We are approaching some very unstable years in numerous Western nations. Always an interesting time for those with prophetic ministry. A time to prophesy hope – hope is certainly spoken in the Scriptures in the context of oppression. Yet hope is not spoken without an acknowledgement of the threats, indeed hope was spoken because the threats were obvious. The hope went well beyond an ‘all will be well’ message, and not all will be well in these coming days. There is always a path through, but the path through is seldom ever the path around – it is a path through. If we genuinely embrace the land then we will also experience the pain of the land (Israel’s experience of bondage in Egypt is the bondage of the land due to our corporate sin), and the pain of the land has to be embraced.
I recently had a dream where I was taken to a specific nation and in a main arena a well-known attested prophet was holding forth. The space was filled with no room for any other perspective or word to come forth, although there was a seemingly verbal acknowledgement of others; eventually this person moved from simply speaking to shadow boxing. It became very evident that this was denigrating into a show, nothing of substance taking place but plenty of entertainment. I left with Gayle and we went into a side-room where it was apparent that a person who was committed to bring through a next generation prophetically was totally engrossed in themselves and how powerful they were. We could only spend a short while observing that, as again we knew this was going nowhere productive.
When a nation (city / region) is under threat and those threats are more or less obvious to all who have sight and ears and also the prophetic becomes locked inside the fortress then the words that come will almost invariably be regarding breakthrough. I think of the warnings Jesus gave that were into that very scenario. Jerusalem surrounded, but in that context ‘false prophets’ arising (false does not necessarily mean inaccurate). In the Jerusalem context a process unfolded of words released of deliverance and calling for trust in God, and then miraculously the deliverance came – Rome had to withdraw as back in Rome it was plunged into Civil War (68AD – the year of the four emperors). Deliverance; believe the prophets and you will prosper! However, we know that what followed was not a deliverance but quick destruction.
The voice that is silenced in that time is the Jeremiah voice. These past days I am calling for the Jeremiahs who have been silenced, who have been put in the pit, to come forth. Your voice is not a negative voice but one of sight and faith and who will enable people to live the other side of trauma, to live in a new context, to live not calling for the shalom of ‘Jerusalem’ but learning to prosper in ‘Babylon’, praying for the shalom of that city. It is not a prospering from Babylon but prospering in the city. Yours is the voice of hope, hope through the valley that we enter where our paradigms get pulled apart never to come together again in the same way.
There is a shift coming of enormous proportions. Borders being redefined, greater movement of the tectonic plates, and even Civil War within an established nation, with what could almost be some form of enactment of Civil War taking place on the governmental floor.
In coming days I want to write about borders and boundaries. They are ever so important as wrong boundaries is one of the simplest of strategies to obscure God. For now, Jeremiahs arise. You will be raised out of the pit and for a season and have an unusual freedom to speak.
Timely Martin. Next week I will speak to a gathering of planners and more about how to get through the coming times. My contention is that we now live on a new planet. We must not confuse it for the old one. And there really is no going back. We have set such a huge transformation in motion that even with GHG’s at net zero as soon as possible (2030 would be best) and a decrease in temperatures, our world is forever changed. So how do we live in this new world?
How do we plan cities that can experience 8 mos of rain in a day without massive destruction or death? How do we avoid streets turning into conduits for flash floods? How do we get over our aversion to caring for the poor and give all who need them good shelter and a heat pump for cooling to avoid deaths due to heat waves? How do we fire smart our cities and neighbourhoods without destroying all that is lovely about them? How do we grow sufficient food in a climate that can destroy all our work in an instant? Many questions for this new planet as it does not follow the rules for the old one. It challenges all that we think we know and understand about engineering, planning, economics, social organization and more.
The answer is we start with what we most want to avoid and work towards that. I most want to avoid mass mortality events of humans and others. How do we do that? Step 1 would be decarbonize our economies. Drastically. Urgently. Much more quickly that we think we can do so. We fund required disaster mitigation at home and in other places. 20K people would have survived the floods in Libya if they had been warned and evacuated ahead of time. Yes, politics played into that but there are many more communities globally that could use some climate adaptation help from the rich ones.
We are at a moment where we must find the funds for climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation all at the same time. And we must manage the economic, social and political unrest that is due to come and is already here. Resilience begins at the community level and for those of us in western countries that means getting to know and working with our neighbours.
We have all the tools we need to transform our communities, cities and nations to meet the needs of humans and others in this new climate. Yes, species will die but the planet is an amazing place and new ones will come along. And yes, there is hope. We now know that if we can stop putting GHG’s in the atmosphere that the temperatures will begin to decrease a little while after. That’s amazing! Let’s make that happen. We can still choose how much change there is. We can still choose how many die and how many live in this new climate. Let’s choose life and learn from our new situation.
Anne… Those comments and approach that you write about are invaluable to people like myself; not simply because I am not a scientist (though the crisis is so visible around us) but your comments such as ‘we now live on a new planet’ speak with reality but strangely they give hope. Alongside what I am writing in these blogs I am holding some open zooms on Eschatology… one aspect I put there is that after analysing Scripture we will still need to accept that we might just be among those who miss it all, and certainly the hope in there is not one that ever encourages us to think of abandonning this world nor is the core hope of leaving this world. A quote that I have seen attributed to Martin Luther though I think it actually comes from Martin Luther King is when asked what he would do if he knew the end of the world was imminent, the reply was ‘I would plant an apple tree’.That is hope… deep hope. Add to that the ‘end of world’ language indicating not the destruction of all but the ‘end of the world as we knew it’, I take to heart that we are living now on a new planet. Challenging to my eschatology but if eschatology always leaves the challenge of ‘then how will I live in the light of that’, maybe you are the one analysing the crisis from an eschatological perspective.
Martin:
The reason I talk about a new planet is to jolt people out of complacency, especially city planners, engineers, designers, and politicians. We really are on our old planet, yet everything is changed. It is a new world and it does not conform to anything we have understood or designed for. Look at so many of the extreme rain events recently around the globe. The language is generally that Greece, Libya, Germany, Spain, Canada, the USA, China or whoever, has experienced a once in thousand year storm. Well, that’s a relief. We can forget about that now. We’ll never see that again. But how do we know? Of course we will see it again. If not next year, then the year after.
How do we mitigate the results? An extreme rain, managed well is just that. An extreme rain that destroys homes and livelihoods is a disaster. An extreme rain that kills people, livestock, and others is a tragedy. We must do what we can to mitigate these events by planning our cities differently and designing our infrastructure to the new parameters. What was an unimaginable amount of rain or heat or drought or wildfire is now the norm. We must plan for it.
But we are still on this planet physically. And we must embrace the land. We must repent of the behaviour that has driven these changes. If I remember rightly the word for repentance means a 180 degree turn. We were headed once direction and turn and go the other. What does repentance mean in light of an overheated earth (and seas)? It means heading to net zero as soon as physically possible. Not by 2050 (God help us). But by 2030. And those of us with limited power must do all we can to push for that. It is, literally, our only chance to pull back from tipping points that will be far, far beyond what we can imagine. And the latest reports are not good when it comes to tipping points. Embrace the land. Grieve with it and for it. And repent. Do everything in our power to reduce fossil fuel use (and burning biomass as well as it is worse than coal). Decarbonize our lives in every way that we can. Push governments to respond rightly to the emergency. Organize with local communities to ensure that people’s needs are met and work together to mitigate disasters. And, give something to those who are paying the price for our behaviours.
A new report out today in advance of the Sept 20 meeting on climate names 20 countries as ‘planet wreckers’ responsible for 90% of CO2 emissions from new fossil fuel development in the future according to published plans. #1 is the USA. Followed by Canada (yes, not the good guys in this at all), Russia, Iran and China as the top 5 future polluters with plans. The top five countries with the means to address this and move off of fossil fuels are: USA, Canada, Australia, Norway and the UK. Together they account for over 50% of planned expansion of fossil fuel production. Repentance in these historically Christian countries would change the world. . . for the better.
Here is the URL for that report: https://priceofoil.org/2023/09/12/planet-wreckers-how-20-countries-oil-and-gas-extraction-plans-risk-locking-in-climate-chaos/
And here is the story of a prophet who died after warning the people and politicians of impending tragedy:
https://priceofoil.org/2023/09/12/planet-wreckers-how-20-countries-oil-and-gas-extraction-plans-risk-locking-in-climate-chaos/
Thank you Martin very sobering, yet hopeful and deeply authentic. I have been so confused about the prophetic lately. Like your dream there are the big names who are showboating on a stage prophesying stuff and giving out ‘words’ to people etc.. It is so easy to be impressed by that yet somehow it doesn’t always ‘feel’ right and lately I have been finding it even more hard to discern what is true and false prophecy – who are true and false prophets? If the sign of being a false prophet isn’t inaccurate prophecy then how do we discern or judge? I see so many prophetic words given that haven’t ever happened so that seems one way of judging to me to some extent anyway but I am obviously missing something really important? I would be interested if you could expand on that issue at some point.
Hi Joanna… Thanks for the comment. I think what you suggest would make a great post!
I think you have to go with your gut – what edifies you and draws you to greater faith and peace in Jesus. Not easy – what resonates for someone might not for another.