Dismantling Churches

Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted (Matthew 15:13).

Jeremiah’s commission from God was:

To root out and pull down; to destroy and to throw down; to build and to plant (Jer 1:10).

He was a prophet, and prophets often have tasks that involve the tearing down of the existing structure where it opposes the will of God.

In fact, his divine assignment involved twice as much destruction as construction! Not a very appealing prospect to the establishment!

No-one likes to see their valued little world turned upside down, yet that is the primary purpose of the work of prophets.

Jesus was the greatest Prophet of all time, and when the disciples were commenting on the magnificent, impressive Temple construction (with huge stones taller than a man), He declared:

...see all these things. Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down (Matt 24:2).

To the human mind, that prospect seemed highly improbable, if not unthinkable! Yet in AD 70, it happened. Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled when the Roman armies under Titus destroyed the city of Jerusalem, slaughtered many inhabitants, and impaled alive any Jewish fighters who resisted the Roman conquest.

Now, in this age, a similar destruction looms on the horizon. Jerusalem will be taken over by foreign armies, as Zechariah prophesied:

Behold, the day of the Lord is coming. And your spoil will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled [plundered], and the women ravished [raped]. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city (Zech 14:1,2).

It’s a horrific prospect, but it’s coming.

What’s also coming is the spiritual counterpart. Just as the walls of the physical temple in Jesus’ time were composed of many hewn stones, some large, some small, likewise today’s ‘Temple’ of God is made up of people from many Christian groups. The true Church (those in whom the Spirit of God lives) is often likened to Jerusalem or Zion in Scriptural prophecies, and these people are found in many diverse bodies of believers, denominations and churches. Not all the people in those churches comprise the true Church (Grk. ekklesia) of Jesus Christ, because churches are humanly built and led, and they contain rogue elements, too. False Christians are present along with those who are faithful and true (Matthew 13:24-30).

These stones will be thrown down! False believers and their churches will fall. True believers will be severely affected too.
 

The Great Tribulation

We will soon enter this prophesied time of intense persecution against the Church:

Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake (Matt 24:9).

We are very close to the final fulfilment of those words of Jesus! Revelation’s prophecies also contain the same warning. Believers will be killed during this worst crisis in the history of the world (Rev 6:9-11), called the Great Tribulation (Rev 7:9-14; Matt 24:21).

Religious liberty will be severely curtailed, even to the point of deprivation of basic rights for failure to comply with State dictates (Rev 13:17).

Many believers will lose their living, and their lives! Some will listen to the Spirit and flee. But:

Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath (Matt 24:20).

God is preparing a remnant who are faithful to Him, despite every trauma that takes place. Symbolically, they are referred to as 144,000. It’s not a literal number. It’s figurative. 12 depicts God’s government. So 144,000 symbolises the complete number (12 x 12 = 144) of people whom God has prepared for His millennial government. Along with everyone who has been true to God throughout all ages, these millions of end-time resurrected saints will rule with Christ upon earth (Rev 20:4).

Much more about all this is explained in our tome Understanding The Book Of Revelation.[1] What Jesus said in symbol in Matthew 24:2 is about to find its fulfilment in our time!

The true Church is not the churches. God’s people who comprise His ekklesia (called out ones) may be IN many of those churches, but they are not those churches. And since He is calling His chosen OUT OF stale and overgrazed pastures to fresh grazing (see analogy in John 10), those who are true to Him should come out to form home fellowships. There are principally three reasons:

1) You cannot be properly spiritually fed in dead or restrictive churches ruled by men.

2) Churches are founded and formed by men, not by God, and their human leadership do not adequately allow the full leading of the Holy Spirit. And, very importantly for the future:

3) When the Beast power in Europe (and, I believe, also throughout most of the world) exerts authority to limit Christian freedom of worship, all churches will be closed down if they do not submit to the spiritually illicit controls from ‘Rome’.

Only believers meeting in home fellowships will have the latitude to practice and escape detection. The Church must prepare NOW to go ‘underground’! Richard Wurmbrand saw this need years ago under the tightly controlled totalitarian governments of the Soviet bloc.[2]

Chinese believers today, who refuse to give allegiance to the State, survive spiritually in house churches. Where persecution is fierce, to outwit the police and evade detection, believers listen to the Spirit to know where to meet each week. They ask the Lord in whose home they should meet. Jesus answers by words of knowledge or other revelation to go to such and such a home. There they congregate, because all receive the same word. Jesus is able to preserve His Church where His chosen listen to Him, and are led by His Spirit.

Similarly, there is a need for believers now to listen to the prophets He ‘sends’, who speak in His name, because the prophet is the ‘watchman’ who opens the gate for the sheep (Jn 10:3, see NIV).

Those who don’t heed the prophetic voice will not be prepared for the coming Tribulation.
 

Alerting The Church

“So, how,” you may ask, “can the prophet reach the whole Church, and alert them to this imminent need to go ‘underground’?”

God will make a way. He has various means. Part of it will be through mass publicity which will be engendered by raising the dead.

This prophecy from 2000 gives another clue:

The world is about to plunge into its blackest spiritual hours, surpassing even those prior to the Dark Ages. It will be a time of immense crisis for Christians and the free world. Persecution will escalate against the true Church, Israel, the US and Britain. Repression will reign. In this climate of tension and turmoil, two witnesses will arise to proclaim the truth, but will be killed. Then Jesus shall finally return. But before then, what will be the spark which ignites the religious powder-keg? One most unpopular issue will be that of the Sabbath. [3]

The truth about God’s true Sabbath will be presented to the western world and to the Church. Believers (in the West) will face a choice – whether to obey God on this issue. Those who do will only be able to cling to this truth by coming out of organised Sunday-observing churches, because the majority of church leaders will resist such reformation. Spiritual freedom for such children of God will be found in house churches, or home fellowships, where they can heed and follow the lead of the Spirit much more closely.

That is what must come. A major reason for this radical reformation is this: Leaders have made people dependent upon THEM, instead of dependent upon Christ. Such dependency is idolatrous. To put a man in place of Christ is blasphemous, but the transition occurs subtly, all in the name of Christ! And many fail to see it.

But, mark these words: change is coming. Radical change is coming!

Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted! (Matt 15:13.)
 

Death of Church Leaders

On 18th Feb 2003 God gave me this dream:

Predicting the death of church leadership.

We were preparing for a man’s funeral. We had dug the grave and the coffin was ready. The lid was open. But the man was not dead yet. How was the funeral going to go ahead without the corpse? Then someone (the dream didn’t show who, but seemed to infer that it was either me or Helena) determined that they would kill the man. I wondered how I could do that without being found guilty!?

Meaning: This dream was given in the wake of Newsletter 20 which outlined the necessity for home fellowships to take over from organised churches where there is dominant male leadership, often autocratic and inflexible to the new demands of the Spirit.

It is an allegory of the need for church leadership to ‘die’. But ‘he’ is not dead yet. So, those who see what is wrong with church leadership must speak out against it and put to death whatever is against the wishes of the Spirit.

In another dream given on 7th May 2003, God portrayed the same thing, with different and dramatic imagery. He likened it to me killing Saddam Hussein!

7th May. M. Gunning Down Saddam Hussein.

In this dream I was with a small group of fighters in a wilderness, similar to the Iraqi desert. We were hunting down the enemy. We had had several encounters with them, but they were elusive and were well hidden, like guerrilla fighters. It didn’t seem like we were winning. Our munition stocks were low. On the back of our vehicle, we only had about three rockets left (these were plastic in the dream!) and one of these wasn’t functional, but we kept it on the vehicle anyway. Perhaps it might do some good just being there – to help the psychological war? The situation was such that we couldn’t go on. It looked like our efforts were about to come to an end for lack of resources and back-up.

Then, suddenly, and totally unexpectedly (that’s the way God works), the Spirit came upon me and I prophesied. In this animated outburst, prophetic words poured out of my mouth to the effect that we would have victory. It seemed so unlikely! I didn’t know what to make of that prophecy, or how it would be fulfilled (this was what I thought in the dream).

Later that day, in the evening, I was all alone in a disused airfield. Saddam Hussein walked around the corner. He was all alone and unarmed, but I was holding a sub-machine gun. We talked for a while as if we were on level terms, and even friendly terms, but then I suddenly realised that I held a gun, and that he should die. I stepped back a few paces, looking at him intently. I said, “You have sinned against your own people and against God!” With that I gunned him down in a hail of bullets.

Meaning: Saddam Hussein represents the evil despots who rule in churches over God’s people. These tyrants behave as if they were God, but with selfishness and wickedness, exerting power and control without love. They are Satan’s stooges! Their time of judgement approaches fast! In one instance related in Judgement To Fall on All Falsity and False Ministers, I have gunned “Bill” down. The dream may also infer that he will die as part of God's judgement upon him.

Church leaders are not going to like it, but it’s coming. It’s time for radical reform!

Malcolm B Heap