Hi all,
I had a recent visitation with the Lord and I want to share part of it with you, because it is prophetic for the body of Christ. I’m going to take my time to walk you through part of it step by step in detail which I don’t normally do (thus the 4 parts), because there are so many heart-lessons to learn along the way. I pray the Father will personalize the elements He wants for each person.
The Lord wanted to tell me what He is doing, but to be perfectly honest, my first questions to Him were about natural events like politics and economies and such. When He appears to me He sets the agenda, I only respond. But I was curious…
Let me insert here that heaven initiates the experience, not earth. Not man. When people do things to try to have an experience, or seek an experience rather than seek the Father or Lord, then error is likely to happen. Don’t try to make something happen; heaven initiates the supernatural. He sets the agenda. I have never in all the times He has visited me, ever asked Him to appear to me.
And even though these times I have with Him are conversational, these are also things of the spirit and Spirit, so things I have thought I would like to ask Him, don’t even come up in the conversation. Only things of the spirit and Spirit come up, and to try to bring the flesh into the experience is like what Peter did on the Mount of Transfiguration when he saw Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus in Luke 9:33:
“Let’s build 3 tents; One for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah!” (Let’s have a camp out). It becomes painfully apparent to all when a person is in the Spirit and tries to go back to the flesh. Luke comments on Peter: “He didn’t know what he was saying.”
The supernatural in the Spirit seems so normal, the transition without barrier, that when you speak of lower earthly things it stands out as not knowing what they are saying. Notice that Peter’s suggestion went without comment from the Lord. He just ignored it.
Picking it up from there
The Lord was trying to move on from my questions and finally said: “I already told you nearly a year ago about difficulties in January and February, with a transition in March, and the importance of the mid-term elections for the United States, that’s enough for now. I told you to watch France, and that when Merkel leaves office big changes will soon come to Germany and the EU, and to watch Italy as she rises in importance and influence. Why do you want to know more? I’ll share more later, but for now I want to talk about what I’m doing.”
Why do you want to know more?
His question asking why I wanted to know more meant I was on the edge of the flesh. It was similar to the visitation I had in very late January 2011 when I asked about the Arab Spring. I kept asking questions about ‘end times’ events related to the nations affected, as protests were then erupting in Egypt, while He was trying to talk to me of what He was going to be doing.
I was going nation by nation asking what would happen to them, and the last question (in context of end times) was; “Will Egypt would become like Iran at this point?”, and He said: “No. Egypt will not become like Iran at this point. But what is this to you? What are these things to you? As for you, you must be about the Father’s business.” That was again, the last of January 2011.
So in the recent visitation when He asked: “Why do you want to know more?”, I knew to back off and inwardly I repented, for He had said in Matthew 12: 39 that an evil and adulterous generation looks for a sign. Me pressing Him to know more was on the edge of evil and adultery. The word ‘evil’ there is also translated as ‘slothful’, meaning someone slow to act, slow to perceive, slow to receive what the Spirit is saying.
Do we see it? Do we perceive what is happening?
In the context of Matthew 12: 39 Jesus was doing healings, miracles, and casting demons out of people, and yet the people ignored all those signs and only wanted more, something bigger, larger, a final sign. It is like in our day, for anyone with any curiosity can research what the Lord is doing around the world and become part of it, yet many waste hours and days chasing the irrelevant to tickle their itching ears, because becoming part of what He is doing is hard work. Besides all that, the larger work He is doing or attempting to do if we will cooperate with Him, is in our own hearts and lives. Doing what He wants is usually the hard decision, the one that challenges us to change.
The word ‘generation’ or sometimes ‘age’ means it was a large group of people who wanted a ‘sign’ from Him, not a literal generation, but rather a class of people. They had influence, they influenced others. Today you sometimes see people thinking a ‘generation’ of prophets are spot on because they are so many all saying the same thing. They are a generation of people, to use the word as Jesus used it. The word He used for ‘seek’ is ‘epizetei’ and means ‘to crave, to intensely desire, to demand, to make strong inquiries.’
Jesus used the word ‘sign’ here, not wonder. I define the differences this way: A sign appeals to the intellect, a wonder appeals to the imagination. Jesus used the word sign, meaning people were thinking, but their thinking was wrong. An evil and adulterous group seeks something more to appeal to their intellect – just 1 more ‘sign’ to think on. Evil. These are people who spend time intensely craving something to appeal to their mind, their soul, while ignoring what God is really doing all around and in them.
The fantasy
Jesus linked seeking a sign (appeals to the intellect) with adultery, which is imagination. Jesus defined adultery in Matthew 5: 28 as an imagination, a lustful focus on fantasy with someone else, and an adulterous generation (group of people) that looks for a sign is one where Christians develop a ‘thinking lust’ for the latest prophetic word, they search for what an alleged prophet has said, turning their attention away from their ‘spouse’, the Lord.
By all means we need to be aware, but there is a line many step over to where that becomes a preoccupation, causing the important things in their heart and life to be lower down the list of priorities than lusting after the latest ‘word’. Keep it in balance. In the same way a person can acknowledge a handsome man or pretty woman, but then the imagination stops. To go beyond would be error – the same with balancing the prophetic as a priority in our lives.
An adulterous spouse is no longer focused where they should be, on their spouse. They are thinking about another. In the same way an adulterous believer having a thinking lust (a desire/imagination they don’t control and give in to repeatedly) for signs of this or that is no longer focused on their ‘spouse’, Christ in us, the hope of glory.
They are focused on ‘outside’ things when they should ge focused on ‘inside their heart’ things.
When He asked “Why do you want to know more?”, I knew I was stepping close to the line, and needed to be quiet and go with where He wanted to go in the conversation.
His focus is on what He is doing not what the devil is doing or what the processes of politics and economics will effect upon this world. That is where our focus should be. Also, some of the things He mentioned nearly a year ago about these things in the first quarter of the year may have changed due to prayer, or perhaps lessened to some degree, or delayed.
Next week I’ll share what He said He will be doing in the coming year, and then start to define what that will look like. We’ll pick it up there next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
www.cwowi.org and email me at cwowi@aol.com
