As many of you may know, the Lord has had us talking for around 4 years about a "revival delay" that started on May 11, 2005. That delay ended exactly 3 weeks (21 days) ago, on May 11, 2009. Since then, this writer has had a personal expectation of a sudden turn, a sudden change of events that would trigger a release of things that would allow the remnant to finally breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that the unleashing of God's restoration is on its way. As the date May 11, 2009 approached and came, the Lord sent several personal signs certifying that the date May 11, 2009 was indeed a relevant threshold date. However, in the weeks prior, as the eventful date approached, there was a certain cloud of sadness hanging over my heart and mind. I could sense that things were not moving in the spiritual realm, that the stagnation smog that had hung over America and the world for 4 years was not going anywhere fast. Even though God is a God of "suddenlies", these "suddenlies" only appear to be "sudden" when seen from the natural realm. Just like massive earthquakes, these "suddenlies" are always preceded by "tectonic" activity deep beneath the surface, activity that can be detected by those whose "sensors" are on the lookout for them. Yet, as May 11, 2009 approached, I practically detected no activity whatsoever. The spiritual signs that the Lord sent to me only emphasised the fact that the date was important to Him, but I could see no evidence at all that America was slowly aligning herself to enable a massive release of His dunamis power and glory. Instead, all that I could perceive was the same stale indifference that I perceived 4 years earlier. This silent indifference, which is combined with a certain lack of understanding about God's true latter-day intentions, is all the more painful to me (and I believe, to the Lord Himself) given that it comes from the "best" believers in America, i.e.- from those who are the prime candidates for the label "remnant believer".

Shortly after May 11, 2009, the Lord pointed out a specific thing in my life, a thing which most would label as "trivial" and "irrelevant", and He said to me,

"The amount of time that it takes for this event to happen 5 distinct times will be a sign to you of how unready America remains, even after May 11, 2009"

This "trial" began on May 17, 2009, and, it took a full week for the first occurrence of the event to take place. Being that I am "mathematically inclined", I calculated the odds of this event taking so long to happen for the first time, and, to my chagrin, the probability was a mere 7.98%, meaning that it was way more likely (92.02% likely) that it would not take so long! Being the wise scientist that He is, the Lord set up a "control group" (I sincerely did not know this when the Lord was endeavouring to explain the details of this "experiment" to me; had I set it up the way I wanted it, there would have been no control group; I came to the realisation that there was a "control group" only until a few days ago). Ironically enough, the first event in the "control group" happened on the very first day of the "trial", on May 17, 2009, and the second event happened on that very same day (the odds of this happening are less than 15%). As it turns out, the event happened in the control group 4 times before it ever happened in the target group for the first time. At the time of this writing, the event has only happened in the target group 3 times, with the 3rd occurrence happening two days ago, as I was walking towards 5th Avenue in Manhattan, New York. In the control group, the event has already happened 7 times, and it would have already happened 8 times were it not for the fact that I deliberately short-circuited the completion of the 5th distinct occurrence, even though it had already started.

The results of the above-mentioned "experiment" have been corroborated by the signs I have perceived since May 11. My soul has sincerely tried to be optimistic about the state of America, but the signs have been disheartening. Even recently, the Lord sent a very discouraging sign in the recently-held national spelling bee that was aired nationally in America. As some of you may know, the last word that was spelled in that contest was the word "Laodicean", which points to the spirit of lukewarm indifference that prevails in America. As we have shared before, God rejected Latin America when she turned into a permanent "Laodicea", and the same "Laodicea" spirit that led to the casting off of Latin America is still hovering over America's landscape. It is no coincidence, therefore, that there has been so much talk in recent days about obama's appointment of a "Latina" judge to the U.S. Supreme Court, an arrogant woman who has publicly claimed that a "Latina woman" has better judgement than a "white man". It is no surprise that obama would have picked such a woman, not only because of the political implications of a "Hispanic appointee", but also because of her spiritual compatibility with him.

Speaking of the devil (and I don't mean that colloquially), as I was on my way home from Central Park yesterday (May 30, 2009), the Lord told me to walk along 6th Avenue, known to non-New-Yorkers as "the Avenue of the Americas". Had I been the "one in charge", I would not have walked along 6th Avenue. I would have preferred to walk along 5th Avenue, but the Lord very clearly caused me to "turn right" on 59th street. When I got to 6th Avenue, I considered the idea of walking down to 7th Avenue, but the Lord very clearly told me that He wanted me to walk along 6th Avenue, which I did until I got to 32nd Street. Along the way, however, I suddenly found a huge crowd gathered around a corner, with police lights flashing all about. I became curious, and, at first, I was concerned that there might have been an accident or some sort of criminal incident. I was able to see nothing special, however, but I could discern a certain amount of "excitement" and "great expectation" in the crowd. As I continued walking along 6th Avenue, I suddenly realised that 6th Avenue had been completely cleared out and that the police were preventing any cars crossing it. In other words, if you were driving a car from east to west along the 20+ streets that had been blocked off, you were forced by police to stop when you got to 6th Avenue, meaning that all traffic from east to west (or vice versa) along those 20+ streets had been completely paralysed. I was puzzled by all the hoopla, and my first reaction was, "Maybe Prince Harry came back to Manhattan". I knew, however, that this was unlikely, given that Prince Harry (from the UK) had already been in Manhattan the day before and had already moved on to other places. Even though I was reluctant to do so, I could not help but ask a police officer, "What is all the commotion about?", to which he replied, "the president's motorcade is coming through". I was surprised by the answer, given that I had not heard of any official visit by obama to New York. My first thought in the natural was, "Maybe he came on an emergency trip to the United Nations because of some breaking development with North Korea's nuclear programme", but, knowing obama, I knew that that was highly unlikely. He is not, shall we say, "your 3 a.m. emergency-handling type of bloke" (and I don't mean that jokingly). He only reacts quickly to events when it is relevant to his poll numbers (and I don't say that to exaggerate); obama is ultimately an animal who lives only for himself, and, on the day when the Lord shall expose obama's heart for all to see, the words I am writing in this paragraph shall be confirmed.

When I got home, I still wondered if obama had indeed been in New York, and I even wondered if I had heard the police officer correctly. However, on the 11 o'clock news (which I rarely watch), the top story was obama's "magical" visit to New York. It turns out that he was on a "date night" with his wife michelle, so the hours of traffic stoppage in Manhattan, the hundreds of NYPD officers mobilised, the thousands of Federal dollars spent on obama's trip from Washington to New York, and all the metallic crowd fences along 6th Avenue were so that obama could have a happy little dinner with michelle in some posh Manhattan restaurant. In an effort to maximise the notoriety of his visit, he made it publicly known (to everyone except me, apparently), which ensured that he would have a crowd of naive tourists and Americans fawning all over him, expecting his manifestation before them as if they were awaiting the saviour of the world. It was then that I understood why the Lord had wanted me to walk along 6th Avenue. I had been sitting for nearly 3 hours on a Central Park bench, observing all the happy people and gazing upon a small pond with green-headed ducks and little remote-control sailboats, wondering in sadness what I was to do with my life, wondering whether it was really God's will for me to continue sailing against such a stifling wind of utter indifference, wondering how I was going to phrase the words I am currently writing here. Whilst I was there contemplating the end of my public ministry and wondering if I could somehow still rescue a bit of happiness from my life after so many years of setting aside my own personal interests for the sake of an impossible vision, people a few blocks away were naively celebrating a man who represents the complete opposite of everything I have stood for. Humanly speaking, I felt so "transparent", so "invisible" to the crowd that was lined up along 6th Avenue's pavements; I believe the Lord allowed me to perceive this so as to contrast it with how "relevant" and "visible" obama's physical proximity was to them; obama was not even there, yet the crowd's excitement built up as if he were somehow already there. As I walked along 6th Avenue, my thought was, "How I wish the crème-de-la-crème of American Christianity were this expectant about God's latter-rain manifestation! How I wish America's best were this expectant about the revelation of God's remnant in America and the Earth!". I must say, however, that, as I stood behind the crowd, wondering what was going on, a young man (maybe 30 or 35 years old) turned around, as if sensing my presence 2 metres behind him, and he smiled at me. He stared at me for a couple of seconds, as if he had sensed my curiosity and wanted to tell me what was happening, but I looked away, embarrassed somewhat by his kind smile, and I walked away, afraid somewhat that he might have thought I was a "pickpocket" trying to sneak up behind him. For some reason, however, I got the sense that the man was a British tourist visiting New York. I don't know why I am saying this, but that is the sense that I got. I don't know whether this is the case in the natural, but that is the impression his face made upon me when he turned back to look at me.

After such a long setup, let me now proceed to share some of the thoughts that were racing through my mind as I sat on that Central Park bench on Saturday (May 30, 2009). Even from an early age, even before I made my official "prayer of salvation" in front of a TV screen watching a Kenneth Copeland programme 28 years ago, I knew within me that these were not "business-as-usual" times. In my first few years as a believer, I knew well within me that this generation had been called to carry out the most amazing things, the most amazing transformation of human history that the world had ever witnessed. Even though my "spiritual upbringing", shall we say, was "traditional" and "conservative", I had this silent but constant expectation that we, the human race, were headed for "something" significant and that that "something" would somehow be forged "from below", and not "from above". I do not know when I heard the phrase "latter rain" for the first time, and I can almost guarantee that I must have heard it from a pulpit 5 times or less in my first 20 years as a believer. Growing up under "traditional", "Baptist-style" doctrine, I did not believe in the "charismatic gifts", and I was indoctrinated into "dismissiveness" about the whole "Holy Ghost" thing. Yet, the Lord had mercy on me, and when the time came, He initiated a strong assault on many of the beliefs I had held as "true" and "unshakeable". Even though the Lord used several "catalyst" believers to "jumpstart" this assault, I can safely say that the assault came mainly from the Bible itself. These few catalyst believers were, for the most part, fundamentally flawed in both their belief system and the arguments they used to defend their beliefs, but, for lack of better conduits, God used them to sow seeds of doubt into my heart, and, as I delved into Scripture to "prove them wrong", I suddenly found myself having to accept that I had been wrong for so many years. As the Lord began to break down and storm through my wooden fences, He introduced me to the "spirit of revelation", and the Word of God finally came to life before my eyes. For years, I had struggled to understand His word. I would cry within my soul in utter frustration over not understanding the Bible. Mind you, I would "understand" what I read, but I kept feeling deep within me that I was missing something. The Word of God seemed so lifeless, so stale, so "inert" to me, not only when I read it myself but when I heard it from the pulpit. I kept longing for someone to give me the "key" to unlock the life-giving meaning in God's Word. I felt so frustrated that I could not live a life pleasing to God, and I would often become angry over the fact that no one seemed to be helping me live that God-pleasing life. However, after the Lord finally made me understand the need for "revelation" (something I fought against for some time), and after I was baptised with the "Holy Ghost", the Word of God suddenly opened up to me. The words that once seemed to me so lifeless and stale suddenly became clear and meaningful and relevant as the light of day.

Shortly after that period of "revelation" in which I understood that God is a God of "figures" and "symbolism", the phrase "latter rain" began to ring in my heart and mind all the more, not because I was hearing it from any pulpit, but because it just "rang true". One day, I was standing outside a church service, and a man began to prophesy, and, amongst the things he said, he mentioned the "coming of the latter rain". When he said that, it was as if a "latch" clicked in my soul, and I said, "Yes, that is what we are aiming for; that is exactly it", and I entered into a silent but deep awareness that that was the big "something" I had been trying to discern when I was a young lad. I must say that it has only been until a few months ago that I began to look up on the Internet what others think of the phrase. I was surprised by the similarity between many of the beliefs espoused by those in the so-called "latter rain movement" and what the Lord has independently led me to believe. I was also surprised by the lack of information on the Internet about what the "latter rain" actually is, and I was even more surprised by the vitriolic hatred that most "experts" have against the phrase. I have been saddened even further by the fact that most visitors to this website have yet to understand what the "latter rain" is, even though we mention it time and time again. Personally, I would have thought that all the visitors to this website would have fully understood it by now. If you mention something "in context" over and over again, it would be expected that those who hear you will eventually understand that something, as when a student of a foreign language learns the meaning of a phrase after seeing it used in many different contexts, without needing to see its literal translation in a dictionary. People who learn a foreign language "in context" learn it much better than those who simply learn dictionary translations because they gain a much deeper understanding of the language's nuances, nuances that you cannot find in any dictionary. I have often felt the temptation to write an article giving a literal explanation of the term "latter rain", but I believe it is one of those things that you cannot come to know, even if it is placed right in front of you, unless your heart has willingly opened itself up to it, just as when the disciples of Emmaus were unable to recognise the resurrected Christ, even when they had Him right in front of them, walking and talking with Him for hours (Luke 24).

As I began to believe in this vision of a future "latter rain", which I had yet to fully understand, I did know one thing: it was not going to "come on its own". It would be forged by a Joel-army generation of believers who were aligned with God's perfect will. To use a more "mundane" term, it was going to be a "grassroots" spiritual effort that would "gush forth" from below and overtake the Earth. Another thing I "knew" was that this "latter rain" was destined to happen shortly, within my lifetime, and that I would have the opportunity of seeing it manifested, not when I was 85 years old and dying, but during the prime of my life. I did not see myself and those of my generation as just another group of people who would see the "promised land" and die without possessing it in their lifetime. I did not see myself as one who would die a sad, sacrificial death, like the Christians who perished in the Roman Colosseum without seeing the coming of the Lord that they so longed for. Even though I did not expect my life to be easy, I simply did not feel that I was going to be called to die in failure (not literally, at least). However, as I shall detail below, I am beginning to wonder whether this is true or not, and it is all starts with the "bridges" in my past.

My life has been characterised by the "burning of many bridges"; this is ironic, considering that my surname means "Bridge" in its language of origin. Many of those bridges were burnt by God before I was born, others were burnt by Him in my early childhood, and the others have been burnt by me through the multiple "crossroads" decisions I have made. On many of these crossroad decisions, I knew that things would not "go well" if I did what the Lord was prompting me to do, and, had I been in charge of my own life, I would have done the opposite of what I ended up doing, and my life would be very different right now. Mind you, it is a virtual certainty that, had I said "No" on one or two of those decisions, there would be no "Shamah-Elim Bible Study group", there would be no website, and you would be doing something else with your life right now (because these words would not be here for you to read). Since the bridges have been many and they have spanned multiple decades, I have virtually wiped out all hope of a "safe retreat". Since my life had been geared towards the fulfilment of God's will, towards the fulfilment of a higher purpose which I later came to know as His "latter rain", I burnt bridges on the professional level which make my likelihood of finding professional success very difficult at this stage in my life, especially since my area of work in the secular is very dynamic. To make matters worse, it is an area of work that God forced me into against my will, so I have no inherent motivation for excelling in it or for rebuilding the many bridges I burnt behind me. I also burnt bridges on the social level; along the way, I was forced to cut off many friendships and contacts so as to keep alive the word and vision within me. Since God knew that I would at times be very weak, He also burnt many bridges "for me", which reduced the options throughout my life and made it possible for me to stay "on course". The burning of these bridges have acted almost literally as "thorns in my flesh", thorns that have deprived me of my independence, forcing me to become utterly dependent on the niches that God has created for me throughout my life. In short, all these burnt bridges have limited my ability to succeed both in my professional and personal life. Yet, through it all, I must testify that the Lord has been faithful. Almost miraculously, I have never "gotten into debt" (meaning that I have never had to turn away a creditor or wake up in the middle of the night wondering how I will be able to pay off a mounting debt), and I have never had to abstain from eating because I no longer had money to buy food (even though I have come close on one occasion). I have always had a roof over my head on clothes on my shoulders, and I have never had to, shall we say, "live off of" anyone else to get by. This, however, has required a rather frugal existence, and it has forced me to interpret the support from others (or a lack thereof) in a totally different light.

As I share above, now that May 11, 2009 has come and gone, I still see very little difference, if any, in America's spiritual condition. The thick and almost palpable indifference is still there, and I can gauge that indifference by the support that is given to this website. As you may have noticed, we have made a conscious effort not to actively request financial support, and, before you read any further, this posting is not an effort to "guilt" you into supporting this work (dear believer, if that is all you get from this posting, then it is safe to say that you missed the point I was trying to share). However, it must be said that the financial support for this website has been rather paltry. Over the last 50 weeks, for example, only one sister in Christ has sent any financial support, and her 3 kind offerings total the yearly amount we pay every April for the website's hosting (with US$10 to spare). In the 14 months prior to that, we only received two offerings from two kind sisters, whose total covered the hosting for that year plus two of the 14 months of advertising on Google. We have had to cover most of the expenses for the website's advertising from our own pockets, as well as the service that allows for flexible and up-to-date searches within the website's pages. Obviously, the long hours of study and writing required to post the thousands of printable letter-size pages available on this website have been provided for free, and I have done so with a glad and willing heart, motivated not by lucre but by a desire to see God's purposes fulfilled.

The reason why I am bringing up the paltry financial support is because it is indicative of a much larger issue. The website's visitor frequency remains relatively low, especially if you consider the amount of free, original, and diverse spiritual material available on it, as well as the fact that it has been up and running for over 5 years now. There has been no word-of-mouth spread of the site's visibility. Apparently, those of you who have told others about this website have found that very few have a taste for it. Instead of being grateful for such long and detailed postings that they can print and study at their own leisure, it seems as if most find it annoying to have to "read so much", and they see little point to all the "spiritual" stuff being said, even when it has been laid out in a gradual, cumulative, coherent, and organised manner, and in a way that ties in with current events, historical events, literature, philosophy, and even music. This is due to the fact that most believers are not pursuing a higher calling. They are not seeking after a "latter-day manifestation". If you do not see the vision behind the work, the work itself quickly becomes tedious, and interest is lost very quickly. Thus, the lack of the site's "popularity" and the fact that even those who appreciate it do not contribute to it clearly shows the following: most do not understand the Lord's reason for the website and have yet to grasp the vision of the "latter rain".

Given the current set of circumstances, I do not envision this apathy changing any time soon, especially after America showed how easily it can be swayed by evil deceivers such as hussein obama. As the Lord showed me in my "stroll" along 6th Avenue, America, as a nation, fell into a deceitful trance even as her 4-year delay was coming to a close, proving that her spiritual antennas remain pointing at the wrong satellites, even after all the judgement that God heaved upon her during that 4-year period. You can broadcast all you want, but if there are no ears to hear, the broadcast is eventually for naught. I do believe that proclaiming the word releases power into the spiritual atmosphere that damages the enemy, even if no human on the ground is listening, but that only clears the air so that the ground forces may enter and overcome. You can do all the air warfare that you want, but if there is no one on the ground willing to "seize the day", all that air warfare becomes worthless, and the enemy eventually retakes the space it lost. When Moses and the Israelites fought the Amalekites, he sat on the top of the hill with his hands up, which speaks of the battle in the air, but, as he was doing that, Israelite forces were on the ground battling Amalek. Moses could have held his hands up all day, but that would have been fruitless in the end had there been no Israelites battling on the ground (Exodus 17). If there is no hope for a "ground swell" to emerge, the only alternative left is for the battle to go from being a "rescue operation" to a "destruction operation". In such cases, everyone on the ground is annihilated, just as was the case with Sodom and Gomorrah. There is no point in being patient and precise if the kidnap victim is already dead.

I wish I could look at the lack of support for this website and simply say, "We will go it alone". We will continue to finance the website and put in the time and emotional effort required to keep it going, but the Lord has, in recent months, backed me into a corner, and the whole history of burnt bridges has made that corner all the smaller. It is as if the Lord is saying to me, "If they do not provide, I will not provide any longer. I am making you utterly dependent on what they are or are not willing to support." Just as was the case with America in Iraq, American forces were to provide the military protection and logistical support for a season as the Iraqi people stood up on their feet after so many years of Hussein's oppression, but, as that season came to a close, the Iraqis became more and more responsible for their own protection and for the future of their own nation. Humanly speaking, I would be willing to continue writing for this website indefinitely and to finance its existence (along with the remaining indirect member of this study group), but, because of all the bridges that God has burnt, I have come to the tentative conclusion that continuing with the website under such circumstances would be an exercise in futility. I am almost certain that the great majority of the believers who are frequent visitors to this website are providing financial and logistical support to various ministries, whether it be their "local church" or a well-known international ministry. Through this financial and logistical support, they are testifying in the spiritual atmosphere that they see those ministries as their Melchizedek priests. As we have studied in detail before, New Covenant believers must tithe to Melchizedek priests, which, by Biblical definition, are those who give them spiritual bread and wine without asking for anything in return. Based on the financial support that this website has received, it is more than obvious that the great majority of you do not see us as Melchizedek priests, and that you prefer to support other ministries because you see them as providing you with the spiritual bread and wine that this website is obviously not giving you. As I was sharing with a sister in Christ on one occasion, "spiritual stores" are subject to the same "forces" that operate in the marketplace. Believers vote with their support, both financial and moral. Ministries that they vote worthy of their support will stay afloat and prosper. Ministries that they vote irrelevant and unproductive will eventually shrink and disappear. A ministry's external "success" or "failure" is by no means an indication of whether it was pleasing to God; it is merely an indication of what the people chose to hear.

I sincerely wonder how many of you will bother to read this posting, and, more importantly, I wonder how many of you will even get to this point. I personally had deep questions over the point of posting this at all. It is difficult to talk to someone who is not listening; it is difficult to direct words at people who pretend to listen but who are looking the other way; it is even more difficult to speak to someone who is indeed trying to hear you but who is not understanding what you are trying to say. Do you believe in the vision of a "latter rain"? Do you believe that it is supposed to begin now, or do you believe that it will happen many decades after you have passed away? Do you believe that this website's purpose is to provide some nice teachings, or do you believe that there is a mighty prophetic purpose from God behind it? I once thought that your answers to these questions were all in a positive light, but, as the years have gone by, I can honestly say that I don't know anymore, and I am slowly inclining towards answers from you in a negative light. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that the great majority of believers, even those who visit this website on a regular basis, are not pregnant with a vision of the latter rain, and I have become convinced that, even if you believe in such a thing, you see it as something that is way ahead in the future and is irrelevant to your present life, and I am beginning to believe that most of you perceive that God's purpose for this website is to provide His children with some nice reading material and no more. If this is the case, I see no point in keeping this website up.

Fellow believer, I am about to say something that may offend some of you, but I feel compelled by the Lord God to say this to you, and I sincerely pray that you will not take this the wrong way. As I have communicated with some of you over the years, I have gotten the following well-meaning question on several occasions, sometimes explicitly and other times implicitly: "Do you need anything?", to which I always give either an evasive or empty answer. This type of question reflects a sad but true fact: the parameter that most of you use to determine support for this ministry is what you perceive to be our needs. This may sound innocent enough on the surface, but it contradicts a spiritual principle that the Lord lays out in Scripture: a worker is worthy of his wages. When you give based on "external obligation", you only give what needs to be given, and no more. When you give out of love, you give what you feel the other person deserves. When you purchase a jewel, you don't ask the jewellery store how much income they need in order to break even that month before determining how much you are willing to pay for the jewel. You analyse the jewel on its own merits, and you pay based on how valuable the jewel is and the quality of the jeweller's work. The jewellery store could be going bankrupt, but you are not going to pay US$100,000 for a jewel that seems to be worth US$100. By the same token, the owner of the jewellery store could be swimming in cash, but that would not justify you paying £100 for a jewel that is worth £100,000. If you hire a worker, you don't pay him based on what he needs to balance his family's budget. You pay him based on the value of his work, regardless of how much money he may or may not have in the bank. Therefore, if this website is providing worthless spiritual material, you should not support us at all, even if we are about to die of starvation. There is no point in supporting an unproductive or harmful ministry. On the other hand, if this website is providing you with unique and life-giving material, you should be supporting it faithfully as an act of thankfulness to God, even if we were millionaire tycoons posting prophetic words from the French Riviera.

I sincerely believe that there is no Bible-study website on the Internet that comes close to this website in terms of the diversity of topics covered. I also believe that there is no website in the world that quotes as many passages from Scripture; obviously, this excludes websites that post entire books of the Bible! I also believe that there is no website on the planet that analyses Scriptural verses in as much detail and in such a unique way as this website. If there is such a site, we would sincerely appreciate you telling us about it. Thus, our website is so unique that it is either a very good site inspired by God or a very bad site inspired by the flesh and satan. Our website is such that there is no possibility for a middle ground. If it is that good, it should be supported and its message enabled; if it is that bad, you should be loathing it and praying for its soon eradication. By not reacting to it, you are in effect loathing it and unconsciously praying for its soon end.

Some might argue that the lack of response to this website might be because "It is not the time of the Lord". In my time as a Christian, however, I have generally found that phrase to be a cop-out used by most believers to either cover up their own failings or ignore the need to analyse hidden issues. In the case of this website and the interest for the latter rain, I perceive in my spirit that this time in history is indeed the time of the Lord. I may have few spiritual gifts, but one gift I unquestionably have is the gift of "discernment of spirits". The Lord has blessed me with the gift of discerning spiritual climates, which allows me the ability to sense how "feasible" a spiritual action is, as well as discerning the spiritual forces that are at play in a given spiritual climate. Based on this discernment, I can honestly testify to you that the field is ripe for the harvest. It has been ripe for several years now, and there is no need to wait for any "missing piece to the puzzle". All the pieces, all the spiritual elements are already in place, ready for God's assault on the "beaches of Normandy". When the Israelites came out of Egypt, everything was ready for their assault on Canaan, but it was their faithlessness and Moses' pastoral protection which forced God to delay the time of attack by 38 years. God's time can be "now", but our indifference or opposition can cause that "now" to drag on unnecessarily, and, in some cases, it may even lead to the "now" of God being cancelled forever.

As I sat on that Central Park bench on Saturday May 30, 2009, I assumed for one second that "this was not the time of the Lord", and I ran the clock forward to visualise Central Park 30 years from then. What I saw in my spirit was the same things I see now. In other words, there was no difference in the spiritual conditions, no difference in the circumstances that would make forging the latter rain any easier than it would be today. After 30 years, all that would happen is that another meaningless cycle of human history would have gone by, and the Church would again be standing on the same spot they were standing on 30 years earlier, on the edge of the River Jordan, deciding on whether to cross or not. After 30 years, I personally saw myself either dead (for quite a long while) or too old, tired and bitter to care about the "latter rain". I remember that, in late 2005, shortly before America sent me into Azazel banishment, the Lord led me to watch a PBS documentary on the Twin Towers. The documentary spoke of the difficulties that the Towers' promoters had in getting New York (and New Yorkers) to go along with the building of the Towers. By the time construction was finally approved and completed, the Towers' main promoter (Austin Tobin, I believe) had been so embittered and exhausted by the whole experience that he found little joy in seeing the Towers finally standing. I would probably react the same way if people decided to embrace the latter rain 30 years from now, for my heart would be bitter against a generation that casually decided that there was no problem with wasting 30 years for no good reason at all, allowing an entire sub-generation of rescuable human beings to perish without fulfilling their God-assigned destiny. Besides the unnecessarily wasted time, I would be troubled by the following personal thought: "Were you all waiting for me to leave before you finally got the party started? Was I that unnecessary and irrelevant?". Some hours after my time on that Central Park bench, the Lord brought to my attention an old song from the British-born group Bee Gees. The song is entitled "I started a joke", and its lyrics reflected the thoughts that were circling in my head at the time:

{Lyrics adapted from lirama.net}

I started a joke, which started the whole world crying,
but I didn't see that the joke was on me, oh no
I started to cry, which started the whole world laughing,
Oh, if I'd only seen that the joke was on me

I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes,
and I fell out of bed, hurting my head from things that I'd said
'Til I finally died, which started the whole world living,
Oh, if I'd only seen that the joke was on me

I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes,
And I fell out of bed, hurting my head from things that I'd said
'Til I finally died, which started the whole world living,
Oh, if I'd only seen that the joke was one me

As I look back at all the burnt bridges, and as I look at the indifference ahead, I sometimes wonder, "Was this all a cruel hoax, a cruel joke that was played on me? Was it all a cruel joke I played on myself?". Sometimes I sincerely wonder.

Besides being forced to question the timing of the latter rain, I have also been forced to ask myself, "Am I wrong about the whole thing? Have I been wrong in questioning the current religious system and its doctrine? Has that system been right all along?" I must point out the fact that my views on the current religious system were not born out of bitterness or resentment over some personal incident I may have had with some religious authority. Were I not longing to see God's glory on Earth, I would work "rather well" within the religious structures. For years, I was a faithful and submissive worker within the system, and I would still be today, had it not been for the fact that I was not interested in religion but in a living God. By His grace, the Lord opened my eyes to the abominations in the system, to the point that it is utterly impossible for me to ever go back into it. That bridge has been burnt for good, so much so that I would rather renounce my faith and become an atheist than believe in the basic soundness of the religious system. It would be impossible for me to respect a "God" who upheld such a worthless and corrupt system. If the God I serve is represented by such a system, he is not a God worth following. If that is the best "God" available, I would do much better investing my time pleasing myself than wasting it "dancing" before such a pathetically worthless and corrupt "God".

Fellow believer, I do not know what lies ahead for me, and I wonder how long it will be before the Lord tells me to stop writing for this website altogether. It may be a few weeks, a few months, or many, many years, I do not know. Though I could be wrong, one thing I am personally convinced of is that, if America's (and the UK's) best do not begin to react to God's revival call in the coming months, my days on Earth will be numbered (and the number will be small). If the revival is for 30 years from now, the long life I always perceived I would live will more than likely be dramatically shortened, for there would be no more reason to "keep me around". Too many bridges have been burnt for me to have a realistic possibility of building a happy existence for myself at this late stage of my life, and, just like a horse that has been gravely injured, I will more than likely have to be "euthanised" to spare me the unnecessary pain. I will have been like a fool who put all his money in the wrong investment and lost it all.

It is possible that God might decide to forge a supernatural bubble of independence in which I would be able to survive for years and years (à la Jeremiah 45), without having to depend on anyone's will (à la Acts 28:28-30). This is possible, but it would require the mobilisation of spiritual pieces at a level that might be righteously impossible under the current spiritual atmosphere (remember, God is a God of miracles, not a God of simplistic magic, and all His miracles must be backed up by righteous purposes). Even if God decided to forge such an artificial bubble of protection, what would I be doing inside that bubble? What would be the point of sharing a latter-rain word to a generation whose hearts are not interested in absorbing it? In my personal life, I have tried to find people, "Elishas", who will receive an impartation of the revelation anointing that is within me, but, to this day, I have found no takers. How I wish that I could look around me and see hundreds of people declaring the same things I am declaring, independently receiving the same type of revelation word that I have received! How I wish to see myself as part of a great army, and not as a lonely voice that is at best mildly heard. However, I must know what the spiritual reality is. I cannot "wish" reality into existence, and I do not want to operate under a false hope.

I don't know what will be the end of all of this. My heart is overwhelmed with grief, and my soul is too tired. My eyes are unable to visualise what lies ahead. All I could see for years was the latter-rain manifestation ahead, but, if that is not what lies ahead, I am absolutely clueless as to what is, and I am even more clueless as to what my role could possibly be in it. I guess it all depends on what happens in the days and weeks to come.