Sons Of Thunder Revisited

John 4:22
....."You worship what you do not  know..............."

It's been in my heart for over 20 years.
A prophetic word that was spoken back in the 90's that worship and the music accompanying it would be changed.
It would become so filled with the Spirit of God that people would be healed just from hearing and being in the presence of the worship music that was being played.  The worship would become so filled with the presence of God that people would be saved from hearing such worship.

Sounds far fetched, doesn't it?
But I have seen such things take place on a very limited basis back when this word was first given. We were leading worship at the Vineyard in Anniston one Sunday morning. No words had been spoken. No preaching or teaching had taken place, but in the middle of the worship, two people got up and came forward to be saved. Wowzer's! Now what if that incident was a taste of what God really wanted to do? 

I confess that I have not taken my worship as serious as I should have. By saying serious I'm not talking about walking around with a scowl on my face, measuring the level of sanctification I have achieved by the droop of my frown. When I say serious, I mean recognizing exactly what is happening (or rather what should happen). First off, worship is for God....I am not suppose to worship so I can get something out of it. Sometimes I think we treat worship to God like we trying to manipulate Him into coming into the room and doing some "heavenly" tricks so that we can say it was good to have been in His presence.

Worship begins and ends with the heart of the ones who are worshiping. I know that some within the Vineyard at large will disagree with me, but I'd rather have one person whose heart burns and is consumed for worship, than a hundred who are professionally capable of playing their instrument on a worship team. I'm not saying that a level of talent isn't necessary, it is...but we put too much emphasis on the talent and not much on the heart.
Give me the heart to worship You, Lord!

From 1994 through 1998, the Vineyard experienced a visitation from God. The services were explosive. People were set loose from sin and bondage that had held them in place for years. Prophetic words flowed with ease and the level of God's presence was off the chart. As this was happening, we declared that the prophetic word we'd heard about how God was going to use worship music in new way, was happening then. I don't think such a statement was true. I do believe that God was priming us so that we could get a taste of what was to come. 

Isn't it funny how we can hear a prophetic word and if it doesn't come to pass according to our time schedule, we then discount it? The prophetic words concerning worship music was brought up again in me because of a cassette tape I found yesterday. I am in the process of transferring messages from tape to digital, so I was going through a box of old tape's looking for something work on, when I came across the "Sons of Thunder" tape by James Ryles (This was the tape that contained the prophetic message). I thought I would listen to it to fill in all the gaps that my memory had lost. What I didn't expect was for it to jump off the tape and go straight to my heart. As I sat listening, I realized that what James was sharing had not taken place, but in fact was more relevant for today that it was 20 years ago. What if what we thought was this new work God was going to do back in the 90's was actually the pre-cursor...the prep work for what He wants to do today? I think maybe it is.  I think we are going to see God work in ways we never have. I believe that it is going to take place through recovery meetings such as Vineyard Recovery Church. I believe that we are going to see the unbridled transforming POWER of Jesus Christ in our midst in ways that we've only dreamed of.

You may call it revival....
You can call it renewal....
You can define it as a new work....
But I believe that it will take place....
Our job?
To prepare ourselves to become instruments of worship through which this "new song" of God can flow to those still in spiritual darkness.
I am excited.

God on you...
mb

I will be making copies available of this prophetic word from James Ryles. I'll try to have them Saturday night at VRC  if anyone wants a copy.