Dreams of a Dying Church

I dreamed last night that I was dying.

I was in a hospital bed and the doctors told me that I could no longer live without life support and asked if I wanted to turn off the machines.  I told them I was not afraid to die and to turn off the life support.  I expected to immediately die and when I did not I complained that there was too much pain, I needed something to take the pain away.

I lay there for a while waiting to die but realized that I did not want to die in a hospital, so I went to the movies.  I sat in a chair and waited to die and while I felt my body fading, I was still alive.  I went to the restroom and it was the filthiest locker room you've ever seen, water leaking everywhere, rusted faucets, men and women together.  I did not want to die in there.

I went to the beach and after walking along the sand went to my hotel that was on the second row.  Standing in the parking lot with other people someone screamed and pointed to the sky.  There was a giant red apartment building flying through the sky and landed in the ocean.  As people screamed and cried, a large concrete hotel on the first row collapsed.  I'd been near it just moments before.  Then a small building that looked similar to the one I was at flew over our heads and landed with a thud.  The people in the building exited like commuters at a crowded subway platform.  They were safe while all around us was chaos.

Interpretation - it is the true Christian that feels like the church is dying with the world.  Many congregations are old and ineffective, many are on life support.  The body of Christ is not afraid of the Rapture but living in the Last Days hurts more than we expected.  The movie theater and the bathrooms represent the culture wars and Christian faith trying to die in those places.  The flying buildings are judgement and the tribulation to come.  The small second class hotels represent the ineffective and poor church that is Raptured by the Lord.

Dreams of the Coming Judgement

Abigail and Dolley readers lately I've felt the Lord calling me to begin a new series on how He is judging this nation.  This morning I had a dream that I'd like to share with you as the first part of this new series.

The dream started at work, in a filthy run down office and warehouse.  I was new and it was my job to clean it up.  I wandered around and met with former co-workers, none of whom I was excited to work with again.  It was dark and disorganized and a spirit of defeat haunted the place.  (I believe this represents the culture of corporate America today.  What was once a place of hustle, bustle, and good work is now populated by people you don't want to work with in a run down inefficient environment.)

I started piling up trash in the hallway and a couple of great coworkers appeared like magic and began helping.  I was so excited to see them and had a little hope!  I wondered how we were going to get all the trash we were piling up out of the building.  My coworker said, "Oh, I've already called.  See here he is."  A young man drove up with a truck and began loading the trash to haul away.  This was a bright spot, coworkers pitching in, and there was a young strong guy doing the heavy lifting.  (Personally, I've just started a new job and this chapter represents the hope and the optimism I am feeling.)

I ask the young man to follow me, there was junk in the bathroom.  As we walked in together, there was trash everywhere.  As we worked, we were startled by a strange man's hand emerging from a pulled shower curtain, the nails were painted pink.  The young man with me said, "What are you doing here?  Go away, I've told you I don't want to be gay."  The man arose naked from the bathwater and displayed enormous genitalia; I stared in fascinated horror before turning away in disgust and rushing out the door.  (Obviously, this is a reference to the seduction of our bright, strong young men.)

I emerged with the toilet overflowing filth behind me into a gathering in my childhood kitchen.  Sitting around a table were beautiful women in their late 60's.  They were fashionable, well put together, trim and tan; Southern Ladies.  As I looked at them, I thought, we used to look like this.  Americans used to not be sloppy and fat.  I asked what they were doing and they told me they were trying out a new cream to eliminate flab and belly fat, I saw that they were already trim and wondered why they were so focused on their looks.  Their husbands were in attendance and were devoted and loving, I was upset with them for wasting money on a beauty treatments they did not need when there were needy people who could have been helped. (I think this represents the advantages the Baby Boomers had but squandered.)

Then out the window, I saw a monster sized wolf.  He climbed on the roof above where we stood and began diving at the roof like a fox after a mouse in the snow.  I knew it was safe in the house because my Father had built the roof.  (My childhood home represents an America that was safe, secure, and well built.  The enemy might try to get in but we were protected.)

But then I remembered my cats,  I knew if the wolf saw them they would be killed.   I ran outside and found my husband.  I yelled to him to find the cats.  (I've been quite worried about the fate of my pets should the Rapture happen and them be left behind.)    The monster saw us and came down from the roof, my husband led him away to the back yard and I ran in the opposite direction.  The front doors to the house were locked at I had to try to get to safety in the backyard.  (This represents leaving the safety of the protected house and then not being able to get back in.  A Nation that leaves God behind can not expect to be able to run back in when danger is lurking.)

As I rounded the corner of the house, the wolf saw me, changed directions and turned to attack.  I screamed and ran as fast as I could but there was no escape.  Just as I was about to be devoured I stopped, turned, and stood my ground.  I rebuked it in the name of Jesus and the monster howled in pain.  Emboldened, I drove him from my yard.  Each time I rebuked him, it shrunk in size and fled in defeat.  (This represents the real threat of the enemy and it was only when we are about to lose our lives do we take the authority that has always been ours to wield.)

Exhausted from the battle, I realized I needed to call Animal Control.  The government needed to come and get this wolf out of my neighborhood.  I dialed 311 and a city worker picked up the phone, but he would not stop talking to his co-worker and listen to me.  They were visiting and discussing the jobs they wish they had or were going to get.  I kept yelling in the phone, "Hello?  Hey, we need help out here."  There was no help coming from the government.

As I'd tried to get the attention of the government, I'd begun strolling toward the back of my childhood neighborhood.  You don't often visit the back of a neighborhood if you live near the front.  To my horror, it was destroyed.  At first I thought it was rebuilding but then I recognized that the construction had been abandoned for years.  (This represents the destruction of our homes, our way of life, our families.)

Finally, the back of the neighborhood turned into a huge junkyard where cars were piled six stories high and the dump went on as far as the eye could see.  There were shiny new corporate buildings overlooking the junked cars.  Everyone was walking and I warned my fellow pedestrians about the wolf nearby.  One lady said those wolves are everywhere now, that she'd seen six of them cross the road just up the way.  A man on a bicycle rode by and gave me an insufferable superior look.  I scoffed, "What are you looking at?"  He laughed and rode off, it was then that I realized that he at least had a bike.  Nobody else did because all the cars had been destroyed while the men in the new shiny buildings looked on.

Dreams of the Rapture

Acts 2:17 says that in the last days, God will pour out His Spirit upon his children and they shall prophecy, have visions and dream dreams.  Early Sunday Morning, I had a dream.

The Middle Eastern sands were hot beneath my feet as I fled a horrible dragon and assorted demons.  I was fleeing for my life when instead of me, the dragon captured the Lord Jesus.  The dragon bound the Lord about the waist with a metal cable which he tied to his tail.  I watched in horror as the dragon  began to smash the Lord Jesus into the ground, into ships, and into buildings.  I cried out to the Lord to stop the torture, that the body of Christ could not take much more.

Smaug the Dragon - The Hobbit

I ran waist high into the sea, that was calm and cool.  Above me, I heard a mighty trumpet and the skies opened.  All around me, spirits began to rise from the waters and I remember thinking - oh yeah, the dead in Christ shall arise first and then, I knew that the Rapture was happening.  The blessed hope, the greatest miracle since Creation was upon us and I was caught up into the clouds.

It does not take an interpreter to see the meaning behind the dream, the time is short.  

Lessons on Waiting From Sarah

Abigail and Dolley readers in the first grade, my teacher wrote on my report card that I was a bright student and a sweet girl but that I needed to learn patience with others.  It was a Christian School and I have no doubt that those words were given to her by the Holy Spirit.  God loves and disciplines His children and apparently this was an area He felt I needed to work on the most!  From that moment on, He began to put people and situations in my life that would develop patience.

Four decades later, I am still learning.  My idea of a patient person is one who is patient in all things, who waits in serenity and peace, and who casts cares upon the Lord with nonchalance.  The question becomes does such a person really exist or are we patient by degrees or in certain situations?  If utter paragons of patience are at one end of the spectrum and toddlers (both physical and spiritual) are at the other, where might you fall?  Further, are there some situations/people where your patience is inexhaustible but others where you fly off the handle at the least little thing?

What about long term desires and unfulfilled dreams?  I like to use Sarah as my model for patience in the Bible.  I identify with her.  We always focus on the fact that she waited 25 years for the promise of the Lord to come true but we do not consider that she had always been childless, that the longing and wishing for a child went well beyond 25 years.  I am sure there were many months she cried with every show of blood and then for years she dealt with the pain of an unfulfilled dream and desire.

Sarah Laughed

On a certain level, it seems harsh for the Lord to reveal to such a woman that she would bear a child and then ask her to wait.  Would we speak less of the miracle of Isaac if it had occurred when she was 75?  Or was the Lord making doubly sure that He got the credit and was He using Sarah to show us that if He promises something, He will eventually do it?  Did she suffer so 4000 years later we would still be talking about it and looking to her as an example of how to abide but also how not to abide? Is she also a model of what not to do when your long awaited dream comes true?  For by the Biblical accounts, she did not behave very well after Isaac was born.

It can be a scary place, out here in the deep with the Lord.  I am certain that people scoffed at her, laughed at her dream, and caused her to question that she had really heard from the Lord.  Sarah laughed herself when the Lord told Abraham she would give him a son.  I do not judge her too harshly, as someone who has had to wait upon the Lord for decades, I understand.