Preparing the Way for the Coming Glory
“Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway! Remove the stones. Raise a banner for the nations.â€
(Isaiah 62:10)
Recently I was reading in the book of Isaiah and the Lord began to speak to me out of the verse above about how He is preparing the way for the coming Glory
The Opening of the Gates
The Lord says, “Pass through the gates!”
There’s a stirring within, an accelerated awakening to a clarion call of the Spirit that has to do with “gates”. Gates are access points, or ‘portals’. Like doors they open and close the way into new places, opportunities and provision. In the spiritual realm they open and close the way into the Glory Realm of God.
Right now there’s tremendous opportunity for us. The Lord showed me gates that are being opened for us to pass through which lead us into new levels of anointing for a new day of Kingdom expansion. This anointing will be specific, creative empowerment to build up that which the enemy has sought to tear down, make straight what wickedness has made crooked, and remove all the stones of opposition and hindrance to the movement of God in the lives of His people. We are being called to pass through, or enter into the Secret Place of the Most High. Here we are anointed and empowered to return through the gates to prepare the way for the people for the coming Glory of the Lord upon the earth. This is a holy work of the Spirit. A work of building, removing and raising.
A Work of Building
The Lord says, “build up the highway!â€.
The highway God speaks of is the “Highway of Holiness’’—“And a highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.†(Isaiah 35:8a). It is the spiritual path which is built up through deepening intimacy with God. Our passing through the gates is our yielding to Holy Spirit and entering the Secret Place of His Presence. Here is where the building takes place as Holy Spirit strips away old garments of religious life and clothes us with garments of ‘Greater Glory’— the manifestation of a fullness of faith from the place of the finished work of Christ. We are being brought into a strength of faith that operates from the place of “Already Accomplished”. This “highway” radiating glory cuts straight through the wilderness of sin and death, and we walk it with the demonstration of the Spirit and power to literally change the landscape with signs, wonders and miracles. The evidence of this is seen in Psalm 84:6: “As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools.”, and echoed by Paul, “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7), and the writer of Hebrews, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)
A Work of Removing
“Remove the stones,†says the Lord.
I lived in Vermont for many years and loved hiking the trails through the forests up in the mountains. The quiet of the woods, the beauty of streams and waterfalls, the outcroppings of rocks that opened wonderful views of the land below all made me feel alive in ways that is hard to describe. Hiking these trails is not the same as a stroll in a lovely park. There are many rocky obstacles to climb over on the way up the mountain. While that’s not a bad thing because it helps to build strength, agility and stamina; nevertheless, it can really slow down progress.
I thought of this as I read “Remove the stonesâ€, and I heard the Lord say, “These stones are the obstacles that have hindered your walk of faith. They are the ‘stones of opposition’ that litter and clog the path before you, but I am removing every obstacle and making your path clear.”
The time has come for the stones to be removed. This is tied to the building of the ‘Highway of Holiness’. The strength and fullness of faith being released through our inner work of yielding to the Spirit of God brings with it the power to move mountains. Jesus said, “…I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you…†(Matthew 17:20) Through this work of removing we are going to see things that once stood as mountains before us, obstacles that seemed too big and formidable swept aside. What once took a lot of effort is now easy. What once took a long time is now happening quickly. For the path is being cleared and smoothed for an acceleration of our destiny and purpose.
A Work of Raising
I believe the Lord is preparing us to “raise the banner for the nations” for a major, global outpouring of Glory.
The word used for “banner†means a “Standardâ€. It carries a sense of a battle standard or warning sign. We are being prepared to raise the battle standard or the warning sign with the outpouring of God’s Glory. It is a banner that carries the sound of a specific message. A brief vision helps to clarify this.
I saw a mountain fortress. It’s high walls, battlements and towers were made of a stone that was highly polished and seemed to vibrate and radiate with color and sound. It’s as if the fortress itself was alive. I heard what sounded like a trumpet. At the sound of the trumpet the very atmosphere radiated with the waves of sound that shook the atmosphere of earth. The trumpet sounded three times and I watched as the massive gates into the fortress were opened. Out of the gates came an army. It was a great army of warriors, some were on horses, some in chariots, some on foot, a great army. They were dressed in white garments that shimmered in the light, and armor that looked like pure gold. The weapons they carried were instruments of worship. Instruments of every kind to release the Sound of Heaven upon the earth. Once more I heard the sound of a trumpet and I saw a banner being raised above the fortress and above the army. A banner that was ablaze with fire, the Fire of the Glory of the Lord. And, the banner unfurled above the fortress and over the army. Written on the banner in flaming gold was the word—LOVE. The word LOVE radiated with the Fire of Glory and the very word itself released the Sound of Heaven, it released a Song and the army immediately took their weapons of worship and released the Sound of Love, the New Song of the Redeemed upon the earth. And the whole earth shook in the Sound of Love.
“He brought me to the house of wine, and his banner over me was love.†(Song of Songs 2:4-5)
This is the banner that the Lord says to raise for the nations. We raise it, or lift it up in what I hear the Lord say is, “Warfare Worship of Furious Love”, the releasing of the song God placed within us which is both praise and intercession mingled into one Sound. The Sound is not a sound perceived by the natural ear apart from the Spirit. It pours forth from the Spirit of God with a power the Lord describes as “Furious Love”.
The Lord caught me off balance with the word, “furious”, because it carries a meaning of extreme anger or energy, violence, intensity, unrestrained or wild. We see the effects in the natural where there’s great destruction and harm. For example, the furious winds of a major hurricane that rips apart everything in its path, or the furious anger of a person leveled against another.
But the Furious Love of God is radically different. It does have the power to demolish strongholds and destroy the works of the enemy; but, its power is the antithesis of what we see in the natural. The Apostle Paul revealed the Furious Love of God in his letter to the church in Corinth:
“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8a)
These words carry tremendous power which is often lost through our over familiarity with them. I mean, they have become sentimentalized in many ways. We put them on greeting cards and magnets for our refrigerators. We read them at weddings and send them along with a gift of candy and flowers. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, it’s beautiful. It is simply that we look at love through the lens of emotions and forget we’re dealing with things of the Spirit and not the flesh. The energy, or sound, of love is not emotional but spiritual. It operates in frequency patterns outside the physical realm in absolute holiness and purity. When it intercepts the frequency patterns of earth it obliterates, or cancels out every frequency that is in opposition to it. This is where miracles, signs and wonders take place.
It is this Sound that was released by the Warriors as they raised their instruments releasing the Sound of Love in warfare. I hear Holy Spirit say, “I am re-tuning your instruments to resonate with My Sound. My Song shall be released in and through you and all creation shall respond with great joy.” The sound of earth must give way to the Sound of Heaven. The patterns which have governed worship and praise in the Church are giving way to the patterns of Heaven moving by the wind of the Spirit– A NEW SOUND IS ARISING!
Preparing the Way for the People
God has a heart for the nations of this world. Jesus commissioned His disciples saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…” (Matthew 28:19) His statement is not one of evangelism, but of Reformation. His desire is that the nations of this world will radiate with His Glory, will be an expression of His rule and reign on earth.
We are in the midst of a global Awakening. It is literally impacting nations all around the world. But, what are nations? PEOPLE–the heart of Isaiah 62:10 is, “prepare the way for the people.” This is important, because as the hearts of the people change so does the nation.
This is our mandate, our commissioning by the Lord. As we yield to the lordship of the Spirit, entering through the gates into deepening intimacy with Him, we will experience a powerful shift in alignment that releases new levels of anointing for a new day of Kingdom expansion. This is the day of Great Awakening and revealing of the sons of God who walk in Kingdom authority-the demonstration of the Spirit and power which will literally change the atmosphere of earth. The atmosphere of earth is being dominated by frequencies of sound that resonate with darkness; but, the Sound of Heaven is intercepting the sound of earth and interrupting the earthly patterns-shattering the darkness with the Glory of the Lord. The atmosphere of earth is being altered. It’s like wave upon wave radiating throughout the earth as the Glory of the Lord is being revealed. This is happening through the revealing of the ‘sons of God’, the Blood-redeemed who carry the Sound of Love.
Selah