The Peninsula Pilgrimage Number 16
Mid January 2006

•	Pray for those in ‘training’ 
•	Church Structures, Unity: An amazing miracle in the Chinese Church
•	Music in outreach, Dealing with hurts, Tacoma Ministry team hearing God 
•	Overcoming the Fear of Man; The Jezebel Spirit; 
•	Praying for Leaders; Read and Study; Emerging Church ~ Publications; 
•	Prophecies; Counterfeits 
•	Hemel Hempstead: The Refiner’s Fire
•	Pray for Israel
•	Pray for Australia
•	Ruach Breath of Life Ministries: Plans for the Future 

We have been deeply engrossed for the past few weeks in finalising the text of The Still Small Voice. We chose to format it ourselves, which involved a great deal of hard work - but this was more than offset by the fact that it gave us the flexibility to add ideas and insights right up to the last minute, long after it would have been possible had we sent it away to the printers. We have had excellent comeback from those who have read the prepublication manuscript. 

New Year Retreat 
We had a really special highlight last weekend, holding a retreat back at Mowbray Lodge. It was lovely to see the house full again with friends old and new and to be able to coordinate a retreat without having all the responsibility for the practical matters. Kaye hosted it superbly, and the Lord’s presence was very strong from start to finish. Everyone was very aware of the sense of community and the touch of the Lord. The worship was wonderful, and really good prayers were prayed for both individuals and wider matters.

Key points to pray for 
For those in training 
I am sure you will know people who have received a genuine anointing from the Lord, but who are by no means released into the fullness of their ministries. They are like David, who was anointed three times before becoming king - and are being trained in secret places, even though for the moment they may have to endure a considerable measure of pain and ignominy. 
During David’s years on the run, he consistently refused to embrace either a ‘victim’ mentality or a rebellious attitude. It is entirely to his credit that he did not allow his hurts to rule his heart. That is not to say that he ever liked or trusted Saul; quite the contrary, he kept his distance, and let God do all the hard dealings with Saul, never taking matters into his own hands. 

If you feel as though you are for much of the time a ‘misfit’ in the present structures, that may be part of the price you have to pay - just so long as you are not missing a call to step out or to move on. If we act precipitately, and try to implement God’s agenda ahead of time, it can only cause complications. If we fail to move on when God shows us to, however, then we are seriously out of step with His Spirit, and will miss out on His purposes. 

Develop the gift and stay as close to God as if you were on the front lines now, because you may be in the future. Don’t let your standards slip - God will find ways to honour and to use many of the things that He has invested in you. 

Church Structures 
‘You can’t become spiritually mature by sitting in a pew for fifty years. Nothing happens until you take action.’ (James Rutz). 

Martin Luther and the Protestant reformers did a vital job of awakening people to the priesthood of all believers. They were far more conservative, however, when it came to implementing the ministry of all believers. By and large, the Reformation left church structures and services much as they had always been. There is compelling evidence that God is upsetting the system now in favour of something far more dynamic. 

God is going to call many things into being that will require His people to make a clear break with certain forms and structure used in the past: All this must be as and when God calls, however, rather than when the flesh gets impatient. More anon! 

An amazing miracle in China 
One of the key talks Mark Stibbe gave in Shetland was on the subject of Radical Unity. 
Jesus prayed for it five times in John 17. How close is that to His heart!

By one means or another, Jesus is going to overcome the rigid institutionalised divisions. Years ago, someone had a vision of a series of canals. The canals represented denominations and there were walkways in between. As the water table increased, so the walkways were gradually covered, leaving one huge sheet of water. God’s people will be one - and when we are, He will do so much more in our midst than He currently can. The following is probably the most remarkable story I have ever heard. 

The Lord spoke dramatically about how important unity is to Him back in 1997. The unregistered church in China now has seven strands, or families, each led by a person who had done hard time in prison for their faith, typically about 20 years. The leaders meet twice a year. 

One of those seven leaders is Wang Xin Cai, who spent thirteen years in prison loading rocks onto trucks by hands - 20 tons a day. By 1996 his health was broken. As the government didn’t want the embarrassment of a top religious leader dying in prison, they sent him home to die with his family. 

God healed him. 

The next year he and his wife had a second child, another girl. The first was three years old at his arrest. He returned to find her a sixteen-year old travelling 
evangelist! 

Wang was distressed by a major problem. At that time, there were just four major strands of the Chinese church that had ever cooperated with one another, and even they had unravelled from each other because of some minor differences. Suspicion and condemnation reigned all across the land.  

Wang saw this as a major threat to the future of the Church in China.  In December he called for a summit meeting in his city in Henan province. 

On the morning the other three leaders were arriving, Wang’s daughter was hanging out clothes on a clothesline attached to the fourth-floor apartment. She had the baby in a baby pack, but as she leaned out, the baby twisted unexpectedly and fell out, plunging three floors to instant death. Her head was split wide open. 

In a state of shock, Wang gathered up the remains, put the body on a blanket and laid it on the couch in his living room.  Then he prayed loudly, ‘Lord, if this unity meeting is of You, then You have to heal my daughter. If you don’t, I’m finished serving you because I just can’t take it any more. And I’ll know that this unity vision is not of You.’ 

He left his heart behind and staggered off to the meeting – to struggle earnestly for unity in the church. After a hard day of prayer and negotiation, Wang retuned home and looked at the couch. The baby was still dead, but amazingly her head was together again in one piece. In faith, Wang gave thanks. 

The next morning there was no change, but instead of staying to pray he left for another day of conference. 

The evening, he returned home to find the baby breathing. But she was in a deep coma. Again, he gave thanks. 

The third morning, he put his feelings behind him as best he could and went to the meeting. That was a day of salvation for the church in China.  In a breakthrough of immense importance the four brothers resolved their differences and found ways to work together as the Body of Christ.  The largest church on earth was saved from perhaps decades of fragmentation and destructive conflict.

Returning home that evening, Wang found his daughter awake, alert, eating happily and perfectly whole in every way…

Why didn’t God bring back Wang’s baby in one moment? Why did He take three days? It was because of you. He wanted to make you stop and think how important it is to Him to have unity in His family. 

This resurrection is one of the foremost object lessons in all history. In the simplest terms, the lesson is this: A split in the Church is like a split head. To be healed, we must have unity. (James Rutz, Megashift, Empowerment Press, Colorado).  

I discovered when organising two national days of prayer in 2001 and through speaking with prayer leaders, that Christians with a heart for wider issues tend to fall into one of two camps: those who believe that things are all going to get a great deal worse (the ‘gloom and doom hang on in there until Jesus come again scenario’) or the ‘hey folks, don’t you know we’re on the way to the revival hoe down!’ The fact is that there is much evidence around to support both arguments. I believe that we need to espouse both ends of the spectrum. 

If we are entirely caught up with keeping going, we think we are doing alright, because numbers are holding steadily or even up a tad. But what of the all the people who have slunk out of the doors we don’t notice. Make a list of those who have crept out of church these past few years and have not happily relocated to another church. Is there anything we can do to encourage people to go and visit them? Often it might only have taken an honest talk at the time to have prevented them from spinning off into a spiritual vacuum. 

Pray for God to use music in outreach
Music will be at the centre of what God does. The American preacher James Ryle had a series of dreams and visions about how the Lord would use ‘street-music’ powerfully, much as He did in the early day of the Salvation Army, to bring bystanders to an awareness of God. Expect the music to be unpretentious, maybe not overly sophisticated, but powerful and to the point. It will be used in its own right, and will also pave the way for the preaching and the healings that God will do.  May the Lord continue to use and redeem music for His highest purposes – everything from love songs to Jesus to intense battle songs that make an impact in the heavenly places – much as Godfrey Birtill has long been pioneering.  
Only those who have died to pride, died to slick ‘showmanship’ and died to the desire to glorify themselves can ever hope to have a part in this anointing and this new sound. Like other end time ministries, I believe that God is about to raise up many unknown and hidden Christians in this musical area.’ (Andrew Strom, The Coming Great Reformation). 

Dealing with hurts
If you have been hurt by people in spiritual authority over you, deal with the debris, or it will create a shadow in all that you do and say. (Many false prophets are actually genuine prophets whose wounds have festered and gone bad).  If you secretly enjoy hearing bad news about other ministries, or complaining against them, it is a sign that there are still unhealed wounds. 

We should never speak against another unless we are also prepared to weep for them. Even then?

Tacoma: ministry teams hearing directly from God 
We have been hearing wonderful stories of a profound work of God amongst YWAM staff and students alike, as the result of visits from on-fire Christians from Tacoma (Washington State). The church they represent has learnt to listen to the Lord with a clarity that is highly unusual by the standards of our day, in which compromise, unforgiveness, worldliness and worse is so rampant even amongst God’s people. Working in teams of two, these believers pray and listen, and receive exceptionally clear and profound words from God for those they are ministering to. This sounds like a significant development. May the Lord preserve the purity of this work, and expand its influence mightily. (For a typically dynamic example of this phenomenon, see 
ahttp://www.radiatemagazine.org/default.asp?page_id=133)

Overcoming the Fear of Man 
I do believe that the Church took a much higher profile in 2005, over a number of key national issues, and the Lord used this in such matters as not allowing the Equality Bill to have been passed (which would have seriously hindered the freedom of the gospel in our land). 

May the Lord continue to help us to overcome our fear of man! As you will remember, Saul was ultimately rejected by God not for being too strong a leader, but for being too weak a one: it was his compromise that led him to do things on his own instead of obeying the Lord’s specific command. He no longer trusted God, and God no longer trusted him. 

The Jezebel Spirit 
Heavy shepherding has been largely discredited in many churches, but the pendulum has now swung so far the other way that there is often a power vacuum that ‘Jezebel’ sprits are quick to fill. 'Jezebel’ works by seduction (in the case of women) and by power and control (when it operates through men). Pray for godly leadership not to be overwhelmed and indeed sabotaged by such forces. (see my extensive review of John Paul Jackson’s book The Jezebel Spirit on www.ruachministries.org (articles and publications)

Praying for Leaders
There are churches where the ministers make a show of welcoming the things of the Spirit, less out of genuine heart conviction than because it helps to make the church appear more dynamic than it really was. Pray for the Lord to challenge and adjust, that Kingdom traits may far outweigh Empire-building tendencies! 

When leaders are sold out to following the Lord’s leading, they will sincerely welcome people with ministries and new church models, and, putting aside their need to be in control, allow them to practice fully. More cautious ones may see themselves as a bridge between the traditional and the radical new, but when the pressure is on, their natural tendency is to revert to the known, safe and predictable, and thereby to miss out on where God could have led them. 

Although it is tempting to follow the idea that the coming revival will be ‘faceless’ and ‘leaderless’, the whole tenor of Scripture indicates that whenever God wants to achieve something, He raises up leaders to do the task. I think of Brian Houston of Hill Song: a dynamic leader who is not afraid to lead, and whose courage in doing so causes many others to follow, and thereby to reach places they could not have got to by their own efforts. So much would never have happened had Brian held back when he needed to be high-profile up front! 

It is not humble to hold back when we need to step forward - or to under-perform out of fear of appearing presumptuous. 

Without courage we will not achieve anything of any lasting value. The old slogan ‘who dares wins’ is something we need to pray, that courageous leaders may emerge. 

Read and study 
Most people grow only in certain narrow fields. Big mistake. Read widely. Read to stretch. Let books and magazines written by gifted saints of the present and past expand your mind, your heart, your gifting, your universe . . .  One well-timed book can save you a decade of headaches. If you learn certain lessons on paper, the Lord won’t have to teach you the hard way. Trust me on this: It’s much easier to spend ten hours reading a book than to suffer ten years of disasters caused by your own ignorance.’ (James Rutz, Megashift, p. 101). 

Emerging Church 
At the recommendation of Tim Rawe, I have read the following books over the Christmas holiday and found them all helpful in different ways. (They are all available via Amazon). 
David Oliver and James Thwaites, Church that works (Authentic Lifestyle) 
Hirsch and Frost: The Shaping of the Church in the 21st century (Hendrickson)  
James Rutz Megashift  (I have recommended this book before: it is well worth getting). (Empowerment Press, Colorado).
Wolfgang Simson - Houses that change the world - the return of the house church (Authentic Lifestyle) (Wolfgang has important things to say about the way we learn and the way we church. Phil Buechler would somewhat dispute his suggestion, however, that 20 is the ideal number for a cell church. In his experience, 45-55 is a better number as it leaves shyer people less exposed). Andrew Strom ‘The Church of Tomorrow’ http://65.108.220.179/tomorrow.html) in  which Andrew argues that the early church is meant to be seen as an example rather than a special case. He expects there to be a ‘bumpy ride’ to reach the state he describes in this publication.  
Andrew Strom  ‘The Coming Great Reformation’ 
http://65.108.220.179/books/THE%20COMING%20GREAT%20REFORMATION.htm

Just to highlight how far behind we in the West really are: 

In 1960, western evangelicals outnumbered non-western evangelicals by two to one. As of 2000, non western evangelicals outnumbered westerners by four to one. 3,000 people are saved around the world every 25 minutes. By 2010, Rutz estimates the ratio will be 7 - 1. We, the materialistic nations, are in serious danger of being left behind! 

Worse, far worse than that: we may fairly be compared with the Laodicean church; ‘lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.’  Surely we have not failed to notice that all the language used in connection with the great harvest at the end of the age involves judgement and separation? (Matt. 13:24-43) 

Hundreds of millions of the Christians the Lord is raising up are not associated with institutional church at all but meet in homes or in secret. This is how it can happen. 

‘An elderly man in India got saved, then started 42 churches - in his first year. You can move fast if you don’t have to build buildings. You can move even faster if you don’t have to hire pastors to do all the work. Just let the people do the work. What a concept.’ (Quoted in James Rutz, Megashift, p. 63). 

In the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matt. 13:26), at the end of the age it is the weeds that are bundled together first and separated from the true wheat. God has been very patient, but the time for the sifting and the judgement must come. 

A man with an experienced prophetic ministry was given when a powerful vision of a coming move of God, in which all the trappings of ‘churchianity and Christendom’ will be left behind. Some of the various streams and denominations will adjust to the changes; others will not, but will be filled with envy and jealousy. 

Andrew Strom describes the implications in more detail in The Coming Great Reformation.  Many who should be there, are not, their places taken by the meek and the outcasts, the despised and the rejected. Those who have a heart to glorify the Lord by any means possible are the ones who will be most used because they have been with Jesus (Acts 4:13). Andrew Strom also is convinced that there is going to be massive open air witness of believers coming together out of doors. (He likens it to early meetings of the Salvation Army in which thousands were converted, but controversy also stormed around the evangelists) 

Although there will be inevitably much persecution in the last days, (Scripture makes it abundantly plain that darkness will increase), there will also be a generation of emboldened Elijahs arising, and joining together as never before. Jesus is coming on a white horse to conquer (Rev. 19:11-16). ‘And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.’

Prophecies 
Prophecy often contains cautions and warnings; but rarely dates. An immensely strong word of prophecy was given by the celebrated pianist and violinist Maurice Sklar entitled ‘The Preparation of the Bride’ which does do so, however, on numerous occasions - which made Maurice as reluctant to share it as we are to publicise it! It is yet stronger than Wendy Alec’s vision that you may have read in the ‘Journal of the Unknown Prophet.’ Maurice is the first to say that he believes the word to be highly conditional and urges us to test every part of it. His introduction to it is the one non controversial part of it, and it needs to be heard: ‘We must return to our first love and live a pure and consecrated life if we are to be pleasing to Him when He appears.’
http://www.cephas-library.com/believers/believers_preparation_of_the_bride.html

In amongst the warnings, the prophecy speaks of the hundreds of millions who are waiting to hear the good news in other countries. Ed Harding, the director of New Wine Press has just returned from ministering in Madras to the poorest of the poor, where even Indian gospel teams do not normally venture, and has seen wonderful things: including the deaf and dumb being healed. God is working in power! Exactly as James Rutz claims in Megashift, miracles are driving the expansion. The Hindus see the Lord touch their bodies, and go off and tell their friends; and gradually they hear the substance of the gospel and are baptised. It may not be the 'classic' way that revival has occurred, but it is genuinely effective. As Rutz puts it, ‘this drama is being played out every hour around the globe, accompanied sometimes by mind-bending miracles.’ (see Andrew Strom’s article ‘Are we missing the harvest?’ 
http://65.108.220.179). 

May the Lord help us in the timing and implementing of all things prophetic. So often I feel something, or want to raise some point with Ros, and unwisely blurt it out as I think of it – just when she is tired or about to go out of the door to work or at some other equally unsuitable time! The point would have been no less poignant at a more suitable moment – and it would also have received a far more favourable hearing! Lord, help us share the right thing at the right time!

Counterfeits 
Wherever the Spirit works, there are likely to be counterfeits. John Wesley wrote, ‘At first, revival is true and pure, but after a few weeks, watch for counterfeits.’ In this context, Derek Prince sounds a strong warning in his article ‘Protection from Deception.’ ( http://65.108.220.179/dprince.html). (You will find other useful articles there). 
Charles Finney warned, 

I have known some cases where persons have rendered themselves highly ridiculous, have greatly injured their own souls and the cause of God by giving themselves up to an enthusiastic and fanatical following of impressions.’ 

I loved the way Sandy Millar handled a very posh lady who was lying on the floor making the strangest sounds. He bent over her and said very tenderly, ‘Madam, when the Holy Spirit comes on us, there is no need to moo like a cow.’ The lady sat up, thanked him and returned to her seat! 

Jesus warned end time believers not to be taken in by powerful deceptions (Matt. 24:5) This is a time to give ourselves to God, rather than just looking (selfishly) for touches from Him. Self display is not the way of the Lord. 

The Refiner’s Fire 
Many of the prophetic movements have done a disservice by giving the appearance that revival will come easily. They are in for a shock. The shakings the Lord is sending are much more serious than this. He is the God of love, but also the God of justice and judgement, who is determined not only to purify His Bride but also to develop new forms of it.  

Of the recent ‘batterings’ we can only marvel at the lack of fatalities when the fuel storage depot exploded in Hemel Hempstead. So many could have been instantly vaporised. At the same time let us not for one minute be complacent. I had an excellent meeting a few weeks ago in London with Pastor Wale Babatunde, whose latest book ‘Awake Britain’ was published by New Wine a few weeks ago. The word he used to describe the explosion felt particularly apt: ‘The Refiner’s Fire.’ 

I have no doubt that the Lord is speaking through this. We have received information from highly placed sources which leave us in no doubt that America and Britain had, right from the outset, highly cynical reasons for intervening in Iraq. Quite apart from the fabricated evidence concerning weapons of mass destruction, the word OIL says a great deal. This thought will be anything but news to the many of you who had worked it all out a long time ago. To those of us who were more inclined to give the American administration a great deal of benefit of the doubt, it is profoundly disappointing. 

Let us be under no illusion. There has been an unmistakable measure of judgement in the ‘strikes’ that have hit American oil supplies in the Gulf of Mexico - but once again there was great mercy in how relatively few lives were lost when Hurricane Rita struck. It has been the same in our land. This is not a coincidence. 

It is a long overdue step forward that the American congress voted a few weeks ago, by a huge majority, to ban the torturing of American held prisoners anywhere in the world under any circumstances. 

Pray for Israel 
I remember reading a headline many years ago, in which Ariel Sharon declared ‘I have the survivability of a superpower.’ The following day’s headline was rather different: ‘Defence Minister Sharon may be forced to resign.’ Sharon has undoubtedly served his country diligently in the past few years as its head – despite having been officially classified in the past by an Israeli defence commission as being unfit for senior office as a result of the slaughter of Arab villagers in 1953 and again in 1982. 
Oddly, it was because Sharon was widely regarded as an ultra hawk that he succeeded in pressing ahead with concessions that the nation would not otherwise have been prepared to endorse. When he pushed ahead recently with forming a new party, Kadima, he looked all set, despite his advancing years, to sweep to power in the general elections on March 28th, perhaps using this victory to as a mandate to pull out at least partially from the West Bank, leading to a more formal peace agreement with the Palestinian Authorities. It is strongly rumoured that he was about to open talks with Hamas. Would that have been a good thing? 

Many will assume that it is because he is giving up Jewish land that he has been struck down. A well argued article I was sent by David Dreiling, available on the Elijah List, suggests it may have more to do with Sharon setting himself up as the ‘king’ of the nation the Lord so longs to reign over. It could also be argued that heavily overweight elderly men in stressful top positions are likely to have strokes! Whatever the full facts of the situation, this is certainly an important time to pray for Israel, not least as it considers what it regards as its primary threat: the outspoken and manifestly anti-Israeli government in Iran pressing ahead with plans to develop nuclear devices. Many believe Sharon was close to giving the order to launch a pre-emptive attack against these well-defended facilities. 

Finally, a country most of us do not normally turn to in prayer: Australia. Security forces claim to have thwarted very significant terrorist threats a few months ago. At the same time, Sydney has been assailed by unparalleled outbreaks of violence from the Far Right. It has also suffered huge fires that swept right up to the city perimeters, fanned by extreme heat and prodigious winds. 
Pray for Australian Christians to be on the ball in every way in responding to this, and other challenges that they face. 

Meanwhile, we are left to rue the fact that in Britain, the level of death by cirrhosis, which was the lowest in Europe back in the 1950’s, is now the highest. How can the problem but be compounded by the government’s increasing of the drinking hours and inducements to promote gambling. We are on such a slippery slope as a nation!  

Ruach Breath of Life Ministries 
Now that I have completed The Still Small Voice, I will be starting work on the next draft of the sequel: Led by the Spirit: an in depth overview of the prophetic ministry. We posted an early version of this on the website a year or so ago. It will doubtless take many twists and turns as the writing develops! 

The intensity of time and effort required to do this means that I will have less time available to research intercessory topics. 

Some, I am sure, you will have been picking up as you go along; for instance, the increasingly authoritarian stance adopted by Putin in Russia, and the implications of the ‘Gas’ War with the Ukraine. 

We will doubtless continue to send out pointers, however, as led. Could we also refer you to www.worldprayer.org.uk and the very ambitious Prayer Alert; a new scheme they are hosting that will, in time, pool a great deal of information for prayer. 

We will also be seeking to upgrade and develop our web site in the course of the coming year. Do feel free to make suggestions! 

Belated but sincere wishes for a blessed new year to everyone; may this be a time when you are conscious of the Lord’s leading in your life and able to respond fully to whatever He is calling you to be and to do. 
In His love,
Robert & Rosalind