A Prophetic Bell is Ringing 
by Steve Lightle 

[This article first appeared in Christ for the Nations Volume 43 Number 8 November 1990 ] 
The day is coming, according to the prophetic scriptures of the Bible, when we are going to need to know the voice of God more than ever before. God does everything prophetically. He tells His prophets, His servants, His intentions: "Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7). God is wanting to reveal His plans so that people can cooperate with Him. 

OBEY THE HOLY SPIRIT 

In May of this year I entered the city of Bosra, Iraq. I was there with what we call a Holy Ghost Commando Team. I arrived on the 28th of May. On that day, a special summit conference of the Arab nations was held in Baghdad. The subject was how to stop Soviet Jews from going to Israel. It was called one week before we made the trip which we had planned three years earlier. Nothing came of the Arab Summit Conference. And I know why: because we had a twenty-four hour prayer chain going. 

We had the opportunity to leave Iraq on the 6th of June, but as we were praying, the Holy Spirit spoke to me: "Don't leave today! Leave on the 8th!" 

When you have been in Iraq for some ten days, it would really be nice to get out of there. The temperature was 130 plus with 90% humidity. The food was not edible. But in obedience to the voice of the Holy Spirit, on the 8th of June we flew from Baghdad to Istanbul. We were met there by a couple. Just casually the man mentioned the fact that only two airplanes left Baghdad for Istanbul on the 6th of June and both of them crashed. Obey the slightest prompting of the Holy Spirit! 

GOD SPOKE TO ME 

Sixteen years ago in the city of Braunschweig I told God, "I am going into this room, and either You are going to change my life here or I'm going to die." My book Exodus II talks about my experience there in that room. God dealt with me very severely; He moved in my heart; He changed my life. 

After six and a half days, the whole wall in front of me became like a screen. I saw faces of Jewish people, multitudes of them, in the Soviet Union. And then I saw God begin to bring them together into one place. He raised up men with ministries as great or greater than that of Moses and they went to the authorities of the Soviet Union and said, "Thus sayeth the Lord, God of Israel, 'Let my people go!"' And then God judged the idols of the Soviet Union exactly as He judged the idols of Egypt at the time of Moses and Pharaoh until that nation literally came to its knees and coughed up the Jewish people. They began to walk out of the Soviet Union on a specially-built highway-a highway built by God through prayer. The highway had two prongs: one coming through Finland in Scandinavia and the other through central Europe. And the people went home to Israel. 

I said, "Lord, that is fantastic, but what has that got to do with me?" He said, "I want you to go to the Soviet Union and tell the Jewish community there exactly what you have seen and that I'm going to deliver them. The return of the Jews to Israel will announce the coming of the Messiah again." He began to take me to different places in scripture-Deuteronomy 30, Isaiah 11, 42 and 43, Jeremiah 16, 23 and 31, Ezekiel 39, Zephaniah 3, Zechariah 2-places where God talks about how He is going to bring people out of the country to the north of Israel at the last days before the Second Coming. 

In 1985, the Lord brought Daniel Chapter Nine alive to me. As I read about the Babylonian captivity being only seventy years long, I began to think about how long Communism had been ruling, bringing 70% of the population of the whole world under its dominion. 

The Bible says in the 19th chapter of Revelation that the ruling spirit in the last days is going to be the spirit of Babylon. I asked the Lord, "When are You going to deal with Communism?" The Lord said, "I am ready to deal with it. Go." Daniel read the prophecies of Jeremiah in the 68th year of captivity; for two years he prayed specifically about what he read there. He battled the principalities and the powers; God sent the archangels to help him as he pressed through to get the things done. 

Like Daniel, for two years we prayed and listened to the Lord. Lenin signed the Constitution of the Soviet Union on the 17th of October, 1917. On the 17th of October, 1987, exactly 70 years later, twelve of us were in the city of Moscow. As midnight passed, we were exactly in the spot where Lenin signed the Constitution. We made a circle, and in obedience to the Lord in prayer, we cancelled the Soviet Union's Constitution in the Name of the Lord and agreed He would make a new one. 

Eleven months later, November of 1988, Mr. Gorbachev called the Supreme Soviets together and they changed 52 points of the Constitution of the Soviet Union. In January 1989, over a hundred points were changed, and in April of this year the part of the Constitution of the Soviet Union was struck out which had said there could be only one party, the Communist Party. The death blow came by prayer. "Without a vision, the people perish..." (Prov. 29:18). 

On the way to Moscow in 1987, the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart: "Your next strike will be in Babylon..." On the airplane I was handed a newspaper; on the inside of the front page there was an article about Sadam Hussein of Iraq rebuilding the city of Babylon. And then the Holy Spirit spoke and said, "This step of going to Babylon will be the first one before you go to stand on the black rock in Mecca to preach the Gospel. I am going to break the back of Islam quicker than I broke the back of Communism." There are almost a billion Muslims in the world today and the Lord loves them and doesn't want them to perish. He is looking for those who really understand so that they will cooperate with Him-first in prayer and then to do His will. 

Finland's Role in Exodus II  

In 1983, God opened the door for me to speak in the Parliament of Finland. I spoke there on the topic of "What is Finland's Responsibility to the Jews of the Soviet Union?" God put it in my heart to tell them: "If you are like the Moabites and do not let the children of Israel come through your border, and don't meet them with bread and water, I will destroy Finland exactly as I destroyed Moab." 

Finland's role is a major one in the exodus of the Soviet Jews. But the logistics are incredible-to feed and house such a mass of people. Prayer is needed. 

The Finnish government has bowed its knee to the PLO who have said they are going to bomb, kill and do anything to anybody who helps the Soviet Jew go to Israel. How can they tell that to the government of Finland? Because Finland invited the PLO to come and open an office in their country some years ago. 

Recently while in the city of Ereck (Uruk), absolutely the most desolate place I have ever been, I was walking along and Jesus came to me and said, "Son, the government of Israel is going to call you and when you go to them you will not be empty-handed." 

August 6th of this year, the first Soviet Jews began to come through Finland, but now Finland has put a stop to it, so I am going there once again. A member of Parliament of the Knesset of Israel who is the head of Immigration and Absorption suggested that with my contacts, I might be able to help. The same day a call came from the Knesset of Israel asking me to go and to meet with some of the leaders there. I also got a call from some industrialists from South Korea who said they had 25 tons of brand new clothes they wanted to send to those moving from the Soviet Union to Israel. 

The most critical thing for Soviet Jews immigrating to Israel right now is jobs. They need jobs. Three days ago, I had a call from a businessman here in the United States who said his heart had really been touched and that he will give whatever it takes. He has already sent an incredibly large sum of money to Israel to establish a factory to employ Soviet Jewish people. 

We have the same God Daniel had. He is looking for those to whom He can give vision so they can participate with Him. "Where there is no prophecy the people cast off restraint..." (RSV) "...where there is no vision, the people perish... (Prov. 29:18 KJV). When people have not received that which the Lord wants to do, then all the restraint comes off and they just go do what is right in their own eyes, and the purposes of God are not accomplished. 

God has chosen to do absolutely nothing except what He energizes by the Holy Spirit through prayer through the body of Christ. Through His servants, He is going to change the course of history! 

 

[This article first appeared in Christ for the Nations Volume 43 Number 8 November 1990 ] 

 
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