Why the Conditions Are Ripe for a Spiritual Hurricane

There were 400 years of near-silence from the days of the prophet Malachi until John the Baptist and Jesus came on the scene. No prophet had spoken. We don’t have biblical record of any prophetic vision or revelation. There was a famine of the true Word of the Lord.

The old man Simeon and the old prophetess Anna were two of the faithful remnant who held on to the delayed promise of the coming Messiah and the consolation of Israel (Luke 2:25-38). The ceremonial priestly sacrifices, the temple offerings and the Sabbath rituals without the prophets speaking had created a great, lifeless vacuum among the Jewish people.

But in spite of outward circumstances and centuries of a divine pause, God’s plan was still in motion—and so much greater than they ever imagined. It not only included redemption for Israel but for the Gentile nations as well. The vacuum of the human heart would be filled to overflowing with new light and new life. The glory of God was on the horizon.

“In Him was life, and the life was the light of mankind” (John 1:4).

Herein we must understand what I call the principle of the vacuum. When a people are denied and deprived of the life-giving word and power of God for so long, the situation feeds the desire and hunger for these gifts all the more. When the reality of God is taken from a people, the craving and panting in their hearts increases. When a society infiltrates our educational system from kindergarten to our universities with humanistic ideologies, with Marxist socialism, with anti-Christ and anti-Semitic literature, with hatred, violence and sexual perversion, the human heart begins to long for a purity from a more innocent time. The glory of Christ becomes the end of their search.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory” (John 1:14a).

Though Christ came 2000 years ago, there are still many nations who have been deprived of His gospel and His glory. Anti-Christ governments and religious regimes block the flow of God’s blessings to a nation. They shut off the spigot, so the water of life cannot get to the people.

But how do you shut off the hunger of a human heart? The potential of life flow into that vacuum is enormous. Here is the principle:

“But where sin increased, grace abounded much more” (Rom. 5:20b).

This principle is evidenced when scientists and meteorologists gauge the force of hurricane winds and water surges by the low-pressure systems that form over the ocean of a developing storm. There’s a vacuum effect created that determines the violence of the winds. Such is the mystery of a human heart and a society that has been denied true spiritual light and life for so long.

You may have read of this principle at work in China. In spite of an evil communist regime suppressing the people under an atheistic form of government, the Chinese church is flourishing. I’ll never forget the image I saw not too long ago of a container of Bibles being opened and the Chinese recipients of those Bibles weeping with joy and scrambling to get their copy. The nation’s outlawing of the Bible created a great vacuum in the heart of the people and produced a ravenous hunger for the written Word of God.

Iran, as a nation, is another recent glaring example. The Islamic regime there has starved their people of the gospel and reality of Jesus Christ for a long time. Yet now within that nation is one of the fastest-growing underground churches in the world. What happened? When you saturate a people with enough hate, strife, violence and a dead, joyless religion devoid of God’s love that produces no true peace because it contains no assurance of salvation, you create a great vacuum and a hunger in the human heart to be filled with the reality of the true and living God.

When secularists attempt to create a post-Christian America, they actually create a hunger in people for sacredness. When atheistic university professors seek to erase our Judeo-Christian heritage, they actually create space for a new script of faith in God to be written in the human heart. What they are ignorantly doing is playing right into the devil’s hand.

Satan has been overplaying his hand since Calvary. What he thought was the ultimate defeat turned into the greatest victory in the history of the human race. He is repeating this strategy in his plans to destroy America. All he is doing is adding to the increase of the groaning of creation to be delivered from the bondage of corruption.

The deeper our society sinks into hopelessness and despair, the greater the cry is for a living hope and eternal joy. The deeper the bondage of sin, and addiction to drugs and sexual perversion, the greater the cry is for deliverance and freedom. This effect is happening in America right now—and globally as well. The earth is groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:22).

I propose to you that we are on the precipice of the greatest move of God and awakening that America and the nations have ever seen. I propose to you that, since the time of Christ and the early church, we’ve not seen a move of God that comes close to the finale of what has been in God’s heart from the beginning. {eoa}

Bert Farias’ books are forerunners to personal holiness, the move of God and the return of the Lord. They also combat the departure from the faith and turning away from the truth we are seeing today. The Tumultuous 2020s and Beyond is his latest release to help believers navigate through the new decade and emerge as an authentic remnant. Other materials and resources are available on his website, Holy Fire Ministries. You can follow him personally on Facebook, his Facebook ministry page or Twitter.

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