Vision:

My apostle mentor stood before a pastor friend of ours. Her eyes never left his face. I remember looking to see if she was reaching in a pocket; she was not. Both hands were at her sides, but she raised her right hand upward from her right side with deliberate motion. As she raised her hand, she turned it palm-upright and extended it to the pastor. This deliberate motion continued repeatedly... I do not know the number of times, as the Lord brought me out of the vision with it being a continuous motion.

Our comments

As we have said before, the apostolic ministry is the one most related with the making of judgments. On the other hand, pastors have a carnal tendency to repudiate judgments, since pastors are endowed with the "Spirit of Service", and those with this Spirit of God are very susceptible to people-pleasing Canaanite spirits, and Canaanite spirits produce a bitter hatred against judgments.

The Church has for centuries been ruled by a pastoral matriarchy that has worked to shield believers from any pain or suffering. Pastors have taken on the role of "loving and merciful shepherds" who protect the "defenseless sheep" (i.e.- you and me) from the "evil wolves" who want to hurt them with spiritual judgments. This has led to a Church full of spiritually immature believers who do not grow, because it is only through being exposed to God's judgments that we can mature in Christ.

Since the time has come for the Church to finally grow up, God will destroy the pastoral matriarchy, and will raise up a Spiritual Church that will love and long for His judgments. In the not-too-distant future, this will be the generalized attitude throughout the Church:

"⁸Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O LORD, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee. ⁹With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. ¹⁰Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD. ¹¹LORD, when thy hand is lifted up, they will not see: but they shall see, and be ashamed for their envy at the people; yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them." (Isaiah 26:8-11)

In the latter days, the Lord will raise up "apostolic pastors", i.e.- pastors with a strong impartation of apostolic judgment. This is why the apostle in the vision was standing before the pastor. The fact that the apostle's eyes never left the pastor's face has a strong prophetic significance. As we have said before, the "eyes" are related in Scripture with the making of judgments, meaning that pastors will be exposed to God's constant judgments and will learn to accept them. The reference to the pastor's face points to the following passage:

"And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more" (Acts 20:25)

Here, the apostle Paul is telling the Ephesian elders that they would see his face no more. In a previous article, we studied how Acts 20:16-35 speaks of wolves entering the Church by preaching a "gospel" focused on receiving from God rather than giving to Him. As we saw in Exodus chapter 33, a "gospel" that focuses on receiving blessings leads to believers that only see God's back, and not His Face. Acts 20:25, therefore, is prophetic word on how God would turn His Face away from the Church.

God turns His back on those who abhor His judgments, because those who reject them are rejecting His Righteous Nature, and God cannot have true, eternal communion with those who refuse to receive an impartation of His Nature. Such an impartation can only happen if you expose yourself to the Glory of His Face, which causes the death of anything that is not righteous or eternal (Revelation 1:16-17, 1 Timothy 6:14-16, Ezekiel 1:26-28). It is through these "death processes" that we are transformed from Glory to Glory:

"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Therefore, the fact that, in the vision, the apostle's eyes never left the pastor's face is a prophetic figure of how God will reverse the curse that He had placed on the Church in Acts 20:25. He is turning His Face back towards His people, and that means that we will enter into a phase of judgments and restoration:

"⁹For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown: ¹⁰And I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be builded" (Ezekiel 36:9-10)

"²⁵And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: ²⁶And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. ²⁷Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness" (Isaiah 1:25-27)

The fact that the apostle was not reaching into her pocket but had her hands at her sides means that she was teaching the pastor to make judgments without any hidden interest or agenda. When pastors are not led by the Spirit, they tend to make judgments based on emotional attachments and personal interests rather than God's laws and principles. Many times, they rationalize willful sin and iniquity and condemn those who speak judgment-word because they want to prevent the sinning believers from suffering under judgment. Other times, they condone willful sin and iniquity because they get caught up in the wicked game of "sheep counting". Pastors tend to measure their "ministerial success" by the number of members in their respective congregations, which means that they sometimes "fudge" God's truth in order to get more people to accept them and join their congregations.

As we have studied before, Scripture reveals that "left-handed" concepts such as grace, freedom, and emotions must have a "private" or "hidden" nature to them, while "right-handed" concepts such as law, judgments, and truth must have a "public" nature to them. Judgments must be made out "in the clear" and cannot have any hidden emotional agendas or personal interests.

The fact that the apostle in the vision raised her right hand speaks once again of an impartation of right-handed apostolic judgment. The "deliberateness" in her motion speaks of an "application of the will", which speaks of the heart, since the heart is the part of the soul where our conscious will resides (Ephesians 6:6). God wants us to have hearts that abide in righteousness and judgments:

"A wise man’s heart is at his right hand; but a fool’s heart at his left" (Ecclesiastes 10:2)

The continuous motion in the vision points to the following passage:

"But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (Amos 5:24)

God is about to establish a spiritual Church where judgments will be in continuous motion throughout the Body of Christ, as waters running down from above:

"Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it" (Isaiah 45:8)

Since flowing waters speak of the prophetic anointing, this also means that the latter-day spiritual judgments that will be prevalent in the Church will have a strong prophetic component to them. As we have said before, we can make righteous judgments only if we stop to hear what God has to say, instead of judging by what our natural minds can see. In order to hear God, we have to allow our prophetic emotions to act as spiritual antennas that hear God's voice, just as Samuel did when he anointed one of Jesse's sons as king of Israel (1 Samuel 16:6-13).

The fact that the apostle in the vision is a woman while the pastor is a man also has spiritual significance. Pastors have held the dominant spiritual position in the Church for centuries while the rest of their brothers and sisters have been relegated to a less significant "spiritual role". In the latter days, however, God will reverse this:

"²⁴Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ²⁵When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: ²⁶Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. ²⁷But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. ²⁸There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. ²⁹And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God. ³⁰And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last." (Luke 13:24-30)

This vision is a prophetic confirmation of what the Lord said in Isaiah 32:18:

"And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places" (Isaiah 32:18)

As we share in a previous article, the phrase "quite resting places" refers to the future establishment of spiritual zones in the Body of Christ where "apostolic pastors" will flourish.