Preparing for the harvest Part 1

Preparing for the harvest Part 1

Over the past few years we have heard much of the coming harvest, however in many of the churches I have ministered in over the last few years I have seen very little preparation for the coming great harvest of souls that God is preparing to harvest. It seems like a great portion of the body of Christ is expecting a huge harvest of souls but very little preparation has been made to accommodate and steward this harvest. There is a universal expectation of an impending move of the Spirit of God that will sweep millions of souls into the Kingdom, but we act as if we don’t believe it. When the Soviet Union opened up to religious freedom many sects and cults were ready to move in with strategy and vision and the church was woefully unprepared. It is true that we are seeing in many parts of the world a large increase in those coming to the Lord but this is nothing to what is looming on the horizon in terms of the magnitude of this impending harvest.

Time is running out

In the mid 90s the Lord gave me three dreams in regard to the harvest, in the first dream I was walking along a beach on a very sunny day. It was calm and people were having a relaxing time playing and sunbathing. I looked out to sea and on the far horizon I saw the water mound up into a very large swell, as I watched this the swell began to rise up into a large wave, at this point the wave was still very far out on the horizon.

About five years later I had another similar dream but this time the wave was very large and was much closer to the shore. The wave contained or was imbedded with millions of people; it was a wave of people, a harvest wave. Those on the beach seemed oblivious to this wave which was about to crash onto the shore. I tried to warn the people but they seemed unconcerned and ignored me, in fact I felt that some of them were going to attack me. The wave finally broke on the shore with great force and power, I braced myself but the wave swept over me and I was unharmed, I turned looking to see how far the wave had swept inland and to my great amazement it had continued in inland as far as I could see. It was then I noticed the damage this wave had caused, I expected to see the whole landscape to be devastated by the force of this wave but this was not the case, only certain buildings had been destroyed. As I surveyed the damage it became apparent that many churches had collapsed and a number of Government buildings also had been destroyed.

In the third dream there was no visible church, there were just people filled with light, power and Glory spreading across the earth like a might wave, these people were invincible, although many of them offered themselves to become martyrs. This was the final harvest. There was very little distance between the 2 and 3^rd waves. More of this later.

I pondered these dreams seeking to understand the spiritual significance and the Holy Spirit began to give me some insight.  In the second dream the churches which had collapsed, which appeared to be the majority of them, where not ready for this harvest, the government building were those departments  of government which in the past had handled the needs of its citizens, mainly social services. The abuse of citizens by many of these government departments over the past years has been frightening. I began to see how this harvest wave of millions of people would destroy the church as we know it now. The church is about to undergo a complete reformation and when the Lord has finished with it, the latter will have no resemblance to the former. In one generation the Lord will change the face of the church in this world. This new force of Christians in the earth began to take over many of the roles of government in social services. 

Along with this great harvest wave many of the seemingly rock solid intuitions of this modern world will begin to collapse. I saw superannuation funds collapse, government pension funds dried up, many banks went under and after a while governments could no longer bail them out. Many governments were financially bled dry by the enormous costs created by the consequences of earthquake and flood damage as great storms ravaged many nations, the devaluation of currencies added to this crises. During this time the true church bean to flourish, many of Gods people had prepared for this upheaval, I saw orphanages arise along with hospitals which not only catered for the physical needs of the people but also their spiritual needs, it was as though the church had taken over all of the government social services, Joseph Ministries began to flourish and huge resources were made available to the church.

A new paradigm a new mindset it needed

Pastors and leaders must take on a Kingdom emphases and mindset, the church age must give way to the Kingdom age. We are not here to build the church that is the Lords responsibility. We are here to proclaim the Kingdom of God and bring it to this earth. This will take many forms, there will be many large influential churches that have a Kingdom view, the leaders of these churches will not set out to build large churches but to manifest the Kingdom of God in this earth, congregations will be very fluid moving from one congregation to another, this will not alarm the new breed of leaders, in fact they will encourage it, because they are not trying to build their church but are building the Kingdom of God in their city. No one church has all the truth, the church in the city will become the emphasis. To survive and flourish in the coming changes the harvest will bring we must be prepared to change, adapt, and change our traditional mindsets which often become strongholds of the enemy.

We must start to prepare now 

Over the next few months I am going to share my heart with you as we look at how to prepare. Sometime ago I awoke with an audible voice of the Lord who said;

“Ready or not I am coming”

Isaiah 60:1	Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.
2	For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
3	And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
4	Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.
5	Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee

Blessings
Neville Johnson March 24^th 2008