Introduction
The Editorial Team of Prophecy Today want to thank all our readers for their responses to the articles we have published covering issues dealing with the pandemic and the great shaking of the nations. We are deeply concerned about the world situation. Everywhere we look the nations are in upheaval – Afghanistan, the Middle East, most nations throughout Africa, and there is unrest in most Western nations including the USA and Europe. We see the pandemic as the curtain-raiser to days of even greater turmoil in the near future, which calls us to the great need for hearing from God.
It is of great concern that there is division among the Bible-believing remnant at such a time as this. Prophecy Today is linked to Issachar Ministries, whose objective is to seek to understand the times in which we are living and to bring the unchanging word of God to a changing world. In facing this situation three of the elders of Issachar Ministries spent a day this week together seeking the Lord. They have produced the statement below (not an official IM/PT statement), in which they share their own collective response to time spent in His presence.
At the Swanwick gathering four weeks ago we were reminded that at the first conference of Prophetic Word Ministries (PWM/Prophecy Today), the forerunner of Issachar Ministries in 1984, Jean Darnell prophesied that the ministry would blow three trumpets. The first would be a message of warning. The second would be a call to preparation and equipping the people. She did not know what the third trumpet would be, but she said that God would reveal it at the right time.
Two years later we received the word from Carmel and Jerusalem giving warning that the Lord would soon bring a time of unprecedented shaking across the nations and the natural environment (Hag 2:6-7). We carried that warning for some 20 years. Then from early in the 21st-century we began blowing the second trumpet of preparing and equipping the people to stand in the time of great shaking that was drawing near.
At the Swanwick gathering we heard the Lord speaking about blowing the third trumpet. Today, three of us, Michael Fenton-Jones, David Noakes, and Clifford Hill, met to seek the Lord for an understanding of the third trumpet. We were assured that the third trumpet is not a call to battle as we expected, for the battle is the Lord’s (2 Chron 20:15). It is far too great a battle for us to fight, for it is nothing less than a clash between the powers of darkness and the light and truth of the gospel that Jesus foresaw (John 3:19-21).
The third trumpet brings revelation of a strategy enabling us to understand what God is doing so that we can stand as overcomers against the powers of darkness and deception that are driving the world and seeking to divide believers one from another. The time has come to sound the third trumpet. This trumpet calls the faithful remnant to lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near (Luke 21:28); to proclaim the Lord’s control over all the desolations that are coming upon the earth as a consequence of the world’s rebellion. In the midst of the prophesied shaking, God will glorify His Church.
We have entered a time of great opportunity for the gospel as the Lord anoints His elect with fresh authority and signs that will follow. We are to rejoice, for He has chosen a faithful remnant as His latter day Gideons. We are to welcome the shaking and, as we do so, the Kingdom will advance, and the world will see the difference between those who serve the Lord and those who do not (Mal 3:18).
The fundamental problem facing humanity is that we have airbrushed God out of our worldview, and we are intent on building our modern Tower of Babel with a cabal of greedy ambitious men conspiring to use the pandemic and global climate change, among other issues, to reset the world economy and seize control of the nations. We cannot prevent these things happening – they are foretold in Scripture. We have to prepare to stand in the turbulent days that are coming, because God will use them to work out his purposes. God is still in control; he holds the nations in his hands as a drop in a bucket (Isa 40:15) and he will empower his church to do mighty things in these last days.
Many Christians can see that the vaccine, among other global signs, could be used as a means of control, so they refuse vaccination. But that is fighting the wrong battle. As Paul says “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12).
The third trumpet calls us to receive the strategy for facing the enemy, to receive the challenge to stand still, to trust the Lord and to see him using his anointed people. Gideon and his 300 never did any of the fighting – they simply had to be obedient and do exactly what the Lord told them to do. God then routed the enemy and finally all the people came out and chased the enemy out of the land (Judges 7).
We were told to rejoice because the day of the Lord is about to dawn. We were led to a number of Scriptures showing us what God is doing and what he requires from the faithful Bible believing remnant as we enter days of extreme turbulence when all human institutions will be shaken (Heb 12:27).
Scripture verses
'Arise! Shine! For the light has come, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed through his people' (Isa 60:1)
'Come and see the works of the Lord, the desolations he has brought on the earth… Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations' (Ps 46:8-10).
'Build up, build up, prepare the road! Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people' (Isa 57:14).
We are on a pilgrimage like the people of exile in Babylon preparing the way to Zion – 'every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed' (Isa 40:4).
'You will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not' (Mal 3:18).
Tues 26th October 2021