Write The Vision And Make It Plain Issue 1
A Vision of the Household of Faith Issue 1
According to God’s word, we are fast approaching the age when things will get worse and worse. The Lord wants to restore His church and to raise up the last church in the fullness of His kind of salvation, faith and power.
To that end the Lord gave a night vision, “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:12).”
I had a dream in 1976 in which I was walking down the street and came to a large house. When I entered the house, I found myself in the foyer of the church I had attended for 25 years and then left.
A member of the church came out of the sanctuary through a door on my left. She walked by as if she were dead. I was wondering what it was all about and who she was. As the lady walked past me to go back into the sanctuary through the door on my right, I laughed as I recognized her by her manner of walk and dress. I had been part of her wedding, sang in the choir with her and had been a part of a singing group with her husband. She had been sick on and off for a number of years.
The pastor of the church appeared beside me with a cheap paring knife in his hand. Without his speaking, I knew that he wanted me to follow him. We went down a long hallway to the back of the church to a room below the baptismal pool. On each side were rooms for people to change their clothes to prepare for baptism. In the middle of the room a very deep, open grave. It was filled with former members of the church who had died prematurely because of the pastor’s cheap paring knife. The pastor was upset because I would not accept his cheap little knife.
Then I threw up my hands, looked up in anguish and dismay toward heaven, and cried out, “Lord, what shall I do?” The Lord said to rebuke the spirit of death. I left the pastor and went back into the foyer and began to rebuke the spirit of death. The people began to come alive and praise God as they passed me while I prayed for them.
After they went back into the sanctuary, I heard screams. A brother in the Lord that I knew well came out of the door on the left and began to explain what was happening inside. He told me that my praying had brought the people back to life, but now they could feel their wounds from the knife and the pain from their sickness. He said that if they did not get the word of God, they would die all over again. This was my night vision.
In Habakkuk 2:2 we read, “And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and mike it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it. So I wrote it down along with a warning: The doctrine of many Pentecostal pastors has left the saints believing in a god called “If”. They believe that “If God” does not want you dead or sick for His glory, He might heal you. They believe that being saved means just being born again.
But that is not the gospel (good news) of Jesus. In Greek, the word for saved is SOZO, which means to save, i.e., deliver or protect (literally or figuratively) heal, preserve, save (self), do well, be (make) whole. In Acts 2:21, the word “saved” means to be made whole: “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved (made whole).” It has the same meaning in Acts 2:47, Acts 4:12, Acts 11:14, Acts 15:11, and Acts 16:30-31. The Hebrew word for save, YASHA, means to be open, to be safe; to free or succor; (having) salvation, save, savior, get victory.
James 5:1.5 reads, “And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.” In Matthew 9:5, Jesus says, ”For whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise. and walk?” It is the same thing!
When we look at the word “salvation” in the Bible, we again find that its meaning is greater than we have been taught. We find in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.” SOTERIA, the Greek word for salvation, means rescue or safety (physically or morally deliver, health, save, saving.
Hezekiah the king of Judah knew that his sins were forgiven when he was healed. In Isaiah 38:17 he says, “Behold for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love for my soul (life) delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.” God speaks to Isaiah in Isaiah 49:6 “And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest by my salvation unto the end of the earth.”
Isaiah 12:2-6 reads, “Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; He also is become my salvation. Therefore, with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. And in that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon His name, declare His doings among the people, make mention that His name is exalted. Sing unto the Lord; for He hath done excellent things. This is known in all the earth. Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion; for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.” There are two Hebrew words for salvation — YESHUWAH and YESHA.YESHUWAH means deliverance, aid, victory, prosperity, health, help and, helping. YESHA means liberty, deliverance, prosperity, safety. Welfare means the state or condition of having good health, happiness, or prosperity. All these are wrapped up in one word: salvation.
Hebrews 2:3-4 reads, “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation which at first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to His own will?”
Having put the vision and warning into writing, I took it to God’s people.
I made several thousand copies of the dream and took it to the next convention of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. They were holding their meeting at that time in Louisville, Kentucky. I began to pass it out the information in the convention center. They called the security guards and had me put out. I stood on the streets instead and passed it out as a warning to the leadership. The next denomination I took it to was the United Pentecostals the following year. They were holding their convention in Kansas. Once again, I began to pass it out in the convention center. They also called the security guards, who called the police, who put me out. For the past 20 years, I have been going to different Pentecostal organizations and charismatic and power-believing groups to pass out this warning. One United Pentecostal minister told me to “go back to those black folks; they’re the ones who are behind.”
A year after the dream I heard that the woman I saw in the dream was seriously ill and in bed. I went to see her and told her what I saw. She said to me, “David, you know the Lord spoke to me and told me to go to the body and I didn’t know what that meant.” She said called a friend of mine and asked him what it meant “to go to the body?” He told her that there were people outside of our particular denomination who put more emphasis on healing and actually taught on healing. He said that she should go to them and be taught from the word of God about healing. So she went.
At that time, the only people she knew that were teaching on healing were “Trinitarians”. Trinitarians baptized in the three titles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but her church only baptized in the name of Jesus. Many Apostolics believe that Trinitarians are not saved or are only “half saved” because they are not baptized in Jesus’ name. The sick woman went to the Trinitarians and listened for a while, but because of the conflicting baptismal doctrines, she became uncomfortable and returned to her church.
What I saw in the dream played out to be true. She went back into the church under the teaching that God wants her to be sick for His glory. It ended up killing her prematurely. God wanted to heal her, but He could not heal her because of the unbelief. Her pastor had not given her the word of God, with the sword to be able to fight the fight of faith. The “sword of the Spirit” described in Ephesians 6:17 is a “dirk”, a short combat knife designed for close-up fighting, but the pastor had used a cheap paring knife, which was not effective against the attacks of the Devil against her health.
The angel told Mary, “His name shall be called Jesus.” Jesus means the salvation of Jehovah; or Jehovah Who is salvation---the deliverance or protection, healing, preserving, save self by His word, doing well, be made whole---of Jehovah, the Covenant-Keeping God. He came to do the works of the Father or to do the works of salvation, to give the benefits to those who will receive Him as the salvation of God.
The salvation doctrine of Jesus is found in Matthew 9:5-8: “For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee. or to say Arise, and walk? but that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house. But when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.”
Many Christian leaders have read the passage found in John 11:4 concerning Lazarus’ sickness. It reads: “When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.” God was glorified when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Those that witnessed it gave glory to God. There is no glory if your God kills you rather than saves you. That makes your God, the Christian God, no better than anyone else’s god. One thing that set the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob above all other gods was that he was able to save.
Jesus spoke of this in John 9:3-4 when He was asked whether the man that was born blind was blind because of his parents’ sin. “Jesus answered. ‘Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work.” So he went to work and healed the man. God had sent His Son to come and do the work He had sent Him to do. You will find many statements throughout the scriptures saying that. In John 10, He talks of His Father sending Him to do the works. John 10:32 reads, “Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?” In verses 36 and 37, he says. “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though you believe me not, believe the works: that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in Him.”
Lazarus did not die for Gods glory, nor was the man blind for Gods glory. We live in a sin cursed world from which the Lord Jesus came to redeem us. Ga1atian 3:13 says, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.” For God to be glorified, the Lord Jesus Christ had to go to work, and He will go to work for you, too. Words draw pictures in your mind. If said “dog”, you would have a mental picture. If I said, “Cat”, you would have a mental picture. When someone says saved”, most Christians do not have the mental picture that God wants them to have. They do not have a picture of themselves being healed, delivered, being kept safe and having a covenant with God for all the benefits of their salvation. What they have in their hearts and minds is just being born again and prepared to go to heaven. The God of Creation said, in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
I Timothy 6:3-5 states, “If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting (in Greek NOSEO. to be sick, by implying of a diseased appetite) about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh strife, railings, evil surmisings. Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.
In II Timothy 1:13, Paul tells us to “Hold fast the form of sound (HUGIAINO – Greek: to be un-corrupt, be in health) words which thou has heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.”
The Spirit of God inspired Paul to write that sound or wholesome words are to be used. These words should carry the meaning that God intended us to have for His words: they should put faith in the hearts of His people. He wants them to believe the doctrine of Jesus when He said, “For whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to arise and walk?” That doctrine was carried forth to James5: 13-15: “Is there any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church: and let them pray over him anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save (make whole) the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.” The Word says that, when their sins were forgiven, they would be healed, and when healed, their sins forgiven; but that’s not what most Christians believe.
Amos 8:11 -14 reads: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water; but of hearing the words of the Lord; and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east: they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. In that day shall the fair virgins and young men faint for thirst. They that swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, Thy God. 0 Dan, liveth; and the manner of Beersheba liveth; even they shall fall and never rise up again.” There is a famine in the land, according to Amos 8:11-14.The result of famine is sickness, and weakness, and premature death. God has heard the cry of His people come up to Him as they cry from their sick beds asking, “Why is He killing them, why are they dying? Why won‘t He let them live so they can raise their families?” Families are crying, children are crying and praying, begging for healing. People in bitterness, cursing God, blaspheming God because one of their relatives is dead; her baby is dead; his wife is dead; her husband is dead; his mother is dead. God has heard these prayers and He wants the people to know that they are destroyed for lack of knowledge. The pastors are responsible for making the full intentions of His word known unto the people so they can have faith. If they don’t they will be held responsible before God for much of what is gong on in the body of Christ. Ezekiel 34:1-4 reads: “And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds: Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe ye with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away; neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.”
If you ask Christians, “Do you believe that God wants everyone saved?”, they would answer, “yes”. However, if you gave the meaning of the word “saved” --- which is to be made whole, delivered, and healed---they are not sure. The people do not believe and cannot say absolutely that God wants everyone healed and protected because they have never believed that doctrine in their hearts. All religious lies are catching up with the body of Christ. We are coming to a time when, as God has said in His word, the earth is reeling from the results of sin in it. There is an increase in hurricanes, storms and natural disasters, as God said there would be. As the birth pangs get closer and closer, there is an increase in the natural disasters. It is coming to the day of reckoning and God wants to prepare His people that they might live victoriously during the time of judgment on this earth. He has not intended for them to die in the judgments poured out for sin, but to live through them in victory until He comes. Acts 17:11 reads, “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” I urge the reader to search out for himself or herself the Greek arid Hebrew words used throughout this article in references are Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible and Vine’s Expository Dictionary of the Old Testament and New Testament. It is time for the people of Almighty God to seek Him with their whole hearts and to contend for the faith that was given to the first saints.