Seeing

I was intrigued by the following statement by Bob Hartley in his preface to a message about called Quartermaster Generals.

I was behind a big dark cloud with a group of people; some were "Daniels" and "Josephs." This dark cloud represented the challenges of the day. These people were called to be "Hope Reformers," however everywhere they looked ahead of them, they couldn't see through the fog and were not able to perceive solutions. As a result, they felt hopelessness and were overwhelmed because it felt like they could not get ahead.

In the encounter, I also saw many prophets in the cloud prophesying; even though they were stating true facts or circumstances, they were not seeing or prophesying the answer in Him. Therefore, they were not to prophesy according to their discernment in the dark cloud, but to move ahead of the dark cloud, and here was how from the dream: those in the dream had to make a choice of whether to focus on the black cloud or to focus on His Eyes.

This vision points to a weakness with much modern prophecy. Many prophets are warning of future disastrous events, but very few are explaining what God is doing and how he will work through these events to accomplish his purposes. Seeing from within the dark cloud of events seems to prevent them from seeing what Jesus is seeing.

A related problem is that many Christians seem to enjoy warnings of judgement on the world, more than they want strategies that would require them to take action to bring in the victory of God.

God does not cause troubles and calamities; they are rooted in human evil or folly with a bit of demonic mischief thrown in. During a judgement, God takes this human mess and works it for good to achieve his purposes. One role of the prophet is to warn of troubles before they come, so God’s people can prepare. Their more important task is to explain what God is doing through the event, so his people can participate in his purposes. Prophets can only accomplish the latter task, if they are standing outside the dark cloud of human events and seeing with the eyes of Jesus.

When a prophet receives a warning of a calamitous event, their task has just begun. The next step is to find out what God plans to achieve through the event, and his strategy for the people who want to participate in his purposes during that event. We need more of eyes of Jesus and less of the dark cloud.

According to Romans 12:6, Christians with the gift of prophesying should prophesy in proportion to their faith. Bill Johnson has noted that when a nation is in decline and has lost the blessing of God, prophesying judgment does not take much faith. Prophesying the strategy by which God will use the judgement to change the nation and bring a great victory for his cause takes much more faith. That is a challenge for modern prophets.