Passion For Jesus Conference: 9^th of July, 1998

The Lord has given me more of a message than I can handle without a special anointing. If you only knew how close and how imminent the return of the Lord is. I am telling you that I feel in my prophetic spirit that it is imminent but not immediate. I believe that the Lord is returning soon and a lot of things are going to happen before He gets back. I have a message entitled “A Prophetic Tale of Two Cities.”

Did you know that there was a day in the history of the world when there was only one language! Everybody spoke the same language! It was at ancient Babylon that they built a tower to insult God, and I tell you, God was so insulted by it He came down and walked among men and inspected it. He did something absolutely unprecedented in all of the dealings of God with man. But if they did speak one language, this world is very close to doing the same thing in the electronic age. But God will intervene! After we feel so secure and we know that we can figure it out, God is going to step in on the scene and show this present age how stupid we really are; how helpless and inadequate we really are without Him and how we cannot get along without Him, and He is going to prove that to us. And I’m kind of looking forward to it. These are the days of the beginning of sorrows but I see the apostles and prophets working their way through it and they are here to rejoice. And if they are going to rejoice, let apostolic people rejoice! Let’s all rejoice with the apostles and prophets as we see the demise of Babylon, modern Babylon once again! (Revelation 18:20)

“Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.” (Genesis 11;1) Here was a unified earth; think of it! One time in history there was a unified earth. And there is another time in history in which that is the case. “And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar.” (Genesis 11;2-3) So they think they could build a city that could challenge Almighty God? But they have another thought coming! “And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.” (Genesis 11;4-5) Now I want you to know that this is a global city called Babylon. That was the city of man. But there is a city of God which is called the ‘Redeemed City of God’ (Isaiah 62;12) and that is ‘Zion!’

“And the LORD said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.” So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.” (Genesis 11;6-8) I can still hear my mother’s words ringing in my ears every time we would go across a highway that was under construction and every time we would see new buildings coming up with all the scaffolding in the down town skyscraper area. My mother said, “Lord have mercy, will they ever stop building. They are building, they are marrying, they are giving in marriage just as it was in the days of Noah.” And so it was then and it is now! “Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.” (Genesis 11;9) The global city of man versus the redeemed city of God. The global city of man is Babylon and the redeemed city of God is Zion.

Isaiah has his apocalyptic vision through God’s revelatory ways. I don’t know how he got it or where he was when he had all this but I know he had it in chapter 24-27 and he began to speak under the anointing of revelation language and it is an amazing thing; “The ruined city lies desolate; the entrance to every house is barred. In the streets they cry out for wine; all joy turns to gloom, all gaiety is banished from the earth.” (Isaiah 24;10,11) There are some of you already sitting there saying, “Oh no, not another doom and gloom message!” Listen! Wouldn’t you want to hear about doom and gloom if doom is really coming? I would be gloomy if I didn’t tell you about the doom and gloom because the doom and gloom is right upon us! But that is the time to rejoice for the children of God, for us to look up, because our redemption draws nigh! After the doom and gloom we have something to look forward to!

“The city is left in ruins, its gate is battered to pieces.” (Isaiah 24;12) “He humbles those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust.” (Isaiah 26:5) “The inhabitants of the earth will learn righteousness” through judgment and believers are going to be saved! So let the judgments come! We can rejoice because harvest will come at the tail end of the judgment and we will be the ones to throw out the net and we will be the ones left here to preach the gospel! We are going to be here and we are going to preach the gospel with power and demonstrations and we are not going to be ashamed of it because it will have the apostolic tinge to it that will bring a harvest of souls in because the judgment will make them want to turn to God. We are praying that God will raise up fishers!

“My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.” (Isaiah 26;9) So why should we be afraid of judgment? God has you and me in His perfect care and I have faith in His faithfulness! How many of you have faith in the faithfulness of our God? And so we know that He is able to keep us and to bring all to pass that we have committed to Him, and He is committed to do that! “Though grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and regard not the majesty of the Lord.” (Isaiah 26;10) So when Your judgments come the world will learn righteousness! And here we find grace for the great harvest through these judgments.

Who among us will keep insisting on materialism and wanting to gain and to get? Listen friends, the hour will come when all of your desires and all of your possessions and materialism and all of mine will be destroyed, will be devastated in that ‘one hour’ of Revelation 18. Babylon will fall! And all who live in Babylon, who live like Babylon, Christian or sinner will fall with it! And if you are a Babylonian Christian and you are still fooling around and hanging around in Babylon you will suffer like a Babylonian because you will be mistaken for one! You do what they do and you will have the same reward they have! But I am coming out! I’m not going to the mountains! I’m not buying two tons of turkey to can it and spoil it! I am coming out of her filthiness and her sin so that I can have right standing with Almighty God and His Christ!

“So set your affections on things above and not on things below.” (Colossians 3;2) Materialism is out! The invisible means of support from our God is being established in the world tonight and I am going to live as I have lived in earlier days; through His invisible means of support. He still knows how to put money in a fish’s mouth. He still has ways of providing in the wilderness that you have never heard of! And I love the prophetic sound of, “Go down here two miles and turn to the right and go one block and there will be a man standing there in a white two piece suit and he will hand you a portfolio and when you get it, it’s enough money to last you.” Believe me, I know what that is like!

The fall of Babylon is not frightening me at all and this Y2K problem that has something to do with computers; I’m not the least bit frightened about it! I’ve found the way to communicate with God! You don’t have to have computers! You don’t have to have radios! You don’t have to have television! There is a fellowship with God that is sweeter and greater than it has ever been since television, before television! Way back in B.C., (that’s ‘Before Color’) I had fellowship with God without television! I want you to have ardent faith just like a child and unless you become like a little child you are not going to get through the troubles ahead! But if you do get this, the trouble ahead can be alright for the Christian. He can take it just fine.

“Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.” (Psalms 2:1-3) There is a move on to get rid of the church but the church is going to be the only line of defense in the last days. When the medical community is bankrupt and there is no cure for AIDS and there are no new antibiotics to cover the broad spectrum of all the diseases that are coming upon the earth we are going to need the church. And the church is going to pray the prayer of faith that will save the sick and the Lord will raise them up! And the church will be appreciated in that day as our only line of defense in this nation and in the world.

I’m not an old man but I’m having dreams. I dreamed about the chaotic years the other night. I had one of my awesome dreams. I use that word a lot but I have witnessed a lot of awesome things lately and have had a lot of awesome things happen to me. And in the midst of this dream the Lord said to me; “These are the chaotic years!” And I was seeing some things that I hadn’t thought of in years! These things were coming to pass before my very eyes. Years ago, as a young man, in the 1950’s I had a vision of the catastrophic events; the cataclysmic things that are going to happen and we made a movie of it but it was way before its time. And so many things in “The Beginning of the End,” which was the title of the movie, have happened since that movie was produced but it was before its time. But I’m not worried about that. Isaiah was 700 years before his time and look what he had to say!

So my dream about the chaotic years ahead; a world of chaos means ‘Babylon.’ John’s end time prophecy about that global city called Babylon is more interesting than any science fiction movie anyone ever produced. It is more exciting to me than going to see the modern day movie “Armageddon!” It is awesome to read John’s revelations because they are just now making sense. Every preacher that I know, way back there when he went to seed on ‘Revelation’ and the seven seals and the mystery of all of the church age just about lost their minds! But now it’s making sense! It’s making great sense! We are at the end of time and the ‘evening light’ (Zechariah 14;7) has come and it is time we listen to ‘Revelation’ again!

“And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.” (Revelation 18:2,3) Only two times in history has the world been united with one language. Genesis 11 was the spoken language by which the world was united and now Revelation 18; the electronic language; (“www.” if you please) is the thing that has brought us a universal electronic language. We have just read in Revelation 18;2-3 a description of the new world order, a global community, filled with immorality, demonic activity, luxury, materialism and it sounds just like the 20^th century to me!

Verse 4, “Come out of her my people!” is a call to radical obedience, to leave all of her sins behind you, to not be a partaker of her sins lest you be judged with her when she is judged for her sins! Come out of her morals and don’t have anything to do with her moral values. It is not a geographic relocation that we need when we talk about ‘Come out of her!’ It is a place of quiet rest, it is a place of depending on the Word of God and having fellowship, an unprecedented intimacy with our Lord and God will give us a great time through it all! People have always been God’s greatest interest; and He’s always had our best interest at heart. He will always take care of His people whether you’re in the wilderness of whether you’re in the place where you need blood on the door post; He will tell you what to do so the Angel of Death will pass through! Whatever the situation calls for, my God loves His people and He is ardently in love with you and He will guide you supernaturally and give you, like Isaiah 58 says, personal Divine guidance (Isaiah 58;11) through every danger and through every situation!

God still warns His people; “If you live like Babylon, you will be treated like Babylon!” That’s fair enough, isn’t it? I would be remiss if I failed to say that there is a danger of believers partaking of her plague! Don’t do it! Principle; “Believers who live like Babylon will be treated like Babylon!” The pride of all the American people will be judged and I see the pride of the American church and her people in these verses! It sounds like Genesis 11; “We can build a tower!” There is too much pride to be broken when God is looking for brokenness throughout the church and all over the earth. He’s looking for tears! He’s looking for brokenness! This [verse 4] would have led to her salvation and this will lead to our salvation; brokenness and tears!

I can’t imagine anything but a bright future for believers but unbelievers have no bright future unless they become believers! But this nation can’t imagine anything but something wonderful and good happening to them; “We’ll figure out a way!” But look at what verse 8 says; in one day, in one day, there is a language of the entire earth confused! After Y2K another kind of Holocaust begins! This second Holocaust is the beginning of sorrows! It starts with the confusion of languages and ends with economic collapse! There are so many people today who will avoid these messages, whether it be on television or the written page or in conferences. You won’t come back to the conference if you hear if it’s going to be thus oriented! But from now on, don’t bother to come to hear me because I’ve vowed to my God that I would do His bidding and that I would warn the American church and the church of Jesus Christ around the world that judgments are coming, but you don’t have to be afraid because you are to rejoice along with the apostles and prophets, the holy ones! We are to dance and praise God because we are about to be vindicated! All the things that we have preached! We are going to have the time of the earth on “troubled earth!”

But think about it. The end of the world is coming. And this is what our movie was about. Global fires, riots, volcanoes, many tornadoes, wildfires, social unrest, wars and wars and wars, earthquakes. Did you know there are more earthquakes today, in the past 2 years than in all of the history of the world. Hundreds of earthquakes are taking place around the world and many of them are 6.0 and above. Social unrest, tidal waves, storms and pestilence, plagues, strange illnesses. This is only the beginning! Plagues, extreme frightening weather patterns. “These are the chaotic times ahead” the Lord says! Signs in the heavens, signs in the earth. This is only the beginning of sorrows. Wait until the big stuff starts happening. I want you to know, it’s not going to be much of a world to live in except for those who are surrounded by Almighty God’s keeping power and faithfulness and we’re going to have that!

You say, “Well surely the rapture is going to take place before 2000!” I wouldn’t count on it! If God’s holy apostles and prophets are here rejoicing with us, don’t count on the rapture before some judgment and then the harvest! We’ve been preaching revival coming, revival coming and we have failed to warn the people, we have been remiss in warning the people that judgment comes first! All of these other things have just been refreshments. Everything we have ever seen has been a dress rehearsal up until now. The big stuff is coming but the good stuff has been saved for the last. “The glory of the latter house shall be greater than that of the former and I will give peace in this place!” (Haggai 2;9) What place? The place of pestilence. The place of sorrow. The place of pain and agony. We are going to be as a city set on a hill and all nations will come to it and know the light and know the Lord! A nation will come to the Lord in a day, what’s left of it. I really didn’t think I would have this much energy on this or this much anointing! Wait until the big stuff starts!

“In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, 'I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.' Therefore her plagues will come in one day; death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.” (Revelation 18;7,8) Are we sure we know the God of the Bible? Are we sure we know the God of the Old Testament? He happens to be the God of the New Testament. Jesus Christ did not apologize for his Father God of the Old Testament in the New Testament because Revelation 18 is in the New Testament. Apostles and prophets will be around and have a part in the last day ministry. "Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, for God has avenged you on her!" (Revelation 18:20)

This world system stinks. This sex mad, crazy, perverted world can’t get any sicker. We have more snake pits and asylums…It’s unimaginable what it’s going to be like before it’s over! You only have to travel through the net [Internet?] to get caught in the net. This is a wicked generation and God is going to judge it. And frankly, this is a very delicious time for me to be talking about it because we’ve just got a year and a half to see it come to pass perhaps. I don’t set dates but the secular prophets, they’re doing more than we are doing, they are prophesying better than we are! We better get with it. I want you to know that God came to me and told me something I was going to have to do and what I had been remiss in not doing and I’m getting with it. I want you to know I’m getting with it! I’m getting caught up. When we have books like “Time Bomb 2000” talking about Y2K and the church is not even hardly talking about it, it’s time to get with it. Even the secular prophets know more about it and do more about it to warn people about it. We need to warn the people of God; Get ready. Get your shouting clothes on. Get your robe on. Get your shoes on and get clothed with the preparation of the gospel!

So you see, Isaiah sees these two cities colliding. There is a war between these two cities; the global city of man which is Babylon and the redeemed city of God which is Zion. “Behold, the Lord makes the earth empty and makes it waste, distorts its surface and scatters abroad its inhabitants. And it shall be: as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the debtor. The land shall be entirely emptied and utterly plundered, for the Lord has spoken this word. The earth mourns and fades away, the world languishes and fades away; the haughty people of the earth languish. The earth is also defiled under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell in it are desolate. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men are left. The new wine fails, the vine languishes, all the merry-hearted sigh. The mirth of the tambourine ceases, the noise of the jubilant ends, the joy of the harp ceases. They shall not drink wine with a song; strong drink is bitter to those who drink it. The city of confusion is broken down; every house is shut up, so that none may go in. There is a cry for wine in the streets, all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone. In the city desolation is left, and the gate is stricken with destruction. When it shall be thus in the midst of the land among the people, it shall be like the shaking of an olive tree, like the gleaning of grapes when the vintage is done.” (Isaiah 24;1-13)

“For He brings down those who dwell on high, the lofty city; He lays it low, He lays it low to the ground, He brings it down to the dust.” (Isaiah 26:5) Listen friends, it was said before, God knows how to deal with the wicked, the unrighteous and the unjust. But the upright; God will surely visit you and fight for you. But judgment is coming. Maybe over a billion will learn Isaiah 26;10. This alone shows us that there is grace for the harvest but it comes through the lesson of judgment. I have never been more aware of something being the truth than I am of this; this harvest that I have looked forward to all of these years; I have had it wrong if I think the harvest will come without learning the lesson of judgment. The world will learn righteousness! The judgment that is coming very soon will be the catalyst for world wide revival and I can’t hardly wait for that to come to pass so that we can have revival. Don’t forget that God is a God of justice as well as a God of love. He is a God of justice and he will punish and will do all these things!

I want to skip over to Jeremiah, one of my favorite prophets. Jeremiah 16 was written 150 years after Isaiah saw the apocalypse. Jeremiah uses the same language of Revelation 18; “Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish for them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt for them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes. And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable things.” (Jeremiah 16;16-18) That certainly is Revelation 18. [verse 6] But here is the awesome thing. The Lord’s fishermen are on planet earth tonight. They are here now and some of you are here in this room tonight, thank God. It’s the fishermen versus the hunters.

“Behold I will send fishermen and hunters,” God says. They shall fish and they shall hunt. The fishermen throw out the line or the net and they stand in front of you and they beckon, they woo, they beg you, they allure you with the lure of the gospel, the prophetic word is alluring to people today and the fishermen are here. I like to consider myself one of those fishermen alluring you to prophetic words, alluring you to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The fishermen represent grace: the door of grace is still open. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation! The hunter represents judgment. It is God’s back up plan or strategy. The hunter stalks you, comes from behind you and drives you. If you don’t respond to the wooing then God says, “I will drive you!” Results; people respond to God’s judgments. Judgment teaches righteousness, then comes world harvest, that’s what my message is all about. Take the bait. Oh, won’t you take the bait! Please take the alluring bait. What is the point right now? It’s take the bait of the gospel, take the bait of the prophetic word or wait for the hunter, which is God’s judgment! Please don’t wait for the hunter to trap you or to track you and to drive you. This will be the worst decision of anyone in this place: to wait for the hunter.

“Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion." For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” (Hebrews 3;16-19) Heavenly Father, help every one of us tonight to take Isaiah’s apocalyptic vision seriously. Help us to understand Genesis 11 and the tower of Babel and all that it represents. Help us to know what those two universal, unified world languages mean. And help us to do something that we have never done before: cry out to you in a new way to send judgment and to send harvest and use us in an unprecedented way for revival in Jesus name. Father I would pray that mighty conviction will rest upon these teaching/preaching words and none can gainsay them or resist them when the Holy Spirit comes to back them up. Father, you have sent me here tonight to call for fishers. For the hunter that is coming is very great and he is in the world tonight and is getting fully prepared to be God’s back up plan. But Lord, your fishers are in this place and I feel anointed to ask you to let every believer know that they have been called to be fishers of men. Lord, the people are out there just waiting to take the bait. In Jesus name raise up your fishermen in the name of the Lord. Amen.

Listen. I cannot go one fraction of an inch beyond the authority or the anointing that God gives me. I have so much that I could give you. I have a lot of things that I could share with you that would just electrify you and me both. But the Lord says that he wants to close this now and call for the fishers. “You have not chosen me; I have chosen you.” The Lord is going to receive many people into prophetic ministry this week. Lord, just make a harvest of fishers for the harvest to come preceded by the judgments. And Lord, during these judgments I pray that you would use these fishers and let us see the greatest revival the world has ever seen and then, even so come Lord Jesus.

Comments by Mike Bickle

Paul, you gave a very clear sound. What Paul said has staggering implications to it! I am troubled in my spirit by the core of what he said. It’s a time when the Lord is going to do great things but if you were listening, there was something really, really powerful both positive and negative that is about to break on the horizon. Paul is not the only person saying it. God’s prophets all over the earth are beginning to lift their voice. It’s a very serious, sober hour. He said the Lord is going to deal with this whole issue of materialism and we all go “Yay!” Guys, that’s us! Seriously, that’s not them, that’s us. That’s not the other guys, that’s not the bad guys; that’s the good guys. Our lives are rooted and grounded in so many things the Lord is going to kick out from under us and though we long that our lives might be transformed, it’s not going to be like, “Wow, isn’t that going to be awesome!” In the end it’s going to be what we’ve all wanted but I believe the call to come out of Babylon, the cry that the fishermen are coming first, which in my opinion are the prophetic proclaimers offering grace, that people would abandon their lives to new things, the body of Christ goes, “Yay! That’s a good word.” But the Lord is saying “OK, now, abandon your life because the hunters are coming!”

Historically the body of Christ cheers the message but when they go home nothing changes and the hunters come. This was a very, very significant cry from the heart of the Lord. Though it was a whisper in some ways, it was to anybody that would hear it. I am wanting to put my ear to the Lord’s heart and hear that whisper because in a little bit of time He’s going to lift His voice and then He’s going to cry mightily to the nations and the Lord is giving us grace ahead of time. The whisper is about us, not just about them! Lord, I ask that the fishermen’s voice would be heard for surely the hunters are coming to drive even the people of God into the place that you’ve ordained, that they have resisted for so many generations. Release the anointing of the fishermen, male and female, young and old. Raise up preachers and intercessors who have that grace to draw, to allure before that hunter is loosed across the earth that drives with fear into the place that was refused at grace.
 

Back to:  WHATS NEW PAGE or DATED FILELIST of
End Time Prophetic Vision