“Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet… I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling… And I will cast those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds… and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts.” Jesus

Beloved. It’s a holy, holy, holy moment that’s engulfed our House of Prayer.

The One from Whom galaxies and black-holes flee away is in our front-yard, judging, pulling down, exposing sin, uprooting leaders, and uncloaking the thoughts and intentions of hearts.

This is an hour of Achan (Joshua 7), and Ananias and Saphira (Acts 5). This is GOD IN OUR CAMP with His jealous fury over thousands of His beloved sons and daughters in Kansas City, and Houses of Prayer around the world, who have made a pledge to the Living God to keep His fire, on His altar.

Imagine how the Lord felt about Joshua and Moses as they served Him inside the tent of meeting. Now imagine what Joshua and Moses experienced as the God of Mount Sinai Himself burned and thundered before them, face to face. This is where the House of Prayer is:

“Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose, and each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.” (Exodus 33:7-11)

Can you envision it? – All the Israelites who got up one morning and approached the tabernacle, shaking as they put on their sandals, believing it was better for them to be incinerated in the pillar of fire than to spend the rest of their lives wondering what this God was like.

Now consider the millions around the earth, who, over the last several decades have responded to this same primary, priestly lifestyle of encounter with the living God of Job 37:

“At this also my heart trembles, and leaps from its place. Hear attentively the thunder of His voice, and the rumbling that comes from His mouth. He sends it forth under the whole heaven, His lightning to the ends of the earth. After it a voice roars; He thunders with His majestic voice, and He does not restrain them when His voice is heard. God thunders marvelously with His voice; He does great things which we cannot comprehend.” (Job 37:1-5)

But it’s not an organization, or social fad that’s led their hearts to the House of Prayer. It was never about coming to a ministry leader, or a geographical location, or having a career. It’s been about responding to the Eternal God of Hebrews 12, Who, in a generation filled with gimmicks and options and endless opportunities for self-exaltation, issued personal invitations into intimate, purifying fellowship with Himself through nothing less than the blood of His own Son.

“For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:18-29)

How does this God “rumble” as He sees this sea of seekers, and worshippers, and elderly, and families, and young ones coming close to His Presence? How does He feel about the viral-thousands of simple leaders who have said, “We need the tabernacle of His Presence back home – in Russia, Nazareth, Florida, England, the Solomon Islands, China and Brazil?”

Can you for a moment conceive of the tempest that would burn inside this God toward any person, or group of people who would use these ones for their own lust and pride of life!? (If this doesn’t make you tremble – pray for yourself…)

Can you hear His flaming roar against those who would cry that this tabernacle, where millions are making melody in their hearts toward Him, must come down!?

Beloved. This is where we are: in the middle of this tempest – as God cleans His house, and fiercely defends what His Holy Spirit has established on the earth. He is dashing brothers against brothers, and sisters against sisters, as He “ruins our pride” (Jeremiah 13:9) and cultivates tempered, agape love in His family. He is standing in the center of His lampstands, purging hearts, relationships, conversations and jot and tittles with His Eyes of fire.

…(SELAH)…

“Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said: “Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who rebukes God, let him answer it.” “Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me: “Would you indeed annul My judgment? Would you condemn Me that you may be justified? Have you an arm like God? Or can you thunder with a voice like His? Then adorn yourself with majesty and splendor, and array yourself with glory and beauty. Disperse the rage of your wrath; look on everyone who is proud, and humble him. Look on everyone who is proud, and bring him low; tread down the wicked in their place. Hide them in the dust together, bind their faces in hidden darkness. Then I will also confess to you that your own right hand can save you.” (Job 40:6-14)

While being confronted by the God of Job 40

…who would dare to remain hidden in the shadows, resisting the calls of brothers, family members, and the Father Himself, shrouding themselves with fig-leaves and pretensions?

…who would continue to stammer that they can redress their own soul and chronic sin issues?

…who would not lament the countless lives, families, and noble ones whose destinies are considered as pawns in a living self-saving chess-match?

…who would not see the prophetic significance of this moment, and believe it’s prudent to give themselves to organizational status-quo and damage control?

…who would continue to throw stone after stone against sons and daughters of the Father, and then claim “moral high ground”?

…who would incessantly stand in angry protest, condemning others within the tabernacle of the Lord?

…who would gleefully hope to see the Lord decapitate someone – or a dozen “someones”?? (C’mon now, let’s be honest…)

…who cannot wail with utter terror, under the weight of this sovereign hour of sudden destruction; trembling over the swiftness of His judgments?

…who doesn’t weep and weep and weep, hearing beloved priest after intercessor after musician bare their anguished, naked souls in the public square?

The Lord is in His house confronting OUR sin, and OUR ways, and so many of us are “slow-to-believe” this reality, treating it all like some video game.

The Lord, our Lord, will be exalted in His glory. But, by necessity, His exaltation will bring down everything else about us that we have exalted in our own selves.

“Now I will rise,” says the Lord; Now I will be exalted. Now I will lift Myself up. You shall conceive chaff. You shall bring forth stubble. Your breath, as fire, shall devour you. And the people shall be like the burnings of lime; Like thorns cut up they shall be burned in the fire. Hear, you who are afar off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge My might.” (Isaiah 33:10-13)

The Lord is bringing us into the strong bonds of His eternal covenant for this hour. But it requires that every part of who we are, pass under His rod.

“I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; I will purge the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord.” (Ezekiel 20:37-38)

There’s a great promise of new wine and abundant harvest. But it won’t come without His household going through the wine-press and the threshing-floor.

The threshing floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil. (Joel 2:24)

Father. We humble ourselves before You. We need Your vision for this hour!!

____________________
JSB • December 19, 2023

FINAL NOTE:
I’ve been a pastor for 35 years, and have been connected to Mike, and the International House of Prayer in Kansas City since 2001. From 2001 to 2010 I personally took hundreds of individuals to IHOPKC, and their various conferences. In 2011 my wife, two daughters and I moved to Kansas City where I served as a senior pastor with Forerunner Christian Fellowship, and helped develop pastoral ministry and small groups within the community. In 2018 we moved back to Arizona, where my wife and I actually live in All Nations House of Prayer Southwest and maintain prayer with worship five hours per day, and six days per week.

I am overall appalled at the level of deceit, moral perversion and abuse that’s being “named among us”. When the “allegations” themselves came out, it should have led all of us to fall on our faces in the fear of the Lord. It grieves me to no end that the extreme holiness of what’s been/being desecrated simply doesn’t seem to be a thought among so many in our family. Leaders, prophetic leaders, in all sectors of the House of Prayer, and the Body of Christ, seem to have so little awareness of the significance of what the Lord has shaken over the last several months.

Beloved. The ONLY WAY our family will encounter “justice” and “wholeness”; the ONLY WAY we’ll remain faithful to the Lord through this “Holy Hour”, is by coming to Him in our own sackcloth and ashes, face-down on His threshing-floor. This is the only way that’s worthy of who we’ve been called to be, and Whom we stand before, in our calling.

But the window of opportunity is quickly closing. Thousands will trudge along, bruised and bruising others, without having availed themselves of the holy fire available for purging, healing and preparation for the future that awaits the Bride at the end of this age. Without collectively entering into this moment, we will remain self-made, impure, diseased, ill-equipped and disconnected from Him and His end-time purposes.