Dreams, Visions, and Informed Intercession (Part 2)

Where there is fruit there are roots.  According to Luke 13:6-9
 Jesus said, “Cut down the tree only if it does not produce
 the fruit it should bear.” The ax is being applied to the
real roots of our nation today.

Let me begin by saying, "God never promises to bring a revival without prayer and the acknowledgement of our sin.  Every revival through history began with these two important biblical precepts." Instead of praying random prayers God is calling Christians everywhere to develop strategic prayer strategies for their cities to see their towns transformed for the kingdom of God. In Part 1 of "Dreams, Visions and Informed Intercession”, I took a prophetic vision of Bob Jones which walks through our nation various states and cities and have begun to show how this prophetic word might be used as a spiritual mapping tool. The principles of spiritual mapping and strategic prayer are simple and biblical. According to Ephesians 6 and other passages, spiritual mapping and prayer is a means of spiritual warfare in which we confront the principalities, powers, and wickedness in high places.  

Spiritual mapping is "an attempt to see your city as it really is, not what it appears to be." The goal is to push back the demonic darkness by identifying strongholds, attacking these areas with concentrated prayer, then infiltrating vanquished enemy's domain with the good news of Jesus Christ. Spiritual mapping is a means to an end: to move beyond breakthrough into complete transformation for your city or region. Please do not confuse the idea of "transformation" with "revival."  Certainly, a move of the Holy Spirit within the life of a region is something we all desire, however, "transformation" is addressing fundamental problems that need to be changed within our nation, city, or region to prep the culture for a visitation of God. I believe and have concluded that dreams and visions, like the “Gulliver Prophecy” by Bob Jones, need to be understood within the biblical guidelines of interpreting dreams and visions. God uses dreams and visions to help us prepare ourselves for the future. As we review this prophetic vision, we need to look at the story, the cities, the types, the symbols, and history of each place to find what each facet of the vision means and what God is calling us to do. In every world event or crisis, prayer needs to be strategic and defined. Wherever the enemy used rogue governments or dictators to oppose the freedom to share the gospel with the unsaved, intercessors had to intercede and become like an army fighting on their knees in spiritual battles. If you have not read Part 1, I would like to encourage you to do so before you take the time to read this second installment, on the subject.   

A few years ago, The Lord gave me Jeremiah 6:16 which says: "Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask which paths are the old, reliable paths. Ask which way leads to blessings. Live that way, and find a resting place for yourselves." Then He spoke to me and said, "America is at a crossroads."  This ancient prophecy was a call to the ancient Hebrew people to return to the God of their covenant.  Unfortunately, many American Christians are still under the delusion that like ancient Israel, our national founders had made a covenant with God. They have been misled into believing that, like ancient Israel, our nation has departed from our national covenant with Him and now standing faced with impending judgement if we do not return to that covenant.  My only questions are: "What Covenant?"  "When was it established?"  And, "By Whom?"  America is not, nor has it ever been in a covenant with God as a people.  So, when the Holy Spirit speaks to us we need to leave our Americanism at the door and explore the original intent of Jeremiah as he spoke to his target audience and then ask; “How does this apply to me today?”  My take is that some people think that America is under judgement for abortion or gay marriage, but my view is that America is under judgement for its original sin of slavery. The late C. Peter Wagner in his article in the “Renewal Journal” on July 18, 2011, entitled "The Power to Heal the Past", stated; "We must recognize that nations can and do sin corporately.  God loves nations, and I join those who believe that God has a redemptive plan for each nation, or for that matter for each city or people group or neighborhood or any visible network of human beings.  But corporate national sin damages the relationship of the nation to God and prevents that nation from being all that God wants it to be." 

In the Hebrew Scripture God judged, not only Israel, but he judged, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and various tribal groups for their specific sins.  Wagner continued by stating that he believed America was being judged for its specific original sin - the sin of slavery. He wrote, "The broadest and most pervasive sin that our nation ever committed was bringing Africans to our shores as slaves ‑ human merchandise to be bought, sold and used for any conceivable purpose to satisfy the desires of their White masters.  But beyond this, the deepest root of national iniquity, as I see it, and one of the primary causes of our subsequent lust for slaves, was the horrendous way we, White Americans, treated our hosts, the American Indians.  What does the breaking of over 350 solemn treaties say about U.S. national integrity?" Our nation is a covenant-breaking nation. If I can apply the Prophet Jeremiah's exhortation – as we take an honest look at our history and address the wrongs of the past. From the painful legacy of American Slavery (which included Native people and Africans) to the mistreatment, beatings, lynchings and genocide wrought between the Jamestown and Virginia landings up to the Vietnam War; God is calling all of us to journey through history to explore the roots of America's major wounds and examine how these acts still affect us today. Just as the Kingdom of Judah and Israel were embroiled in "reaping the fruit of what they had sown", I think Jeremiah's word calls us to look at the old reliable paths that God initiated with ancient Israel and exhorts us today to ask Him the way forward out of this mess our Nation now finds itself in.  We are at a crossroads because we did not heed the warnings of great God-given leaders like Francis Asbury, Charles G. Finney, and even Dr. Martin Luther King.

On November 26, 1957, Dr. King submitted an article to the Christian Century magazine in which he wrote; "The first Negroes landed on the shores of this nation in 1619, one year ahead of the Pilgrim Fathers. They were brought here from Africa and, unlike the Pilgrims, they were brought against their will, as slaves. Throughout the era of slavery, the Negro was treated in an inhuman fashion. He was considered a thing to be used, not a person to be respected. He was merely a depersonalized cog in a vast plantation machine. The famous Dred Scott decision of 1857 well illustrates his status during slavery. In this decision, the Supreme Court of the United States said, in substance, that the Negro is not a citizen of the United States; he is merely property. After his emancipation in 1863, the Negro still confronted oppression and inequality. It is true that for a time, while the army of occupation remained in the South and Reconstruction ruled, he had a brief period of eminence and political power. But he was quickly overwhelmed by the White majority. Then in 1896, through the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, a new kind of slavery came into being. In this decision, the Supreme Court of the nation established the doctrine of “separate but equal” as the law of the land. Very soon it was discovered that the concrete result of this doctrine was strict enforcement of the “separate,” without the slightest intention to abide by the “equal.” So, the Plessy doctrine ended up plunging the Negro into the abyss of exploitation where he experienced the bleakness of nagging injustice." 

Even though American Whites wish the issue would just go away, it will not until our national sins are acknowledged, repented for and proper amends are made, will we find the promised rest or peace that Jeremiah 6:16 promises. Dr. King continued, "It is commonly observed that the crisis in race relations dominates the arena of American life. This crisis has been precipitated by two factors: the determined resistance of reactionary elements in the South to the Supreme Court’s momentous decision outlawing segregation in the Public schools, and the radical change in the Negro’s evaluation of himself. While southern legislative halls ring with open defiance through “interposition” and “nullification”, while a modern version of the Ku Klux KIan has arisen in the form of “respectable” White citizens’ councils, a revolutionary change has taken place in the Negro’s conception of his own nature and destiny. Once he thought of himself as an inferior and patiently accepted injustice and exploitation. Those days are gone."   

It's time to own up to our national sin and finally tell the truth about what happened in America.  We have all learned the sanitized version of America’s founding and believed it was all for religious freedom for our forefathers to practice their Christian faith. However, land-grabbing, dehumanization, slavery, racism, lynching and genocide are not exactly biblical principles instituted by God in my view.  Dr. King believed "that God is on the side of truth and justice which comes down to us from the long tradition of our Christian faith." This is precisely why I think that Bob Jones’ vision, which I wrote about in my last article became so important to the team of intercessors I work with.  They concluded that Bob Jones' vision was a “Slave Trader named Gulliver” - which Bob Jones said, “Is the Body of Christ."  After reading, Elaine L. Robinson’s book “Gulliver as a Slave Trader", the team explained to me that abolitionist Jonathan Swift authored “Gulliver’s Travels”, as an allegory of a slave trader - much in the same tradition of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book “Uncle Tom's Cabin”. So, if Gulliver is a slave trader and Bob Jones calls him the “Body of Christ”, then the Body of Christ was involved in slavery. And this is a well-documented historical fact.

Over the period of the Atlantic Slave Trade, from approximately 1526 to 1867, some 12.5 million slaves had been shipped from Africa, and 10.7 million had arrived in the Americas. The Atlantic Slave Trade was perhaps the most costly event, in terms of the loss of human life, of all of the long-distance global migrations.  As they were brought over from the lands they were dispossessed from, many of them were chained on boards in the hull of the ships.  Bob Jones starts his vision with: " I saw a great man had fallen to sleep in the past, and his body was laying on his back and he was halfway buried in dirt."  As you begin to listen and try to discern a prophetic word, it's important that you pay close attention to the details. Gulliver is laying on his back tied down in this vision - halfway buried in the dirt.  There are two-pieces of truth here. (1) The principle of sowing and reaping now has the slave trader tied down and laying on his back held captive just as the old slave ship captain and crew had tied down their cargo (slaves) in the hull of their ships. (2) “halfway buried in the dirt” is a direct reference to the "iniquity in the land" - slave trading.  As Bob Jones continued, he gave us a prophetic insight of who this great man was. "We could call him Gulliver and little people, from little input, had tied him down, and the only reason he was tied down he’d been asleep for a long time, about thirty-eight years, and he was waking up, you could also call him the Body of Christ coming together.” 

So, if you traced the 38 years back from the time he gave the prophecy; this prophecy points to the end of the Charismatic movement.  The easy question that can be asked about why this significant move of God ended was that the Body of Christ (who is Gulliver) had fallen asleep and had been tied down by the people of the land who had little input.  The important clues given here is the name "Gulliver" and the images from "Gulliver's Travels" and that Gulliver is a picture of the Body of Christ.  Since Gulliver was a slave trader and our national sin (iniquity in the land) is slavery; why then is the Body of Christ implicated in this sin?  There are two possible parts to exploring this section of the prophetic vision. (1) The Roman Catholic Church in the early 1500's issued an edict known as the "Doctrine of Discovery". It states; “Go to pagan, heathen and unchristian lands and dispossess the people of the land and bring them into perpetual slavery.”  This was the original reason why Europeans came to America.  That is why the Gulliver prophecy is so important in identifying the Church’s role in slavery, segregation, and racism. (2)  Bob Jones stated that the Church has been sleeping for thirty-eight years.  We know that he was referencing the ending of the Charismatic outpouring that took place thirty-eight years earlier - but the question remains; “Why did this revival end?”  A dear African-American friend of mine named, Dr. Jeff Edwards, a prominent leader of the Charismatic movement, said to me recently; “That there were two parallel movements during that time. The move of God that took over whole denominations and the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King and others.  These two movements were the voices of their time but never came together.”  I personally believe that is the answer why the Charismatic Movement ended – they never came together.  Psalm 85:10 says, "Mercy and truth have met. Righteousness and peace have kissed."  We know that the finished work of Jesus has brought about the fulfillment of this Psalm. However, unconverted American Christian hearts did not heed or work for "truth and justice" after Dr. King gave his prophetic word to America on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in August, 1963 even though there was this major revival that began a few short years after God spoke to us through Dr. King.  We did not listen or obey the "Word of the Lord."  Thus, the move of God ended and the Church fell asleep.  So here we are over thirty-eight years later - crying out for a new fresh move of God like the early days of the “Jesus People Revival”, but we still have a problem.  The Land is still filled with iniquity. Leviticus 26:39 states, "Those who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins and the sins of their ancestors."  Eccl. 3:16 describes what our condition as a nation is: “Furthermore, I have seen under the sun that in the place of justice there is wickedness and in the place of righteousness there is wickedness.” God has certainly been mercy to us but He will not bless us until this mercy meets the "Truth" and righteousness and peace have kissed each other.  Black lives do matter and that's what this Gulliver vision is addressing. We have been given two warnings from God in the 20th Century.  

God used two African American men to speak to the Church, both were ministers. William Joseph Seymour, 1870-1922, was an African American minister, and a catalyst of the Azusa Street Revival in 1906. Even though, Seymour rejected the existing racial barriers in favor of “Unity in Christ", White Supremacists infiltrated his multicultural congregation and divided the congregation on racial issues and most of the White people left the congregation and started White Pentecostal congregations to replace the Azusa Street Revival.  As a result, the Azusa Street Revival ended.  Leaders today, from Oral Roberts University President, Billy Wilson to “The Call's” renowned Lou Engle, keep calling intercessors to pray for a kind of “Renewed” Azusa Street Revival. However, do they really understand what God was doing in their midst, during the time that Jim Crow laws and segregation were being perpetuated by the White Church of the day? So, what did God do?  He waited for another fifty years and poured out His Spirit in the mid-1960s on His Church and raised up another African American pastor to cry out for justice - Dr. Martin Luther King. The major reason I find that Dr. King is important to the Gulliver vision is because of the “Gulliver’s Travels” story.  When Gulliver is awakened in the original story, the people of Lilliput (the little people in the Gulliver’s Travels story who tied him down) they lift him and place him on a cart. Once he is on the cart they move him to take him to the king.  Near the end of Bob Jones vision, he says, "I saw this great man raise up and begin to take and break off all restraints and He put his foot down, both of them, in Atlanta, Georgia. This is where Dr. King lived, pastored, and is buried.  Bob Jones basically uses the Gulliver allegory of being brought before the KING; that he saw the great man raise up and... “put his foot down, both of them, in Atlanta, Georgia.”  So, after researching, discerning, and praying I began to understand that the Gulliver prophecy is about racial reconciliation and justice.  On a hot day in August, 1963 Dr. King was overcome by the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus began to speak through a BLACK man once again in the days of racial bigotry, segregation and police abuse; this prophetic word:

“I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, that one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

Why would God raise up two BLACK men to speak to a nation?  It's because He chose vessels that would be despised by the bigotry and racist hearts in the Body of Christ. Bob Jones, prophetically points out that the American Church, which was engaged in the slave history of our nation, whether segregating through congregational seating, running residential schools which stripped Native Americans from their cultural heritages, or not marching with Dr. King in the time of revival, will remain tied down by the sins of their fathers. It's just like God to use two men from different races, to speak a vision of God’s intended destiny for the “Body of Christ” in our nation.  But, he also had to use a White man named Bob Jones to show us, members of the Body of Christ, that God wants us to be unshackled and unfettered from our slave trading heritage. Once again, here we are at another crossroad and God is calling for an awakening. Why? Because we've been asleep for the last 38 years! What kind of awakening?  It is one in which "Mercy and Truth" and "Righteousness and Peace" are brought together. This prophetic vision calls intercessors everywhere to pray for this awakening, to lead the way to repentance for racial healing and reconciliation.  

In my next article, we will begin to unpack the history and meaning behind the parts of Gulliver's Body and the relationship with the corresponding cities.