Visions in the Fog: Hindrances to God's Glory Being Poured Out

By Joy Gartman, as told to David Hobbs

[There are many Christians who walk in the Spirit. Many have had far more powerful experiences than I, but I suppose it’s all relative. One person I have much respect for is Joy Gartman.

Pastor Joy is one of the most spiritually sensitive people I know. With her husband, she has pastored throughout the coun­try, mostly in the Episcopal Church. Now retired from pastoring, she travels as an evangelist and also ministers to the homeless. The following is her account, as told to our prayer group--DH]

   

    Recently I was caught up to a face-to-face encounter with the Lord. He spoke with me and allowed me to ask Him questions. One of the questions I asked was “Lord, why don’t you pour out Your glory as You have promised? How long must we wait?”

The Lord answered, “I long for that even more than you do, but where can I pour it out?”

Not long after this I was driving from Yuba City to the Rock of Roseville Church across the Central Valley. It was winter, and as often happens in the winter months in the cold mornings there were dense patches of valley fog. As I was driving, I felt the presence of the Lord fill my car and I noticed that strange things were happening to the fog. I rea­lized I was having some kind of vision. The fog seemed to congeal into squares or blocks and they began taking on dif­ferent colors. “What is this? What am I seeing?” I asked the Lord.

“The fog represents My glory,” He responded.

I noticed off toward the horizon a block of gray, dark, dirty looking fog. “Why is that fog gray?” I wondered aloud.

“The gray fog is My glory contaminated with sin,” He said.

[When Joy said this I thought of Simon the Sorcerer who offered Peter money for the ability to lay hands on people and confer the gift of the Holy Spirit.]

A little farther I saw in another direction some brown fog. “What’s with the brown fog?” I asked.

“The brown fog is My glory contaminated by the flesh.”

[When Joy said this, I thought of those who used their spiritual giftings to subtly promote themselves—building up their ministries, raising money,  merchandising products, and boasting in their newsletters of their many accomplishments, all in the Name of Christ.]

Then I saw close at hand some pink fog, which looked unlike anything I had ever seen before. “Wow! What’s the pink fog?”

“The pink fog is My glory contaminated by false doc­trine.”

[When she said this I thought of those who teach that we can go on sinning after salvation, that spiritual gifts died out with the early church, that unless you belong to their group you can’t be saved, those who cri­ticize every move of the Spirit in our day….]

Then right before me, towering in the sky to a great height, was a pillar of dazzling white fog, stunning in its beauty and brilliance.

“That is My glory, pure and undefiled.”

But even as I was watching in awe while trying to keep my car on the road, I noticed some tendrils of the pink fog beginning to drift toward the pillar of pure fog, as if to wrap themselves around it and intermingle with it.

“Even when I find a safe place to pour My glory out, there is ever-present danger of contamination by those who dwell on the earth,” the Lord concluded and the vision ended.

See the book Walking in the Soirit for more supernatural encounters.

http://walkinginthespiritbook.com

A Cabin in the Corner of Glory Land?

By David Hobbs

What would you think of a birthday party with many exciting-looking, fancy-wrapped gifts on the table; but as the people crowd around in expectation, the birthday boy opens the first gift, and in wonder and excitement starts to play with it, then leaves the rest of the gifts on the table while he spends the rest of the party playing with his first gift? We’d go home disappointed and sad, saying, “Wow, he never opened his bicycle; he never opened his baseball bat, ball and glove, his chemistry set, his skateboard…. What a lot he missed out on by just being content with his first gift!” 

 Sound like a crazy scenario? “Brother Hobbs, that would never happen!” But it does happen every day in our churches! Sinners open up their first present from God—salvation--and then spend the rest of their lives caught up in that, while never opening the rest of their presents. 

 My question is, “Is salvation the end, or the beginning?” To most Christians it’s the end. They are perfectly happy with the concept of going to a heaven where there is no more toil, no more pain, no more sorrow, no more separation from loved ones, no more tragedy of any kind. They are perfectly happy to mark time in their churches singing about heaven and waiting for the Lord to come to take them there through death or rapture--perfectly happy singing “Build Me a Cabin in the Corner of Glory Land.” 

 But wait a minute. Who purchased that wonderful gift of salvation for us? Jesus. And not only did He purchase it, but at great cost to Himself—His life! And that was the only price that could have purchased it. It was a costly gift, beyond measure. So shouldn’t we consult the Giver of the gift to see what He wants from us in return? 

 Since the whole root of our sin problem that required such an extreme sacrifice was our self-will—wanting what we wanted and to heck with what God wanted—are we going to continue in that same self-will now that we have salvation? Are we going to try and use heaven for our own purposes, like "hanging out with loved ones by the tree of life?" Or are we finally going to turn back to God in truth and say, “Lord, what is your will in my salvation?”

How do we discover His will? By reading the Bible and by prayer. 

We quickly see that God’s will has never been to build us a cabin in a corner of glory-land. In fact, such a concept, while noble-sounding to us, is in fact an insult to Him. Salvation is not an end, but a beginning. There are many more gifts on the table still to be opened. The next one, that many Christians pass on, is the baptism in the Holy Spirit: that dynamite power of God coming to dwell within us so we can do the things that Jesus did like healing the sick, raising the dead, and cleansing the leper. 

 But that’s only the second gift. Take a few minutes to read Revelations 2 and 3, paying special attention to the rewards given to the overcomers in each church: the right to eat from the tree of life, receiving the crown of life, a stone containing a new name, being made a pillar in… “But Brother Hobbs, Brother Hobbs, what does all that mean? I can’t understand those gifts!” I can’t tell you; when you open the presents you’ll get the wonder of finding out! 

But notice this—it doesn’t say these presents go to them who believe. Salvation goes to them who believe. These presents go to them who overcome. Overcome what? The world, the flesh and the devil.  

It breaks my heart, but many Christians will arrive in heaven, receive their asked-for cabins in the corner of glory land, and be filled with profound remorse when they see others enjoying gifts that could have been theirs as well: being married to Jesus, sitting with Him on His throne, reigning and ruling with Him, etc. God will love the cabin-dwellers as much as anybody else in heaven. He will wipe the tears from their eyes. But He will give them what they asked for and what they qualified for while living on earth.

The World is Disintegrating

By David Hobbs

I got an email from my state prayer coordinator today (I’m prayer coordinator for my county). He said,

“I was privileged to be part of a meeting called yesterday by the superintendents of three School Districts [in a rural/urban county in Calif.].  More than 30 Christian leaders were in attendance: pastors and parachurches were represented--anyone with a demonstrated heart for ministry in public schools.  These supts confessed themselves at their wits’ end in trying to serve families in which students are cutting themselves, first and second graders are threatening to kill others and then stabbing themselves, and a fourteen year-old girl was just murdered.” 

Thanks to our out-of-touch media, the focus of the country has been on the Sandy Hook shootings in Conn., while more pervasive, yet unpublicized problems are going on in our own backyards. Friends, this country is disintegrating right before our eyes. It’s like a slow-motion train wreck. While some cars are going off the tracks in spectacular fashion, others continue down the line for the time being because they haven’t come to the break in the tracks yet. The people focusing on the cars still rolling down the track can easily call the others watching the cars careen off the tracks up ahead “scaremongers.” The wise in heart step back, take the whole picture in, and realize that the whole train is coming off the tracks, it’s just a matter of time as the wreck plays itself out.

That’s where this country is at: the shaking has started, but it’s not happening all at once. Right now it’s "some here," and "some there," and it can still be ignored. But it won’t end until the wreck is complete.

A couple of weeks ago we had an extraordinary event: An unexpected rock from space exploded over Russia, injuring 1000 and doing much damage. Hours later on the same day, a much larger asteroid, which could have done catastrophic damage, barely missed the earth, getting closer than some of our orbiting satellites. For about a day people seemed to wake up to the possibility of major destruction hanging over our world, and the fact that we could be entering the last days. Then just as quickly as the next news cycle came out, the media was back talking about sequestration, and the scare was forgotten, as so many others have been since and including 9-1-1. But we forget such warnings at our own great peril!

In Daniel 12:10, the angel, talking to Daniel, says that in the last days,  “none of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.” We are seeing this happen before our very eyes: the world is collapsing around us, yet none of the unbelievers have a clue what is going on. They are as blind as they were in Noah’s and Lot’s day, which shouldn’t be surprising. Jesus said that the end times will be just as it was in the time before those two great judgments. In Luke 17:27 Jesus said, “People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark [emphasis mine]. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.”

But as Christians we have to be careful not to be carried away by the unbelievers’ example of cluelessness and unbelief. Just because they are asleep, we cannot afford to be. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5, also talking about the last days, “⁶so then, let us not be like others (the unbelievers), who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled…. ⁹For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

He also talks about being clothed with the armor of God (in the verses I omitted). We would do well to take these admonitions to heart. We cannot stop what has already begun, but if we take the warnings of Scripture seriously, and take our clues from the Bible and the Spirit instead of from the world, Jesus will preserve us through it. Scripture makes plain that God’s people can be destroyed through ignorance and disobedience (Hosea 4:6 & Heb. 4:6). Please take this seriously!