QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "While women weep as they do now I'll fight! While little children go hungry as they do now I'll fight! While men go to prison, in and out, in and out I'll fight! I'll fight to the very end!" - General William Booth
Founder of the Salvation Army


THE MAELSTROM OF A NEW YEAR & WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

by Chad Taylor

Many thought the entrance into a new millennium Jan. 2000 was a spiritual leap into the future but it doesn't hold a candle to the magnitude of what we face in 2005. The earth itself has already declared this year as historical. Every pattern and tide is pointing toward massive change and inevitable glory. It's best described in Isa. 60:2 -

"For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon you, and his glory shall be seen upon you..."

Tragedy and catastrophe are hinges on the door of His glory. They are the backdrop for His power and might to be revealed. They create a divine vacuum for His presence and it is His desire to fill it. What does the maelstrom of the new year show us? Unprecedented harvest and revival. As many souls the enemy swallowed up in those fateful hours a hundred-fold will surely come to know the Lord Jesus Christ in the forthcoming years. It has opened the grave and released Jesus into the hearts of men. Look at the parallel in this same kind of occurrence, Matt 28:2-4 -

"Suddenly there was a great earthquake, because an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and rolled aside the stone and sat on it. His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow. The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint..."

This catastrophe in the East has opened the grave of that region and a Lazarus generation shall emerge. The seeds of the slain will produce a harvest beyond our human comprehension and open doors of ministry that have stood closed for centuries. The human displacement is nothing compared to the spiritual displacement as principalities, powers and wickedness in high places have fallen. This awesome change in spiritual heiarchy has created massive doors of missions and ministry. The crosshairs of God's grace and power are aimed to the East and He will now unleash His glory.

This great earthly shaking is only a mirror to the spiritual shaking that will occur waking the church from its slumber and then sending her out. A great move of God is always underlined by great moments in history and landmark events that drastically change our world. The early missionary movement in the book of Acts was emphasised by a natural and supernatural shaking that propelled the church past the dire circumstances that faced them. The backdrop of tragedy and death only added fuel to the fire of revival. These modern day apocolyptic events will not only turn the unsaved to Jesus it will move the Church into position to recieve them.

"And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness..." (Acts 4:31)