y’all can explain it to me

I got something bizarre in my email this morning. A woman at my church runs a women’s group that I attended once and vowed never to attend again, for various reasons including the fact that it’s espousing some vague, watery, New-Agey philosophies about God. I found myself unable to understand the spiritual floatiness of what was taught there or prayed there or even mentioned in general conversation there. It sounded just like the letter in my email this morning.

Now, I’m still on the group’s mailing list and I allow myself to stay on the mailing list because I’m curious, frankly, to know what’s going on. So the group leader sent out a small note that included an exhortation to pray in the aftermath of the disaster, with which I wholeheartedly agree …. and also this handy-dandy PROPHECY and prayer model, with which I have some teensy, niggling problems.

So I’m posting the prophecy and prayer model section of her note and “bolding” all the sections that I find incomprehensible or maddening.

You may either try to explain them to me or you may try to calm me down. You must choose, because I don’t think you can do both.

I’m not including her note, just the main body. It’s written by someone named Chuck D. Pierce. I’m not familiar with him and I really don’t feel deprived on that score.

Ready? Here we go:

“September 2, 2005

Dear Friends:

We must pray and intercede on behalf of those traumatized along the Gulf Coast areas. We are entering into a level of warfare in the earth that is beyond our present mindset and paradigm. In these seven years of war, God has been preparing us for what is ahead. We are ending the fourth year and approaching the fifth year. (Um, WHAT?) We need supernatural grace to deal with lawless structures in days ahead. I want to be real honest, when I wrote The Future War of the Church explaining the anti-Christ system and lawlessness, many criticized and scoffed at the concept of the level of warfare that we would be encountering in days ahead.

Please, please prepare yourself for these next three years. Use the prayer points below to begin to engage spiritual forces in ways that we have never understood in the past. The following prophetic word is from the revelation that came forth on August 12 in our FirstFruits Gathering built around covenant alignment:

To the United States of America… “Know that today this nation is being realigned. Get ready, for refuge cities will begin to arise throughout this land. They will begin to rise up from state to state to state all along the East coast, all along the Gulf, and all along the West coast. I am raising up refuge cities.

Florida is resisting the development of My plan, (DAMN those stubborn, toothless blue hairs!) but I will cause a strong remnant to arise in this state. I AM even beginning to train those in cities that will know how to move forward. Many of you have wondered: ‘Why am I not involved here or there – why do I seem to be shelved?’ (I, myself, have not wondered this. ) I will begin to assign you to be a part of those groups that will aid My next move in the earth. This will come because of great shakings, floods and disease structures that are forming. I AM assigning you now to spread My Good News. I AM developing ears to hear My grace. There is a shifting now of compassion and mercy, for I need My healers to be ready to be released throughout the land.”

To those in law enforcement and public authority… “Lawlessness is beginning to rise and escalate. Many of you who have prayed will become discouraged as you see statistics change. Lift up your heads. This is the beginning of dividing and exposing the real source of covenant breaking and violence that is seething in this land. I will give you strategies over how to defeat major lawless structures. These strategies are but temporary measures, so remain on alert from this day forward.”

1. Ask God to teach you about lawlessness.
2. Ask the Lord to build a shield of faith around you.
3. Ask the Lord to have you be more responsive to prophecy. (I assume he’s referring to modern-day “prophecies” such as this one. Well, I’m responsive. “!?@%!!” is a response.) In 2004, the word given in Baton Rouge was on purification coming to New Orleans.) (Soooo …. New Orleans is officially “purified,” I guess. Who wants to tell ’em? And, really, meow, Baton Rouge.)
4. Don’t lean on your own understanding. We are entering into a supernatural dimension. (Or a rilllly weird area.)
5. Bind the accuser (Where do we get the idea that WE can bind anything?) who is working in the earth realm to bring division in the midst of crisis.
6. Begin to set a blood-line barrier at the 150 mile radius around the victimized area. How do you do that? (Wait. What the heck IS that? It sounds positively grim. Will Geraldo be reporting from there?) You get up and decree by the Spirit of God (So WE get to decree?! Well, I did not know this, but apparently, “I’m the King of the World!” And you are, too. Ta-da!) that there is a supernatural shield set so that the enemy’s plan cannot invade that barrier. Cry out for angelic forces to visit individuals that are crying out in these areas. (Yes, just read the Bible. Angelic visitations are ALWAYS soothing.) Ask for angels to HELP in this structure of lawlessness that is operating in this part of the earth.
7. Pray for those that are serving as refuge cities– Houston, Baton Rouge, and others.
8. In the midst of trauma, always let God show you areas in our lives that can be purified. Bind condemnation (again, the binding thing) and ask God to purify us where we have been weak in the past. In intercession, what you identify … purify. Ask God to purify areas where we have allowed the enemy to take control.
9. Pray for supernatural, unexplained healings to start occurring in individuals. (For what purpose? So we can say to the people, “Huh. I don’t know HOW you got healed. It’s ‘unexplained.'” I mean, wouldn’t we want to be able to point to the Lord as the source?)
10. Ask for the Holy Spirit to invade this situation.

Here is another portion of the prophetic word that came forward in our August FirstFruits Gathering on covenant:

To the CHURCH … “I will reverse cessation thinking. Many have held onto a dead religion. Let go of old religious patterns and embrace My resurrection and power. The wind of My power will begin to blow and it will not be able to be explained.

There will be a desire for My Spirit. Those that do not repent of a religion that denies My Spirit in the earth will not embrace My covenant plan or people in the future. I have chosen Israel as the deciding factor in the earth. Those who do not acknowledge Israel’s place in the earth will not understand the place that I have prepared for them in days ahead.”

Blessings,

Chuck D. Pierce”

All right. I’m sure I’ve missed some spots that I could “bold.” Looking at it again, I could “bold” nearly the whole darn thing.

Anyone want to take a stab at it here? Remember, you may either calm or explain.

Yes, we need to pray, without ceasing, really. We need the Holy Spirit’s wisdom now more than ever. We need the church to be the church to the scattered, hurting masses. But these other phrases? These other things? WHAT are they? Do the people who say and believe these things even know what they’re saying and believing? I don’t find these notions taught in the Bible, but they do sound airily appealing; they speak to our desire for personal power — ” I decree” “I bind” — which is in direct opposition to biblical teaching. We’re to clothe ourselves with “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,” says Colossians 3, not a “blood-line barrier.”

I read the letter to My Beloved and his comment was this:

“It makes me think of children who believe there are monsters in the closet. But at least they’re children.”

All I know is, golly, I live well beyond this 150-mile, blood-line barrier. So do many of the victims now. Perhaps you do, too.

Well, we’re cheesed, I guess.

And if you’re in Florida, He’s really mad at you.

Resistance is futile, Gammie; He’s comin’ for ya.