More on Stigmata & Blood Sign Miracles

Last week, we began discussing the supernatural manifestation of blood signs, namely the “stigmata,” which are marks appearing on the hands, feet and sometimes other body parts, corresponding to the wounds experienced by Christ on the cross.

We began writing about this topic, due to some powerful happenings which occurred at our Manifestations of Glory event in the Atlanta area, earlier this spring. There was a radical release of mystical signs and wonders at the event, and it was likely the best conference we have hosted to date.

Not only did we document the blood sign on video, as it appeared on the hands of Lucy Rael during one of the meetings – we also got video footage of supernatural oil flowing from her hands, as well as an enormous amount of gold that began forming on her palms.

I would encourage you to read last week’s post, as I began an in-depth discussion on the stigmata. I would also encourage readers to pick up the DVD series of our Manifestations of Glory event from our online store. Not only does it build our faith to witness these miracles, but there is a tangible impartation for accessing the supernatural as we see God do crazy things before our very eyes.

This week, we pick up the discussion on stigmata by addressing the demonic counterfeit.

Diabolical Stigmata

As with every valid miracle of God, there simultaneously exist demonic counterfeits. Mediums can affect demonic healings. Spiritualists engage unholy trances. Yogis and eastern religions mimic miracles of ascension (floating off the ground). Psychics offer counterfeit prophecies. In the same way, there do exist cases of diabolical stigmata.

There seems to be much warfare, controversy and counterfeit activity over this particular miracle more than any other. For this reason, many true Christian prophets today get spooked out over it, and some even claim stiggy to be produced by seducing spirits. The truth is that some of them are. Levitation, bilocation, gifts of healing – these are all extravagant miracles. But because the visual imagery is so dramatically Christ-centered with stigmata, invoking the emotions with such a direct picture of His passion – the enemy will attempt to confuse it as much as possible.

History shows that stigmatists are intensely prophetic persons by nature. They are almost always seers. In demonic cases, the same is true (the person has a misplaced call to the seer realm) but instead of listening to God, the source of revelation is mixed up. The diabolical stigmatist is open to dark prophetic forces, often channeling demonic spirits in poltergeist-type manifestations.

In cases of godly, divine stigmata, the person nearly always gets revelation from God. Unfortunately, the church has had poor teaching on the prophetic office for the past 2,000 years, so even a valid stigmatist’s revelation has often been delivered in a strange or confusing way. Sometimes the person would speak on behalf of God or angels in a first person type of way, but without good protocol or delivery style. This has led to much confusion. Needless to say, there has been a stigma on stiggy!

Ecstasies, fits and all manner of hysterics tend to accompany the lives of stigmatists. The accounts of many resemble wild, Holy Ghost manifestations. “All true stigmatics have received the wounds of rapture in ecstasy,” writes theologian Montague Summers. Others, quite honestly, resemble cases of multiple personality disorder and demonic agitations. Mystical theologian Herbert Thurston writes, “Many of them were intensely devout … but in others piety was combined with eccentricities and with apparent dissociations of personality which were strange and not exactly edifying.”

These eccentricities are not true for all stigmatists. Capuchin friar Padre Pio, for example, was always “exceptionally calm and composed. There is no bad family history. He himself, with a candid simplicity which evidently made a profound impression upon the rationalist Professor, declared that he had never suffered from any nervous malady. He has never been subject to fainting fits or convulsions or tremors. He sleeps well and is not troubled with dreams.”

Demons can scrawl letters, words and other dermatography on people’s flesh, like something you would see in a horror movie. This sign does not always come as a mark of piety, by any means. Religious devils are so prone to glorify personal suffering; one must discern clearly whether a person’s experience is a valid miracle or a “crucifixion complex” of sorts.

Some critics have claimed that stigmata are produced by the imagination, intense mental concentration or some other naturalistic, physiological phenomenon. There is no need to waste time refuting such an unscientific argument, which is devoid of common sense. The imagination cannot cause the body to perforate itself. Angels and devils can. The body cannot cause such wounds to smell fragrant or glow with light, as many have. This is no routine biological process like digestion, circulation or ordinary tissue mechanics. Unless the stigmata is fraudulently self-inflicted (and a number have been, for attention, money or spiritual pride), then the question remains whether the stigmata is divine or diabolical in origin.

“That the divine stigmata could be produced through the force of the emotions acting upon a lively subject is altogether impossible,” notes Summers. Hemophilia, a tendency to bleed spontaneously or from injury, has no connection whatsoever here. There are only two types of stigmatization: the holy and the profane. You will know the tree by its fruit.

Transverberation of the Heart

Lots of manifestations are grouped under the blanket term “stigmata,” but stigmata generally include the five main wounds of Christ: piercing of the two hands, the feet and side. A number of stigmatists also receive wounds corresponding to the crown of thorns, the lashes on the back and abrasions to the shoulder, where Christ carried the cross (Lucy generally receives all of these around Easter each year). I am including separately the manifestation called the ferita, also known as the heart wound or the transverberation of the heart. In this case, the heart itself is supernaturally pierced, even as the heart of Jesus was pierced on the cross. Teresa of Avila is by far the most famous recipient of this. In her writings, she tells us that an angel approached her and did this with a fiery tipped, golden lance.

“The angel appeared to me to be thrusting the spear of fire into my heart and piercing my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and left me all on fire with a great love of God.”

Some days after her death, Teresa’s body was opened and her heart removed. There on its side was a large puncture wound, with which she had evidently lived for years. The heart was put on display after her death in 1582 and has remained miraculously incorrupt without rotting ever since.

Transverberation is a piercing “under which condition normally the subject would die, since the wound (humanly speaking) ought to be mortal.”

Veronica Giuliani, in the 18th century, somehow believed that her physical heart had hardened into the likeness of certain shapes: a cross, a crown of thorns, a chalice, three nails, a pillar, seven swords and certain letters that represented a number of Christian virtues. These were emblems she had long meditated on. She had such a clear vision of this, that she would draw small pictures of them for her spiritual directors. Years later, upon her death, her heart was extracted; the images of these objects were actually found on the heart, exactly in the manner she described them in her latest drawings. There is little scientific explanation for this. But wait … there are far more fantastic miracles than this.

This may sound unbelievable, but in comparison with Biblical miracles, such wonders are a mere trifle. A more extraordinary case of stigmatization and ferita were faithfully recorded in the 13th century life of Lady Helen of Veszprim by her fellow nuns and contemporaries. From her stigmatized hand, a golden budded thread began to appear, which grew into a stalk. Fragrant lilies began to blossom from the end of this golden stem. And from the ferita on her side, another of these gold filaments appeared with white petaled lily blossoms. Greatly embarrassed and not knowing what to do with these lilies growing from her stiggy, Helen pulled them out, as if by their roots. They remained in tact for years after her death. Furthermore, Helen’s wounds turned to golden circles, and on certain holy days, her stigmata “shone with a soft radiant glow.”

Hope you enjoyed these brief teachings on the stigmata: something you don’t see highlighted in too many Protestant ministries! Here at Sons of Thunder, we are not Catholic, but we are not Protestant either! We are not protesting anything, we are pursuing Someone. Blessings to you on your journeys this week, as you plore the inexhaustible riches of His heart, and the mystical wonders of His Kingdom!

Stigmata Appears at Manifestations of Glory Event

Although we have been quite slow in posting an email bulletin, we would like to share with you some powerful happenings which occurred at our Manifestations of Glory event in the Atlanta area, earlier this spring. There was such a weighty Glory and an open Heaven for the release of mystical signs and wonders. It would be difficult to compare this with any other conference we have hosted to date.

We invited guest speaker Lucy Rael, a woman of utmost integrity who has for decades manifested the “blood sign,” or stigmata, on her physical body. Lucy has long worked under the helm of the renowned healing revivalist T.L. Osborne. Not only did the blood sign appear before the gathered crowd in south Atlanta. Also, there were dramatic manifestations of thick, supernatural gold flakes and copious amounts of supernatural oil that flowed from Lucy’s hands as she ministered. Georgian Banov released a powerful message on evil-free existence, with a weighty impartation of joy and power. We also had some Glory-packed ministry from Joshua Mills and Kaye Beyer. I ministered on the physical phenomena of mysticism and discussed some of the unusual manifestations we are now experiencing and will continue to see as we press into new ground in the Spirit.

Also at the event, we saw quite a number of healings, weight loss miracles and accurate words of knowledge. I would encourage folks to pick up the DVD series from our online store, as there is really a powerful impartation on this media resource –we captured nearly all of the most dramatic miracles on film, including the stigmata. I have found that watching such dramatic, unusual miracles is a catalyst for increasing my own faith. This series has a great series of teachings, but there are also the visible, tangible signs and wonders (beyond mere healings) that will build your faith and get you extremely whacked in the love of God!

I would like to spend a little time here over the next two weeks discussing the manifestation of stigmata, as this is a peculiar miracle that causes much curiosity as well as much misunderstanding.

The Stigmata

Stigmata is a supernatural phenomenon that accompanies states of divine ecstasy, but garners significant controversy in Protestant circles. Stigmata is something we at Sons of Thunder tenderly refer to as “stiggy!” There have been more stigmatists over the past century than any other on record. Theologian R.P. Poulan estimates that as of 1907, there had been conservatively 321 known stigmatists. Now, a century later, that number has grown to 500. Despite common misperceptions, these occur as much among Protestant believers as Catholic.

Francis of Assisi in the 13th century was the first believer known to carry the stigmata, and there are a number around today, including Lucy, a charismatic Protestant minister . Fr. Elias is a young Catholic stigmatist in Italy today, and even the great revivalist A.A. Allen would highlight the miracle in his own tent revivals in the 1960s. In addition to the stigmata appearing on some in Allen’s miracle services, many people would receive a supernatural mark in the shape of a cross on their foreheads.

Although not a stigmatist, our friend, Joshua Mills, was recently in a meeting in New Zealand when warm blood dropped into his hand out of thin air. After a while, it turned into deep crimson “Glory dust.” Many people were physically healed and converted to Christianity at the meeting. Joshua said he received more persecution from critics for this one sign than perhaps any other to date!

There are many “blood miracles” throughout church history. The great miracle worker Francis of Paola once refused to take a chest of gold coins from a wicked king who had exploited the poor for the money. To show that this was literally blood money, Francis picked up a gold coin and was able to snap it in half between his fingers. Blood dripped out of the coin miraculously, and the king was instantly repentant.

Without a doubt, blood miracles are simply taboo in Western Protestantism. A lot of misinformation is fed to us by Hollywood – there is even a movie titled Stigmata, which incessantly portrays the experience to be demonic and cultish. There should not be pointless division over such a trivial issue. However, I do believe that as we honor the miracles God releases, He is prone to bring more blessing. Why must we always drop the gavel and make a judgment call on things we don’t understand? Don’t slap a demonic label on everything inexplicable. The bottom line is that miracles are from God when He is glorified, and thousands of people have come to faith through the manifestation of stiggy.

The reason stigmata is controversial is simple: there is always warfare over the blood.

In the case of stigmatists, history shows that all of them were ecstatics, meaning they all experienced trances, deep sensations of divine pleasure and the general bliss of Heaven. Most of them had visions of Christ, revealing Himself to them in His blood-stained garments. There are some stigmatists who did not even receive pain from their wounds (such as Lucy). Often, a stigmatist’s wounds will open and then close again miraculously. Gemma Galgani, who died in 1903, is an example of a modern recipient of these marks of Christ whose wounds would open and close again each week after her ecstasy was over on Friday.

In the case of the 1873 stigmata of Louise Lateau, documented by medical doctors (as are nearly all modern examples), there were no actual wounds per se. The blood would flow from unbroken skin. Other stigmatists’ hands and feet have been completely perforated all the way through the flesh. This is what occurred with 18th century stigmatist Maria Francesca delle Cinque Piaghe. Her confessor, Don Paschal Nitti gives this testimony:

“I have seen them, I have touched them, and to say the truth I, as the apostle St. Thomas did, have put in my finger into the wounds through her hands and I have seen that the hole extended right through, for in inserting my finger into the wound it met the thumb which I held underneath on the other side of the hand”

Some have received an invisible stiggy. That is, their hands felt the pain of the stigmata, but they never received the actual blood sign. As in the case of Catherine of Siena, some had visible bleeding stigmata, but after requesting the Lord to make the sign invisible, He did so.

I have never encountered an instance of valid stiggy in my studies where there was no choice made by the recipient to willingly endure this mark. That is, it has always been a grace gift that could be received or rejected without condemnation. In those cases where stigmatists asked the Lord to remove it, time and again He has obliged.

On a deeper level, stigmata is an outward manifestation of ecstasy that comes from a spiritual condition called the wounds of love, or the anguish of love. Jesus sweat blood in Gethsemane. Jacob wrestled with an angel until his leg was injured. Just because a manifestation hurts does not mean it is not from God. And on the same token, not everyone is called to carry stiggy. It is not a superior mark of piety.

In the anguish of love, states of pleasure and suffering come in near equal strength. It is possible to experience bliss and suffering both simultaneously, and with great intensity. Most stigmatists have meditated long hours on Christ’s passion, and they have been graced with a condition of deep heart-sickness:

“Something of the same kind is experienced in human love when it is violent. A great sweetness is felt, the lover does not wish to quit the thought of the beloved; he enjoys it. But at the same time he feels his heart torn because of his absence from her, or because of the difficulty of conversing with her freely. There is thus a mingling of joy and of sorrow. So, too, it is possible to have delicious experiences of God and of His love, and to feel at the same time a secret anguish which is nothing else than the thirst for God, kindled by Himself,” writes Poulan.

Common questions need to be answered to arrive at proper discernment in such cases. Does the subject feel drawn closer to God in these experiences? Does the person want the manifestation to continue, despite the obvious pain, or is it solely an oppressive experience? Remember that any ecstasy can be intense, but generally it is very welcome because it is an intensity of bliss. Perhaps the guiding factor is this: is there an essence of God’s presence and peace in the midst of perceived suffering?

“The ecstatic suffers, and he not only accepts his pain, but he dominates it, he triumphs over it, he accepts it with enthusiasm. These joyful sentiments are not of the Earth,” writes mystical Christian theologian Fr. Hamon in 1906. “He interests himself, as though he were in complete health, in the joys and sorrows of others.”

Overall, I believe we can accept stigmata as a valid miracle of Jesus, without having to embrace a depressed theology of suffering. The best stigmatist is a happy one!

Of those contemplatives who suffer in some supernatural way, Teresa of Avila says:

“They have need that His Majesty should afford them some refreshment, and this not of water, but wine; that so, inebriated with this celestial wine, they may not consider that they suffer, and may be able to endure it.”

I have determined in my heart that, if there is a heavier hit of Glory on something, I want it – no matter how much it hurts!

Next week, we will continue our discussion, touching on the subject of demonic counterfeit and discernment with bizarre miracles of this nature …

Toking the Ghost: Why Christians Must Redeem Drug Culture, Part II

The past few decades, with moves such as Toronto and others, people are truly beginning to grasp that the New Wine of God’s Spirit is not just to be discussed or analyzed, but to be drunk. The Lord has always sought, throughout the scriptures, to relay the concept that we are to be entranced on Him. God has always used wine as a typology of His celebratory nature. He says in Ephesians 5:18:

“And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit …” (NKJV).

Obviously, most believers know we are not to be drunk with natural wine. But nevertheless, the Lord correlates a spiritual experience to the buzz derived from alcohol. Why would God make such a comparison? Alcoholic drunkenness is off limits – yet God uses it as an analogy, to point us to the real drunkenness He desires. His goal is to turn us away from the false, in order to turn us toward the true. Just as God correlates the real to the illegal counterfeit in the passage above, so do we correlate drug use (also off limits) in a similar analogy. Realize that the issue has nothing to do with drugs, alcohol or pink elephants. It has to do with spiritual intoxication. The package is irrelevant here, so we may as well get over it. God is going to be ripping up a lot of religious packages in these days, in order to express Himself to a generation.

Don’t let religion feed you water, when God offers to turn it into wine. We have found that using street drug language has a great shock effect, because people will instantly make the correlation to how extreme and radical God wants us to experience Him, to be reliant on Him (abandoned addiction to Him), and to be pulled into exotic spiritual experiences with Him daily. Maybe you have never had daily encounter with God. Maybe you’ve been a Christian for decades, but never believed He was so close as to intersect your daily life on a regular basis. Don’t let your past experience dictate the standard God has for you. Take a puff. He died so that you can encounter Heaven continually in unbroken communion. How do we access this? By simply believing – by faith. How do we drink of Him? How do we toke Him up? By faith. Need more faith? Take a puff.

Addicts Set Free from Drugs and Prostitution!

I am always excited to see the fruit of “Toking the Ghost” in the lives of ordinary people, who get freed up by encountering Jesus this way. We get simple testimonies like this one emailed to us all the time:

“It was awesome you came to me and asked me if I wanted to get high and then you blew on me and I passed out. I have not been the same since thank you.” – Ricky S., Cave City, Kentucky.

If that testimony sounds tame, consider this one: after an outreach we did in Canada, multiple prostitutes gave their lives to Jesus. What impacted their decision? Oddly enough, it was largely influenced by getting high on the Most High:

“Two young female prostitutes/addicts are safely in a Christian detox center in another city and after 28 days will be in Montreal at Safe Haven for 2-3 years. A third female is being looked after. A male escort is now at Harvest House and a pimp is on the verge of salvation. One of the persons was native. … Confidentiality must be strictly observed. All of our lives at risk and there are many (illicit sex) clients who go to church. Church is not always a safe place for testimonies. One (prostitute) had 12 clients at one of the largest spirit-filled churches in the Maritimes. A deaf ear popped open and a woman who had internal damage during childbirth, bone problems and great pain was instantly healed (at the meetings). (One of the) things that brought tears to all the prostitutes and touched them the most were … when John Crowder took some arms on front row and pretended he was shooting them up but it was with the Holy Ghost not a substance – they all went wild when they saw how much fun Christianity could be!” – Anonymous, Nova Scotia, Canada

We also hear regularly of people whose drug addictions were broken – not by going into a program, but by finding a better substance! They encountered the substance of Heaven:

“One year ago I was asked to leave the only church I ever felt like I fit because I confessed that I was struggling to stay free from pot smoking. … Then I attended a conference in Harrisburg where John Crowder whacked me on my head and later (Yes, I went back for more) injected me in the arm with the Holy Ghost. I have been wasted since. I realized ...Oh Lord! There is no way I can ever go back to smoking now. This is so much better and free! Thank you for your peculiar example. (I have) been enlightened. … Suddenly joy is oozing out of my pores! The wonderful thing is Holy Spirit said I caught it – I am infected with a move beyond any move. There is a wide spread epidemic of joy being released. People are going to catch a joy buzz everywhere I go … and lately I seem to be walking around just on the brink of laughter. … The epidemic is spreading! People are filled with joy every where you go there are smiling faces. It becomes common to be standing in the check-out line and hear spontaneous laughter. Wow! Life is good! The whole region is now being transformed. We are having street parties shouting “Jesus is Lord and oh so good!” … Put down your needle! Intoxication is free! And better than any concoction ever put together by man. Whoooohooo! People are getting saved all over the country because these courageous, infected-beyond-repair victims are completely caught up in love with Jesus. Suddenly everyone wants Him!” – Sharon C., Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Drunkenness Sets School in Chaos

One of my favorite testimonies we have received was from a young, 17-year-old Dutch girl who reports that her drunken behavior set her entire school in a glorious uproar. Persecuted by teachers, counselors and peers, she stayed faithful to the whack of God, and thus set everyone talking and being exposed to the workings of God:

“I’m a 17-year old girl from the Netherlands and me and my friends are experiencing 'strange' things at our school. That Friday that John had a conference in Holland, I was at school and suddenly I felt the Holy Spirit come upon me. … I went out of the classroom and sat down somewhere in the hall. … My whole body shook and I fell to the floor, God was really doing something. After a while (my friend) Samantha would go and tell the teacher what was happening, because we were away for a long time already. So the class didn't know what to think and when Samantha went back to us again, another Christian began to explain to the people what was going on. At the moment she began to speak a wind was going trough the classroom, when she stopped the wind was gone. When she began again the wind was there again. A girl who doesn't believe in God felt the wind at first and she said that that wasn't just normal. I was still on the ground shaking when the class was over and then the teacher and two other Christians came to have a look. He asked if we would like to explain it all to the class in one of his lessons.

“After he was gone another teacher came (I don't know how you call it in English but they both teach in religion and stuff). He wanted us to come into his office. So they had to pick me up from the floor and help me get into his office. But when we were there he began saying that I should 'get out of it' and that I had to do this in my own time, because we were at school. … I was still shaking at the front of the school, where all the people were because it was lunch break.

“After that I went home and that night I was in the conference where John was speaking and it was just so cool, because he was acting as weird as I had done that day! And again God was doing something in me. That whole weekend God was there and I was really drunk all the time, it was so funny! I have learned much from John, and I can't even count the number of how many times I fell on the floor because God was doing something so powerful. But the Monday after that weekend God hadn't stopped his work, so I was drunk all the time even in classes! As a result of that teachers now worry about me; my mentor phoned home and my parents have to come to school and talk with her. … Students and people who aren't even at this school talk about it. … So there really is chaos and we're at a point where we don't know what to do next.” – Chayah V., Netherlands

All it takes are a few drunken warriors with a boldness to let God break out in their midst, even when it is unexplainable. A few people like this in His hands can awaken entire regions.

Maybe you have gone to church for years, but have never been floored by the immediate, tangible presence of the Holy Spirit. I would like to encourage you that God can swoop right into your circumstance and bring you a radical, addictive overhaul in one moment of your life. He did it for me, and He does it for many others. I will share one more testimony of someone who was altered by a heavy-duty Jesus fix:

“I just want you to know that I have acquired a brand new Holy Spirit addiction. I got all the prayer at the conference and then stayed for Sunday service. … I was a Holy Spirit seeker and now am a Holy Spirit addict. … They scraped me off the floor and I was so drunk in the Spirit. That has never happened to me before. I had a 3-hour drive ahead of me and they put me in the car and I laughed and prayed (yelled/warred) in tongues for more than an hour of it. Thank God I made it because I was so completely fried. I even acquired new tongues, either a new language or more of the one I already had. I went straight from Kenosha to a meeting at my own church and since it is pretty much a seeker friendly church, I was not sure how my condition was going to go over, but I didn't really care that much. I got a lot of favor and one man told me today that when he saw me on Sunday, I was glowing. … It's great! You were so right. In that condition, I don't care about anything. I can do so much more this way because I don't care what people think of me. It's awesome! All I want is God and more God! Nothing else matters. Hey I even came home feeling love for my son-in-law who has been quite a thorn in my side. Today I took a prayer drive around the perimeter of my town and heard God directing my prayer for this town really clearly. Thank you for sharing! This is amazing!” – Paulette M., Kenosha, Wisconsin

Prepare to be stretched, because God is releasing His kingdom in some radical new expressions in this hour. Let us trust Him and enjoy the flow of this new move!

Toking the Ghost: Why Christians Must Redeem Drug Culture, Part I

Ever since I first became a believer, I have had a constant addiction to the Presence of God. I do not know of any other way to live the Christian life, apart from a loving compulsion to continuously be near this God of Gladness. One of the primary things the Lord showed us years ago was that intoxication on Him is the very essence of “first love.” God is not interested in your dispassionate praise or disinterested service. He is going for the depths of your heart strings. The thing that intoxicates you to the core is the very thing you worship. There is a deep, inner craving that draws us outside ourselves and into the realms of divine ecstasy. This is our inheritance as children and lovers of God. The only kind of love that will lay down its life is a love that has transcended life itself.

Supernatural pleasure, inner raptures, ecstasies, trances and visionary encounters are our Biblical inheritance as believers. Sadly, the church culture of today has become far removed from true, joyful experiential Christianity. Instead, it has morphed into a mere classroom on ethics, while losing the true core of spirituality and encounter that are freely available to all believers who choose to access the open Heavens of the cross. The great revivalist John G. Lake explained it this way, when discussing trances:

“Now what is a trance? A trance is the Spirit taking predominance over the mind and body, and for the time being the control of the individual is by the Spirit; but our ignorance of the operations of God is such that even ministers of religion have been known to say it is the devil.”[i]

We are tired of seeing the church forfeit over inner trance experiences to drug culture, new age and the occult, which can only offer counterfeits at best and demonic counterparts at worst. As believers, we should be the most intoxicated people on the planet – blissed out on the God of ecstasy who has rivers of pleasure flowing at His right hand! We were never created for a dry, boring, sober religious existence. True spiritual “sobriety,” of which the apostle Paul speaks, is coming into a vivid awareness of the unseen realm of Heaven. In Acts 2 and elsewhere in the scriptures, this “spiritual sobriety” looked like complete drunkenness to the natural eye. The new wine of God’s Spirit is the daily fare of the believer. The church started in the heavy drunken Glory on Pentecost, and we are moving from Glory to Glory. God would never give us a lesser experience for a greater one. What the apostles tasted in part, we will overdose on in full!

Drink Your Fill

There is a supernatural bliss the world longs to see demonstrated in the people of God. To live by the rules and regulations of naturalistic religion, without encountering the Spirit of God Himself, is to already be drunk on the ways of the world.

The scriptures have long commended us to be inebriated without limit on God, as we are told to “… drink your fill, O lovers.” (Song Sol. 5:1). How thirsty are you? Theodoret of Cyrus, in the fifth century, comments on this single verse saying:

“He commands these persons not merely to drink, but to be drunken; for there is a drunkenness that works temperance and not delirium – one that does not enfeeble the limbs but lends them strength.” [ii]

We want to be those who partner with Heaven to see a redemption and restoration of true supernatural, mystical experience by finding our intoxication in the Holy Ghost! God will never put a limit on your joy levels. It will take all of eternity to explore the depths of God’s gladness.

Taking it to the Street

When I go out for evangelism these days, I rarely ever start with the “four spiritual laws” or try to convince people they are sinners. I say this not to criticize anyone else’s evangelism method. If it bears fruit for you, go for it. But most people already know they are sinners. Very often, I just ask them if they want to get high! And more often than not, they do. Use bait for fish, not repellant.

Presence evangelism is the most effective mode of making true converts, because people are not simply making intellectual decisions based on points of doctrine. Instead, they are truly encountering the Lord of Glory through a tangible experience, and the explanation follows. Yes – of course we must give a rational exposition of the gospel. But without tangible demonstration, the gospel will be all talk and no show. Everybody is looking for interior fulfillment at a heart level, and we are carriers of that to a broken world. We pray, and people get rocked. They feel. They taste. They see.

It is amazing how drug culture and all manner of sedation are so prevalent in our society today. At best, everyone is addicted to television, food and materialism. But more common than you realize, even in the church today, people are addicted to worse mind-altering substances from Prozac, Xanex and alcohol to marijuana or hard street and party drugs. I cannot begin to count how many people we have seen set free when the liberating pleasures of the Holy Spirit are released. The anointing breaks the yoke (Isa. 10:27). How many thousands have we seen get rocked, who once suffered from depression that also led to physical ailments such as chronic fatigue, chronic pain and fibromyalgia? All because the joy of Jesus broke a spirit of heaviness from their lives!

Man is designed to live in an alternate state of reality. You were made to walk in the Spirit. If someone is not plugged into the ecstasies of Jesus, they are naturally going to look for their fix in a perverted form. Although the source of our intoxication is two worlds apart, secular people at least understand the principle of intoxication. There is an issue of relevance and reality here. Although religious spirits hate it, I have no problem drawing parallels between the ecstasies of God and a drug induced state of consciousness. The latter is only a counterfeit of the former. My goal is to bring the spiritual principles to street level language, where people need the revelation. Most non-believers think God wants to take away their fun. I encourage them to “Toke the Ghost” or take a trip with psychedelic Jesus. Not by using drugs of course, but by imbibing on the Spirit of God.

A Personal Testimony

Drug-induced trances are only shallow, deadly substitutes for Holy Spirit trances. We can convince people that they don’t need drugs by getting them high on the Most High. Then, and only then, freedom and deliverance are simple, if not instant. The best way to convince them is to give them a taste of what they are missing out on! This is the “one-step program” for deliverance.

I am living proof of this principle. I received an instant deliverance from drugs as a teenager, and I was the worst substance abuser of all my friends. The thing that finally broke my addiction was getting whacked by the thrilling pleasure of the infilling of the Holy Spirit! How could I ever choose a lesser substance after tasting Divine Bliss? Most of the strongest drug addicts consequently have the strongest call to raptures and the seer realm. Consider how every class of drug specifically imitates something produced in rapture. Sedatives only counterfeit the deep, supernatural peace of God. Stimulants, or uppers, only imitate the power and stamina of the breaker anointing when the Spirit of Might comes upon you. Hallucinogens only simulate the visionary realm. It is completely normal that people would want to experience peace, power and see things! These are God-given desires, but we should fulfill those desires in Him, rather than substances. Bono, from the rock band U2, makes a great point when he sings: there’s nothing better than the real thing!

We have taken it as a sort of personal mandate to influence the church toward the ecstasies and living a lifestyle of spiritual drinking. This is because the new wine all has to do with intimacy, and love is the highest way. God wants junkies, and I have resolved to be a Holy Ghost pusher. Pharisees often get offended when I talk about smoking “Jehovah-wanna,” popping a “taste and see pill” or drinking “Godka.” Of course we never have nor ever would encourage the partaking of drugs. But we strongly encourage the partaking of God! Hearing these sorts of analogies is like sweet water to the thirsty soul who was born to live an intoxicated lifestyle. I don’t give a rip about dancing a jig for a self-satisfied amen corner. Life is too short to try to force-feed a fat, religious cow. There are too many hungry, desperate people out there who are ready and willing to embrace a God who is tangible, loving, joyful and full of mystical surprises and intoxicating delight. This revelation of first-love intoxication drives young people through the roof. They know that this is what they were made for: to live more whacked than their friends who are on drugs.

The truth is that we are not really comparing God to drug use. The world has already done that! The very existence of a drug culture shows that the comparison has already been made. You do not need to inhale marijuana when you can inhale the ruah – the very life-breath of God’s Spirit! We are simply reversing idea that substances (or anything the world offers) can fill a void of pleasure and experience reserved for God alone.

Shock language

Imbibing on the pleasures of God is the most critical, key component for the preservation of society. Finding God as our holy “addiction” goes much further than a tactic for ministering to drug users. We must all learn to love God at the deepest, most compulsive levels of our existence. All of mankind is called to find its identity as lovers of God.

The essence of true love goes far beyond our works or service. True love must find pleasure in the object of its affection. While Christianity is full of cliché terminology to describe love, joy, worship, adoration and the like, it is sometimes more effective to use shock language and wild demonstration to convey how extreme is the joyful possession He offers us!

We have many pastors ask us to “tone down” the vernacular when paralleling God encounters with drugs. But by the grace of God I will not tone down an ounce of what He is doing until the day I die. Jesus never toned it down, and he never held anything back. One of the very reasons we use this type of language is to dismantle the very religious strongholds that keep people from “going too far” in the Spirit. Heaven is all about a great party. Even the great evangelist Billy Graham has made the analogy between conversion to Jesus and drug use. Taking the stage at the request of rock concert promoters in the late 1960s, he encouraged young people coming to hear the Grateful Dead and Santana to “get high without hang-ups and hangovers” … on Jesus.[iii] Graham used to quote the testimony of pop star Cliff Richards in interviews saying, “When I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior … this was 10,000 times more of a turned-on experience than any trip I took on LSD.”[iv]

It is also important to remember that God is not offended by our play! It is not blasphemous to enjoy God or crave Him for a fix. He is waiting for a people who are willing to come closer and play with Him more dangerously. Enjoying God in this way is the furthest thing from irreverence. It is time to show some irreverence toward those religious devils that prevent the people from drinking the Living Bliss of Christ. It is actually the “criticism” of such holy enjoyment that borders closest to blasphemy.

Next week we will share some radical testimonies from folks who learned to Toke the Ghost!
[i] John G. Lake: His Life, His Sermons, His Boldness of Faith (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland Publications, 1994), p. 505.

[ii] Robert Wilken and Richard Norris, ed., The Church’s Bible: The Song of Songs Interpreted by Early Christian and Medieval Commentators (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003), p. 190.

[iii] Chris Armstrong, “Christian History Corner: ‘Tell Billy Graham the Jesus People love him.’” Christianity Today (Vol. 46, Dec. 2002).

[iv] The Woody Allen Show (Interview of Rev. Billy Graham by Woody Allen, Sept. 21, 1969).

Blinding the Eyes of the Enemy Part II

Last week, we discussed how dwelling in the secret place is the key to staying hidden from the eye of the adversary in your life. Intimacy with God is the very thing that blinds your spiritual opponents. The life lived in the cocoon of God’s presence frustrates the enemy and thwarts his assaults against our families, churches and communities, as well as our health and finances.

Dwelling in the Glory realm is not an option for the believer. The secret place is a place of vulnerability both for you and for God. In this place of intimacy, you open your heart to God, and He opens His to you. It is the place where inmost secrets are revealed. Did you know that God wants to make Himself vulnerable to you? He is looking for a friend He can trust.

He said of Abraham: Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing? (Gen. 18:17). The mysteries of God become unhidden in the place of intimacy and friendship. As we draw near to Him, He pours out secret counsel and withholds nothing from us.

The opposite is true in the case of sin. Where there is hardness of heart or rebellion, God reveals nothing, but instead hides His face:

“Then My anger shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured. And many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’

“And I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they have done, in that they have turned to other gods” (Deut. 31:17-18).

One of the most prevalent “other gods” being worshipped today is the spirit of religion. Religion blinds us to the true things of God. He must hide His face from us when we pursue this false form of godliness. This was the same problem present in the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. Jesus called them the blind leading the blind.

“And Jesus said, ‘For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.’ Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, ‘Are we blind also?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, “We see.” Therefore your sin remains’” (John 9:39-41).

Jesus frustrates and blinds religion. Religion, which boasts its haughty claim to “see”, is rendered sightless by the Son of God. Those who confess their weakness and utter dependence upon Him, they are the ones who receive sight for their blindness. The Pharisees, however, trusted in their own self-righteousness. They were so lacking in true intimacy that they could not recognize the God they claimed to worship, even when He visited them in the flesh. As the apostle Paul told the Corinthians:

“But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ” (2 Cor. 3:14).

Paul learned of his own blindness in a dramatic encounter with the Lord. In Acts 9, when he was still a Pharisee, Saul was breathing murderous threats toward the church on his way to Damascus, when suddenly the Lord appeared to him in a bright light, striking him blind for three days. When his eyes were miraculously opened and the scales fell off of them, he was a changed man.

Our vision stays sharp, and God is clearly revealed to us, not through religious exercises or activities, but through faith expressed through love. Jesus is walking through the circumstances of your life right now, but can you recognize Him?

To blind the enemy from your affairs is as simple as having the Lord revealed in those same affairs. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ that really matters, not the defeat of your adversary. You cannot have one without the other.

Have you felt blinded to the things of God? Have you experienced a season in which it seems God is hiding His face from you? This understandably leads to feelings of frustration or discouragement. This is how David must have felt when he said the following:

“Lord, why do You cast off my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me?” (Ps. 88:14).

“Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my trouble; incline Your ear to me; in the day that I call, answer me speedily” (Ps. 102:2).

“Do not hide Your face from me; do not turn Your servant away in anger; you have been my help; do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation” (Ps. 27:9).

Consider also the lament of Job:

“Why do You hide Your face, and regard me as Your enemy?” (Job 13:20).

Many charismatic Christians would never confess their feelings of abandonment or hiddenness from God. While they prefer to maintain the talk of faith, they are unable to confess their heart’s true sense of discouragement. There are seasons in the course of every person’s life, where we feel that God has hidden Himself from us. This should not startle us nor cause us to panic. In these times when we cannot seem to feel or sense God, He is actually growing our faith and inviting us to a deeper walk of love.

If God seems more hidden from you than the enemy’s assaults, do not give up hope! Use this opportunity to grow stronger in your faith and in His everlasting love for you. The prophet Isaiah gives us keys in the hour when we feel God’s face is hidden from us. He says:

“And I will wait on the Lord, who hides His face from the house of Jacob; and I will hope in Him. Here am I and the children whom the Lord has given me! We are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells in Mount Zion” (Isa. 8:17-18).

In the season of hiddenness, you are not simply waiting for God to move on your behalf. This is the season where God is forging you to be a mover and a shaker. He is growing your faith so that you are no longer asking for miracles, but you become a sign and a wonder. When God was hidden from the patriarch Jacob, he wrestled and contended for the blessing. He did not give up. Sometimes your act of “wrestling” with God is as simple as resting in your faith. In the stillness before God, allow Him to draw you away to His secret pavilion:

“For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock” (Ps. 27:5)

“You shall hide them in the secret place of Your presence from the plots of man; You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues” (Ps. 31:20).

Again, we are brought back to the secret place. Whenever your enemy cannot see you, the victory has been won. Intimacy is the Holy Spirit’s “cloaking device” that enables you to become invincible to your adversary. Once the deviant schemes of satan are exposed, he is powerless. His only refuge is the lie. Truth exposes the enemy’s weak underbelly. Let us commune with Truth. In the inner chambers of God’s heart, the brightness of His shining begins to surround you until your adversary is blinded.

Let us look at one more verse that is coming into fulfillment for the people of God, spoken through the prophet Zechariah:

“‘And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it. In that day,’ says the Lord, ‘I will strike every horse with confusion, and its rider with madness; I will open My eyes on the house of Judah, and will strike every horse of the peoples with blindness’” (Zech. 12:3-4).

We are surely coming into a day when the nations will be gathered against God’s people. But this is not a time to despair or revert to paranoia. God will move on our behalf. Perhaps there are areas of your life where you have been blinded by sin – perhaps you have given entry to the adversary on some point of error. The fact is, God loves you, even in your immaturity! As a Christian, you have been grafted into His holy city. Your sin no longer keeps you in enmity with God, but has been washed away as far as the east is from the west.

God opens His eye on Judah. Judah means praise. A people of intimate adoration draw the eye of God, and the eye of God dispels His adversaries. When He gazes at you, suddenly, your enemies become God’s enemies. The horses in this passage represent the strength and abilities of your enemies, which are struck blind. The thoughts and schemes of the adversary are likewise struck with madness.

In the bridal paradigm of this end-time church, it is God Himself who will blind the wicked one and confuse our foes. Our battle ceases to be a striving effort as we bask in His pavilions, for it is the God of peace who will soon crush satan underneath our feet.

Blinding the Eyes of the Enemy Part I

Have you ever felt that the adversary was watching your every step? Sometimes, it seems that all our best efforts get foiled, because the eye of the enemy seems to bear down on our jobs, families, ministries, relationships or finances. Opposition from the devil can often be a sign that you are moving in the right direction. But there’s no need to let that opposition turn into oppression or continual defeat!

In this teaching, I will explain some principles that will enable you not only to stay hidden from the gaze of the evil one, but to overcome those powers of darkness in one fell swoop. We will discuss the concept of blinding the enemy.

The prophet Elisha, in 2 Kings 6, had been going into spiritual transport, receiving supernatural revelation about Israel’s enemy Syria and then warning the king of Israel about it. Elisha was so effective in seeing the enemy’s plans, that the king of Syria was growing paranoid:

“Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was greatly troubled by this thing; and he called his servants and said to them, “Will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel?” (2 Kings 6:11, emphasis mine).

The enemy has no creative power of his own, but he can only counterfeit the tactics of war that God gives us. Many of us have, at one point in our Christian walk, seen the enemy try to sow division into our homes, families, churches and friendships. The enemy knows that a kingdom divided against itself will fall. But here, in this passage of scripture, we see that the prophet Elisha is fighting fire with fire. Elijah is sowing division into the enemy’s camp. The first lesson we should note here is that prophetic insight enables us to divide and conquer. Spiritual vision supersedes and cuts off any carnal attack.

“And one of (the Syrian king’s) servants said, ‘None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.’ So he said, ‘Go and see where he is, that I may send and get him.’ And it was told him, saying, ‘Surely he is in Dothan.’” (2 Kings 6:12-13, emphasis mine)

As the king set out in pursuit of Elisha, the prophet was staying in Dothan. Dothan literally means “the place of two wells.” Dothan is the place where, years earlier, Joseph had been thrown into a well by his jealous brothers. Because Joseph had favor and gifting on his life, he was persecuted by those who did not. In the same way, Elisha’s gift made a way for him, but it also brought on the heat of his foes! If you want favor, breakthrough and success from God, there will also be turbulence that comes with it. People will try to shoot you down, even those close to you.

Dothan is not the place of one well, but two wells. There are many layers of symbolism in this. Although Joseph saw this well as a path to prison, the well was actually a path to the palace. We must always keep in mind that the trials, persecutions and temporary afflictions we face can be blessings in disguise. Your well can be the back door to promotion. You may see one well, but God sees another. What satan means for evil, God intends for good. When you feel the enemy plunging you into a pit, ask God to give you prophetic vision to see the situation through His eyes.

Little did they know, as the Syrians came to capture Elisha, that they were actually being delivered into his hands for utter defeat.

“Therefore (the Syrian king) sent horses and chariots and a great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city. And when the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army, surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, ‘Alas, my master! What shall we do?’

“So he answered, ‘Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, and said, ‘Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. So when the Syrians came down to him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, and said, ‘Strike this people, I pray, with blindness.’ And He struck them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.

“Now Elisha said to them, 'This is not the way, nor is this the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.' But he led them to Samaria. So it was, when they had come to Samaria, that Elisha said, 'Lord, open the eyes of these men, that they may see.' And the Lord opened their eyes, and they saw; and there they were, inside Samaria!” (2 Kings 6:14-20, emphasis mine)

The Lord handed the entire Syrian army to Elisha on a silver platter. Elisha had faith to see that the Lord’s heavenly hosts were far mightier than those arrayed against him. As he prayed, Elisha also had authority to impart prophetic vision to his servant. And beyond that, he even had the ability to blind the entire enemy army, and then later restore their sight.

All believers are given a mandate to open the eyes of the spiritually blind. We are called to “open blind eyes, To bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house” (Isa. 42:7). But prophets also carry authority to close eyes.

Isaiah 6:10 reads:

“Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed.”

This is a harsh assignment for the Lord to give his prophet! This curse of spiritual blindness still lingers over the eyes of many today. But Jesus said of those who believe: but blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it (Matt. 13:16-17).

Our assignment is not to blind people, but to blind principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places (see Eph. 6:12). Even Elisha re-opened the eyes of the Syrians, after he had surrendered them to the king of Israel. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but our spiritual enemies should definitely be blinded. As we saw in the case of Elisha, God will often send angels to administer this blindness. Consider a similar example in the case of two angels who visited Lot in Sodom. The depraved men of that city sought to have homosexual relations with them: so they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near to break down the door. But the men (angels) reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door. And they struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they became weary trying to find the door (Gen. 19:9-11).

The principle of blinding your enemies is no more than being hidden by God. The key to staying hidden by God is to stay in the place of intimacy with Him – to remain in the secret place.

“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him I will trust.’

“Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler.

“You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look, and see the reward of the wicked.

“Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you, nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; for He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways” (Ps. 91:1-11).

We love to consider these blessings of Psalm 91. Many people quote them and stand on these promises consistently. But it is one thing to quote the scriptures. It is another thing to do the scriptures! There is a major prerequisite to all this blessing, protection and favor promised here. Don’t waste your breath quoting the benefits of Psalm 91 if you are not doing your part: dwelling in the secret place of the Most High! God does not hide you from harm because you know these verses, but because you have made the Lord, who is you refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place.

The practice of the presence of God is the most imperative thing we could ever do. Not just popping our heads in the door of the secret place occasionally when it benefits us. We must make Him our dwelling.

California Wildfires: “This is a Sign That God is Blazing Through”

As many of you are aware, more than half a million people have so far evacuated their homes from Mexico to north of Los Angeles, due to the wildfires that are now burning in the state of California. Damage is estimated so far at more than $1 billion with 645 square miles scorched at the time of this writing. Hollywood has also taken a blow. A number of celebrities have been forced to flee the area and many production sets have stopped and been abandoned, according to news reports.

About six weeks ago on Sept. 8, while ministering in Stockton, California, I prophesied publicly about the coming of these fires, which we feel are a prophetic sign of revival that is coming to burn in the state. This will be a wildfire revival that is not tamed, controlled or orchestrated by anyone other than God Himself.

Along with this wildfire prophecy, the Lord showed me revival fires such as those that have burned in Latin America will be spreading through California. I saw a clear connection with the Hispanic community, and revival spreading between Baja, Mexico, the border region and California, where the natural fire is now located. Here is an excerpt from the prophecy:

“Wildfire state of California, burn, burn burn! … Get ready wildfire state. I want you to hear me clearly: I’m not saying this as a ‘judgment prophet’ – I’m not saying this in that regard, OK? But you watch and see the wildfires coming. It’s going to be a sign of something in the Spirit. We pray protection over properties. We pray the protection of God. But watch and see. This is a sign that God is blazing through, and He’s clearing and leveling ground for the coming of His Kingdom in California. We say fire of Heaven burn. Fire of Heaven come. We need the flame of God. We need the consuming wildfire of Heaven. Come in Jesus name!”

To here the entire clip, you can click here.


Not a Containable Fire

Earlier in the week, ABC News headlines read “Malibu Wildfire 'Zero Percent' Contained.” Acting Malibu Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich told reporters, “This fire is zero percent contained which means we're at the mercy of the wind." Eventually, firefighters acknowledged that only the weather – not their own efforts – would determine the course of this blaze. The Lord is releasing a fire that will be zero percent contained by the mind and strength of man in this hour. It will not be bound by convention, tradition or religion. It will burn wherever it so pleases. This is the fire of full possession by the Holy Spirit that will hit the streets in a blazing inferno.

Often, people question the sovereign hand of God in the midst of natural disasters. But we must ever return to the simple knowledge that God is God. In the same way that the Lord causes the sun and rain to fall both on the righteous and the wicked, we must always put a simple trust in Him in situations such as these. Moreover, we should know His heart for redemption and restoration.

Amazingly, only three people have died out of the nearly one million evacuees. This is tremendous grace. Although there has been much property destruction, there are also stories of the miraculous. Over a month ago, when the Lord showed us these fires coming, we also prayed that properties would be protected.

In an interesting story posted on CNN, two residents of Rancho Bernardo, Pepe and Carolina Galmes, found that their house was left perfectly standing, although every other home in their neighborhood burned to the ground around them as sparks rained down from the sky. The dancing hand of God will move as He so chooses.

“Our house was the only one standing on the block,” said Pepe. “It’s a miracle.”

“We couldn’t believe our eyes. It’s a miracle, because our neighbors are gone – and all the row of the houses on the block (burned) and also the forest behind,” said Carolina.

“It’s a miracle. (The houses on our) left and right are down to the ground,” added Pepe.

An Upturn in Real Estate

While in Stockton, the Lord also had me prophesy about an upturn in the California real estate market. The market has been on a downturn for the past year or more, but the Lord showed us that it has reached its lowest point. This needed to happen, because of inflation. But from here, there will be a turn around. Despite the destruction of more than 1,600 homes and buildings, the fires may actually prove beneficial to the real estate market, which is a huge determining factor in the overall economy.

"In the odd nature of economic accounting, this will probably be a stimulus," Alan Gin, a University of San Diego economist, told the Los Angeles Times. "There will be a huge amount of rebuilding in the next couple of years, financed by insurance payments."

Although our heart is never to see destruction, we do feel that there are unavoidable acts of God that He will reveal through prophetic word. What is important is that our eye remains full of light in the midst of these circumstances. We should see that the Lord’s aim is not devastation, but to bring revival. This is a fire of love, but it will also consume everything that stands in the way of love. This is going to be a wild and “out of control” move of Heaven – a holy fire that determines wherever it wants to burn! For more understanding on this unpredictable move of Heaven, see our Part I and Part II articles on “Prepare for the Wildfire.”

Fire From Heaven

This is not the first time we have seen God back His word with literal fire. In 2005, while preaching a week of meetings in Alaska, several small, independent wildfires broke loose every day that I spoke (Click Here for the report). At the end of the week, I spoke on the Spirit of Burning and a huge, 5,000-acre wildfire erupted that day.

In the summer of 2006, we preached at Redlands, California as a wildfire likewise broke loose there. We have also seen regional power outages while ministering, along with bizarre weather patterns (such as snow falling in the springtime in Georgia). We have even seen the Lord cause it to rain inside buildings during some meetings! This type of activity will not be limited to one or two people, but to all those who cultivate a lifestyle in the Glory. God is releasing manifest sons in this hour whose words will be backed with signs in the heavens above and the earth below. The earth is crying out for these sons to be revealed to administer its freedom from the frustration of the curse!

The Lord is releasing a generation that moves in the Spirit of Elijah, whose tongues are literally flamethrowers. Elijah called down fire from heaven, and the mantle of the two witnesses that will be on this last days church will also walk in this same authority.

These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the God of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. And if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this manner. These have power to shut heaven, so that no rain falls in the days of their prophecy; and they have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to strike the earth with all plagues, as often as they desire (Rev. 11:4-6, NKJV).

This is not some haphazard thing the Lord is releasing in this hour. Nor will He entrust such words to those who lack compassion. Even the Lord’s judgments are for the sake of removing every obstacle to intimacy. Our enemies are not people or families affected by this disaster, but rather, we wrestle against “principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12, NKJV).

The amazing thing about these wildfires in California is the tremendous grace and protection of God in the midst of them. If the Lord is behind this, we know He will use it for the greater good of all the communities involved. Let us continue to pray for the families affected by these fires and continue to press in for wholesale revival in California.