Why I believe the Church must endure tribulation:

I believe in a final great awakening...and as hard as I try, I cannot shake it off... it is in my DNA...


I saw the great eagle that is the USA suddenly arise like lightning from the earth, for (what I believe) would be her last , but finest hour... and at the same time, the gospel move like a great psunami wave, across the earth, to the farthest islands of the sea, in a playing out of Matthew 24:14; 

I saw my own nation explode into the flames of revival; Europe was on fire; I watched as the continent of Africa ran red with the blood of Jesus...I saw other nations that I am not free to disclose...I saw people drop everything and run, run, RUN through the narrow gate - compelled by the deepest darkness the world had ever known...I watched the most hardened and vilest offenders stagger through this same gate and fall to their knees before the Lord...I saw in Africa, hands lifted up from souls that were literally drowning in iniquity, reaching out for forgiveness...and brave sold-out believers in Christ would grasp their hands and pull them to safety. I heard the ground shake with the voice of true Heaven sent, blood-bought freedom...it was a sound I had never heard before...bought from shear pain and anguish...but the sound of an Army...an ecclesia who had come (and overcome) through great persecution; who had been winnowed , divided, broken down and brought down, on God’s great threshing floor...but had arisen again , pure, holy, fearless and United. I have seen a global move of repentance that began within families and understated gatherings...a turning to God from shore to shore...sea to shining sea...where no tribe or tongue is excluded....


But I  have also questioned the Lord: How can this be? No local revival has lasted more than a few years...much less a global one. Why? ...Because of course people cry out for Salvation in the hard times..but as soon as the pressure is lifted...well we are prideful by nature...and we think we know better than you...we just cannot get ourselves out of your way...nor keep our hands off what you’re doing. Is this not how every revival in the past has died?


So surely for such an awakening as this to stand the test of time, you must keep the flame of refining trial underneath us...we the Church must remain continually in a place of Gethsemane (the Place where the anointing oil flows most freely)...where we have no option but to continually look to you (not ourselves) and rely on you for everything. We need to let go of compromise...because this is a place where the world hates us... wants us out of the way, whatever it takes...and our continual state is therefore one of humble reliance on You...where we “love not our own lives unto death” (Rev12:11).


This then begs the question: Is there anything in Scripture to even support such an awakening as I am talking about?...One that is global and inclusive...one that, even in the midst of the fires of persecution, cannot be stopped and will not die out until we are raptured out?

Yes...there is one place:


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