This week: Some recent prophecies about Britain's relationship with the EU.

It is easy to feel overloaded when confronted with a large number of visions, dreams and prophetic words to test. Our spiritual adversary is quite capable of contributing to this overload, making it very easy for us to switch off. In so doing, however, we are likely to reject true prophecy. It is better to test everything – and hold on to the good (1 Thess 5:21).

We hope that this short series of articles in the weeks running up to the EU referendum is contributing to fellowships testing prophecy together.  Testing is a responsibility of the local Church, and it is likely that prophecies will emerge at this level which support those given at a national level. These will not necessarily be for sending out widely but simply for submitting to local elders for testing.

It is better to test everything – and hold on to the good.

Selection of Prophetic Words

With this in mind, we will not overload our readers with much more – over to you, as it were.

This time, we will feature just a few of the prophecies and reasoned arguments that have come in to the office over the last few weeks. The biblical principle of 1 Corinthians 14:29-33 implies that we can expect more than enough prophetic words. Order is required and self-discipline in reporting and testing prophecy.

Order is required - and self-discipline - in reporting and testing prophecy.

Here then are just a few more insights with the EU referendum in mind, which we can share.

1. Neil Turner (Omega Programme) / Nebuchadnezzar

Neil Turner has presented a biblical analysis based on Nebuchadnezzar's vision of a statue to draw out a reason for the UK leaving the EU. The full article is available here.

I quote two paragraphs that emphasise the reason for the article and the perceived reason why God wants us to be separate from such alliances as the EU:

The purpose of this article is not to argue the case for or against the EU, but to explore Bible prophecy to discern God's will for Britain. Simply, does the Bible have anything to say about Britain or its purposes in the last days? I believe the answer is yes, and for this we must turn to the prophecy of Daniel, given some 2600 years ago, whilst in exile in Babylon...

We must 'pray first for those in authority that we may live peaceable lives', and pray that in God's wrath towards our nation He would remember mercy. The prayer, lodged in my spirit by the Holy Spirit these last 25 years, is that 'God would sever Britain from the European Union, that we might stand alone as a nation before Him in judgment'. I believe, on the basis of Daniel 7, the British Church has the authority and responsibility to pray for exit.

May God have mercy on us.

Neil Turner, April 2016

2. Azusa Now / The Word of the Lord

Arthur Blessitt is well known as an evangelist who walked through many nations carrying a Cross. He participated in a gathering called Azuza Now in May 2016. At a ceremony on 8 May, stones were symbolically laid at a well – and a particularly poignant moment was reported. A full report is available here.

Here is a brief extract pointing to God's displeasure at disunity in the Church:

Arthur Blessitt and the Well – The Meaning

I felt the Lord was saying that the reason behind Arthur Blessitt sharing his testimony and suffering was significant. He is a man wholly focussed on and devoted to the One who mandated him. He is not one who would abandon that mandate when the going gets tough. As Arthur Blessitt shared, we heard his testimony of having been imprisoned, shot at, beaten and abused for the sake of the mandate God gave him. Yet in all these things, he so identified with the message of the cross that he never left his post.

The Lord also revealed that in the very same way that Arthur Blessitt put the cross in the midst of the well and all eyes were fixated upon it, the church needs to once again look to the cross. The church needs to know the Person of the cross and what He stands for. The church needs to preach and represent the cross in a radical way. '

The stones that were laid down blocked the well of contention, racism and division that has caused so much sickness in the Body of Christ in seasons past. There existed so much division and confusion but that well is now blocked and a new well has been erected.

Out of this new well, a new prophetic sound is arising from what the Lord is calling a Jesus movement of those that are moved by Him alone...

The Lord also revealed that many well known prophetic and prayer voices may not currently feel much direction or unction in prayer. This is because God is driving many back to the message of the cross. After looking intently to the cross, the mandates will begin to flow. The people of God will go forth in the strength and power of Elijah, Elisha, and Joshua – in great power and authority.

Let us watch and give the glory to God as He performs these signs. Yes, as we look to the cross we will learn to steward precious Holy Spirit in our midst in a greater way.

Sent to us by Rev Betty King.

3. British justice and personal freedom under threat.

Among other important concerns relating to Britain's sovereignty, justice and personal freedom are both considered to be under threat by the progress to centralise authority in the EU. If you are interested in arguments and evidence to this end, please see articles written by Jonathan Fisher QC, available here and commented on here.

4. A Reasoned Argument from Peter Horrobin of Ellel Ministries.

Peter Horrobin presents a thoughtful analysis of why he intends to vote to come out of the EU. His reasoning is based on parallels from the time of Jehoshaphat. Read the analysis on his blog.

5. Jan Evans / An umbilical cord between Britain and Europe.

The following e-mail was received from a prayer partner in the Lydia Fellowship:

Hi to everyone at Issachar Ministries, I just want to give you this picture that I saw while praying with my LYDIA prayer group. We praying about the EU, the coming elections in June and just seeking the Fathers face, regarding the whole situation. I saw the British Isles with a baby hovering over it, this baby was wrapped in a blanket, the astonishing thing about it all was that it had a massive umbilical cord, this was going across the channel into France.

I then saw over the channel coming from the top of Britain a large pair of silver scissors, but they couldn't fit around the circumference of this umbilical cord. I instantly thought how on earth are they going to cut through that...! We obviously prayed about this situation and what the Father maybe saying to us. I would very much like to hear from you after your prayerful consideration.

Jan Evans, South Wales.

Sifting Out the Truth

These are a sample of the insights we are receiving to test. There are some meaningfully reasoned arguments here as well as direct words. We have also been sent other visions of clouds of judgment coming to our shores, of Donald Trump being God's choice for America and so on. We need to sift the relevant from the not-so-relevant and together discern what God is really saying to us.

Let us use these insights, prophecies and questions alongside all else that we need to test as we move towards the decision point of 23 June. Surely God himself is showing us how important it is for us to make the right decision on that day and to go forward from that point listening to him.

We need to sift the relevant from the not-so-relevant and together discern what God is really saying to us.

Finally, we include an exhortation for prayer from prayer partner Sandy Harvey, sent via the following e-mail to the office:

When I was praying for the upcoming referendum this weekend I believe that God gave me a clear word to help us pray for it in an ongoing, continual way.

I was interceding at the time but I am aware of the enormity of the decision and the importance of fervent prayer at every possible moment in the coming days.

The Word He gave was 'open blind eyes'.

I believe God gave this as a simple strategy to be able to continually pray throughout the day wherever we are and whatever we are doing. Whilst driving, shopping or doing any every day activity if we pray those words, 'Lord, open blind eyes', we are opening a door for Him to work in somebody.

People we see in the street, the man at the petrol pump, the supermarket checkout operator, Lord open her/his blind eyes.'

Firing prayer darts whenever the vote comes to mind.

This was weighed and accepted by my prayer partner. I have also just heard that the intercessors in Israel praying for the UK about the referendum have also been using the same words. 'Open blind eyes.' (I understand that they are also praying and 'unblock ears'.)

Lay all this before the Lord, with Bibles open, and alongside other prophecies, and in a prayerful attitude seek the Lord's wisdom for the future of our nation and our vote on 23 June.

Next time: A personal overview.

Edmund Heddle's series on prophecy continues, turning this week to visual ways in which God speaks.

According to Peter's words on the day of Pentecost, dreams and visions are two methods that God desires to use in communicating his prophetic word to man. He claimed that the pouring out of the Spirit that morning had fulfilled Joel's prophecy and had made possible the promise that "your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams" (Joel 2:28).

God had used both dreams and visions from the earliest days of the Bible story, though the number receiving such communications was few. Now, many more would be able to receive what God wanted to convey to them by means of dreams and visions, and they in turn could pass on the prophetic word to others. A study of the New Testament reveals that some of the most important decisions reached by the early church were made in response to God's visual direction, yet very many Christians still do not take seriously the place of dreams and visions in seeking to hear God's voice today.

God spoke in various ways

The first words of the letter to the Hebrews tell us that "in the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets...in many ways" (Heb 1:1). In defending Moses from the jealous criticism of Miriam and Aaron, God said: "When a prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses...with him I speak face-to-face, clearly and not in riddles..." (Num 12:6-8). God's normal way of speaking to his prophets was in dreams, visions and riddles (riddles, or 'dark speech', refer to God using language figuratively, as in a parable). Moses had a unique relationship with God, who spoke to him 'face to face' (Ex 33:11; Deut 34:10).

In the sad story of King Saul it is recorded, "When Saul enquired of the Lord, the Lord did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets" (1 Sam 28:6. Urim means 'lights' and its associated word thummim means 'perfections'. They were connected with the breastplate of the High Priest in some way so as to discover God's will, though no-one now knows how). It was in this desperate situation that Saul made the bad mistake of consulting a medium, and paid for it with his life. God spoke to Israel in differing ways. Many Christians limit the way they hear God to the scriptures or a chance word in a sermon, oblivious of the fact that God's word to us can be visual as well as verbal.

Scripture tells us that God has always spoken in visual as well as verbal ways.

God's word: verbal AND visual

It is significant to observe that the 'writing' (as distinct from 'oral') prophets of the Bible divide into one group of whom it is said that they 'saw' visions (Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Obadiah, Nahum and Habakkuk), and a second group of whom it is said that 'the word' of the Lord came (Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi).¹ The heading of Micah's prophecy contains a reference to both vision and word. God reveals himself in pictures as well as in words.

A picture (so it is said) is worth a thousand words; but if lacking a word that is specific, a visual representation may remain vague. God uses both the verbal and the visual (eg in the Old Testament the Tabernacle and its ceremonies, and in the New Testament the parables and stories of Jesus). Alongside our stress on the word, we need in today's church to recover the important place of visual prophecy.

Alongside our stress on the written word of God, we need in today's church to recover the important place of visual prophecy.

Dreams and visions

If dreams and visions were removed from the Bible, a considerable amount of both Old and New Testaments would undoubtedly vanish. The significant difference between a dream and a vision is that the former occurs during sleep, the latter in full consciousness. The quickly changing images which God brings to our minds during sleep receive minimum conscious resistance, whereas with a vision some effort on our part is necessary to keep the pictures before us. Both dreams and visions pass quickly from the mind and it is desirable to follow the good example of Daniel and to write down what we have seen before it vanishes (Dan 7:1; Job 20:8).

It is pointed out that Peter was in a trance while he received the vision that resulted in the conversion of Cornelius and the opening of the door of faith to the Gentiles. A trance in the Biblical understanding of that word is a mental state into which God brings the person he is addressing so that the senses are partially or wholly suspended. It is not to be confused with an hypnotic or self-induced condition.

The difference between a dream and a vision is that the former occurs during sleep, whilst the latter occurs in full consciousness.

Did Jesus experience either dreams or visions? There is no record that he did, but his words in Luke 10:18, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven", may be describing a vision he was seeing. As perfect man he may well have dreamt. We know that he knew perfectly what Moses knew but partially, for he really knew God face-to-face.

Analysis of Bible dreams and visions

In the Old Testament, eleven dreams are recorded, four for those within the covenant people (Jacob, Joseph, Solomon and Daniel) and seven outside (Abimelech, Laban, Pharaoh, his butler and his baker, a Midianite, and Nebuchadnezzar). In the Old Testament there are six visions, five within the covenant people (Abram, Jacob, Samuel, Nathan and Daniel) and one outside (Balaam).

In the New Testament, four dreams are recounted, two from within the covenant people (Joseph and Paul) and two outside (the wise men and Pilate's wife). There are seven visions recorded in the New Testament: six within the covenant people (Zechariah, Peter, John, Ananias, Paul and Stephen) and one who later was brought into the covenant people (Cornelius). There may well have been others, all depending on whether the phrase 'the Lord appeared' means that they had a vision. If so, then the names of Isaac, Gideon, Manoah's wife and Elisha will also need to be added.

Content of Bible dreams and visions

Dreams and visions recorded in Scripture may be grouped as follows:

1. God speaking, or an angel: The objective is to deliver a message, and apart from seeing the angel there is no other visual content.
2. A picture: The revelation is pictorial and conveys no words; a stairway, a flock of speckled goats, a sheaf of corn, some fat and lean cattle, and a loaf of barley bread. Those outside God's people needed an interpretation of the meaning of what they saw.
3. A revelation: The dreams of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, together with the visions of John on Patmos recorded in the Revelation, give an outline of God's purpose for the nations and his church.
4. Divine instructions: Telling people what God wants them to do, such as going back to one's native land, escaping to Egypt, calling at Judas' house or coming over to Macedonia.
5. Divine encouragement: Spoken to Abram when he was still childless; to Solomon letting him choose what he wanted; to Joseph when he discovered Mary's condition; and to Paul when he was tempted to be afraid.
6. Divine warning: Spoken to David through Nathan, to Eli's house through Samuel and to Pilate through his wife.

In studying the content of dreams and visions, it is also important to see that they were given at vital turning points in the history of God's people. For example, in the early history: Abraham's wife being kept undefiled by Abimelech, and Jacob fleeing from his brother and subsequently returning to the land. In the infancy of Jesus: Joseph being told not to divorce Mary, and later to flee to Egypt and to return to settle in Galilee.

In the early history of the Church: Peter being told to go to the house of Cornelius, Ananias being directed to the house of Judas to meet Saul and later Paul, to cross to take the gospel westwards to Europe. All these important decisions were consequent upon dreams or visions.

It is important to realise that dreams and visions crop up in Scripture at vital turning points in the history of God's people.

Dreams and visions in church history

When the last apostle died, there was no sudden end to the function of dreams and visions in the church as it continued to grow and develop. Church historians quote incidents showing that God continued in picture language to speak by dreams and visions to Polycarp, Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine and Jerome.

Nearer our own times, John Newton, who was concerned about his condition before God, had a dream which made the way of salvation clear to him. Charles Finney in his autobiography recalls a number of visions he received. In the early days of the Pentecostal movement, William F P Burton, an engineer, went out to Africa to spread the gospel. He had regularly, in his room when he was praying about Africa, seen a vision of a sad native, with a yearning look and a white growth over one eye. At a later date he saw this very man sitting in one of their meetings listening to the message in Africa.

There is insufficient space here to tell of a tent full of angels (in the early days of the British Pentecostal movement), or of a church on fire and yet not being burnt down (in the Indonesian stories of Mel Tari); of the visions that have transformed the life and ministry of David du Plessis, and of Demos Shakarian who founded the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International; or of the thrice-repeated vision of fires burning all over Great Britain from Lands End to the top of Scotland, given to Jean Darnall and which found their fulfilment in the 1971 Festival of Light.

Finally, consider the Asian minister who was present at the Carmel Gathering in 1986 and had been given a vision of men asleep on the benches in their church whilst the women were standing with their arms uplifted, crying to God (click here for full details of the vision). He knew it showed the true situation in the church in Britain, but to whom should he deliver the content of his vision? The Lord answered his question by giving him a vision of the face of a woman, well-known to us but unknown to him. All he had to do was to wait at the foot of the stairs until the woman appeared whose face he had seen in the vision.

God's forgotten language

Someone coined dreams and visions as 'God's forgotten language', but we cannot afford to forget or neglect them. It would be foolish to become addicted to them, but every one who is seeking to discharge a prophetic ministry needs to present God's 'now' word visually as well as verbally. As Bruce Yocum puts it (Prophecy, p97): "Through visions God opens up to us his action and his plan in a new and powerful way; they have impact." They are also 'faith-building', and that is the purpose for which prophets are in business.

Offer your sub-conscious to God

Without the enabling of the Holy Spirit, no-one can function as a prophet and it is only as we yield our sub-conscious mind to be directed by the Spirit that we shall be able to give visual prophecy its proper place.

First published in Prophecy Today, Vol 3, No 4, July/August 1987.

References

1 The prophets Jonah and Daniel do not have the usual biographical introduction.