe God is not pleased with the hierarchy found within many large churches, and desires to work through His people more directly. I know in Exodus 18:17-23 that Moses was given wise counsel by his father-in-law, Jethro, on how to properly judge Israel through an established hierarchy so that he would not wear himself out. But is it right to say that God approves of this type of hierarchy over the Church?
  We learn in the book of Revelation, in the letters addressed to both the churches of Ephesus and Pergamum, that God hates the works of the Nicolaitans. Most generally assume that these works are the same as the teachings of Balaam, but a closer look at the word Nicolaitans reveals more. Broken into two words, “nico” means to overcome/rule/dominate; and “laos” means people, which in this case is the Church of God. Is it plausible that Nicolaitans are a group who dominate the people of God, standing in between God and His people?
  You may wonder if this applies only to certain denominations, such as the Roman Catholic Church. I believe it applies to every church that has a hierarchy of layers and layers that separate the senior pastor from the people who attend. The senior pastor becomes the one with the vision for the church, and carries out the vision in a similar fashion as a CEO of a business. The believer’s authority is then transferred to the leadership of the church, making those who attend just recipients of the vision, not active agents who share in the vision, and participate in the full ministry. This also wipes out or limits the authority of a counsel of elders, which used to be the ruling body of each ecclesia in the early Church.
• Mega churches are a great place for transients who move from one to another, and often want to hide and not be held accountable for any kind of belief they may have.  How do I know this?  Let’s take the Dallas-Fort Worth-Denton metroplex as an example.  There are likely more mega churches per capita located within that triangle of cities than anywhere else in the United States, and yet this metroplex also has among the highest divorce rates, high crime, high poverty, and more.  Why, if there are so many who attend church in this area, are these things not more impacted?
• Small is the new big, and there may come a time when church as we know it here in the United States is driven underground, where micro-churches (or home churches) will become the main way we stay connected and thrive.

Mega churches that create within themselves a solid structure of micro-churches large enough not only to connect all who attend, but also to ensure there is exchange and connection between each, can address these problems in that the micro-churches will be able to disciple, hold accountable, connect, equip, and send out a larger number of people into each major pillar of society, and can at any given time easily move “underground” if needed.

2. The “Escape” Mentality

The second area I see that is about to be shaken is our personal and collective beliefs surrounding what’s about to happen in the end times.  The book of Revelation is about to play out very differently than most of us are expecting and/or are ready for.  Most church goers that you would speak to about end time prophecy believes at least one of the following myths:

• End time prophecy is too controversial and too complicated for someone like me to understand
• There are seven years in the tribulation (note: there are 7 years of the antichrist, but only 3 ½ of the great tribulation)
• Christians will not have to experience the trials, persecution, or suffering that happens in the end times, because we have a golden escape ticket out of here (note: we have been in the end times for the last 2,000+ years and Christians around the world continue to suffer trials, persecutions, and tribulations.  The times just prior to the end and prior to the 7-year period of the antichrist will be among the most intense times of persecution throughout church history).
• The Lord is interested in taking us out of the earth to live happily ever after, NOT in coming INTO the present world to inherit nations, and to affirm and establish His millennial reign.
• This present earth is not worth vesting time, energy, love, and effort into because we all know the antichrist will rule and reign and the faster we allow that to happen, the faster we will all be out of here.
• The separation of church and state applies. We can only operate within our own sphere of influence and no where else (note: this is FALSE on so many levels).

It is my personal belief that these myths that have been perpetuated by and within the church for more than a century now have severely hurt the church and greatly derailed the great commission to make disciples OF nations (Matthew 28:18-20).  While we are focused on evangelism and numbers, God is focused on discipleship and nations. This is why in a series I have written, titled “Revelation Reveille”, I take the time to debunk each one of these myths.  The “escape” mentality needs to change in order for us to realize our commission still stands, and for us to then see that the United States does not have to roll over for the antichrist because we somehow think it is our destiny to do so. 

Matthew 25:31-46 is not negated by the antichrist. We can still be a sheep nation! How do I know this? Matthew 18:19-20 tells us that when two or more of us are in agreement as touching anything in Heaven, not only is Jesus in our midst but the Father will give to us what we are asking of Him! This is why unity among the brethren is so important! Love God, love others! Like the tie that binds and again the three-strand chord that is stronger when joined, there are some things we can only accomplish when we join together in prayer with others, having Him in our midst, and in agreement with His word and His will. God uses each of us together as one body to bring to pass His will on this earth, which makes connectedness to one another a vital part of our ability to be overcomers.

Does this article resonate with you?  Please take it and share it!  Paste the link on your social media pages, send it to friends, print it out, study it and talk about it with others.  To God be the glory, and I thank you!