Word From Vaughn--September 2006
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We are certainly in sudden, sweeping, far-reaching, transitional change. So many ministries and Christians are hysterically trying to maintain the status quo, beating yesterday's drum and gorging on worm-ridden manna! Our only Rock now is Jesus. The incessant drone of ministry for the sake of ministry mingled with the groans of those who have no peace nor shepherd makes an odd sacrifice on this "Last Moments of the Last Days Altar" we all stand before.
As a baby Christian, I had a well-developed prayer and worship life. Through much prayer and fasting, the Lord led me to relocate to another city. He told me ahead of time, it was for a season of learning, and that I would not be sleeping much while I was there.
The dominant spiritual gift in the church was miracles, and the prophetic. It was dynamic ministry with people literally coming from all over the world for healing and direction. Odd things began to happen to me: My personal worship and prayer began to dry up; I became obsessed with obtaining the favor of the pastor; I focused on my own dysfunction and inablity to "make it" without his favor and spiritual insight; I began to believe that I had arrived at a geographic place of ultimate spiritual revelation; I lost my peace--between my job and church activity, I dried up and lost weight to the point of being anemic--that may be hard for a lot of my friend to now believe! I began to battle tempation I had not faced since before I came to the Lord--it was a very difficult time for me.
The Holy Spirit began to remind me of what He had shown me before I came and why He had brought me to this place. He then told me I would learn from what was wrong as well as what was right, that I was not there to judge, but to learn. He gave me this Scripture,
"Walk about Zion,and go all around her. Count her towers; mark well her bulwarks; consider her palaces; that you may tell it to the generation following. For this is our God, our God forever and ever, He will be our guide even to death."--Psalm 48: 12-14 NKJV
While I was praying, I had two visions: in the first, I was laying on the floor and had my eyes opened to the very foundations of the sanctuary and church compound--there I saw a huge fissure that ran the entire length, from front to back. In the second, I saw the most beautiful piece of large fruit I had ever seen. I saw all kinds of provision and nutrition, and water flowing into this fruit of fruits, purple-red and rosy to the point of luminescence; it dripped dew and glistened. I was literally drawn to it. The desire to taste was overpowering; my mouth watered in anticipation. I heard the Lord speak,
"Go ahead and take a bite."
I threw myself onto this fruit of desire expecting ambrosia, sunk my teeth into it, and nearly broke my teeth. I stepped away in pain, disappointment, and disillusionment.
I began to examine this amazing, paradoxical freak of nature. I knew that fruit was made to eat, and that even substandard fruit had some pleasantness and nutrition to it. This was the most visually desirable fruit I had ever known, so surely there had to be somethiing there for me to eat; perhaps it was just a bad spot, and I could peal away to the glorious meat and core!
To my amazement, the beautiful skin was thick and hard to penetrate; beneath it was a tiny layer of bitter fruit much thinner than the skin. The greatest astonishment was that both the thick skin and non-existent fruit were nothing more than a protective covering for a huge seed. The entire fruit was nothing more than disguise, protection, and provision for the huge inner core!
All the provision, nutrition, and water I had seen flowing into the fruit was for it and it alone. There was nothing for anyone else to eat because the life of the fruit was for it and exclusive to anything that did not nuture the seed. This fruit existed for the purpose of self-reproduction. The fruit absorbed everything around it.
The glistening beauty was nothing more than a lure to pull more life into it.
The Lord then showed me why I had lost my peace, my prayer, my worship, and my confidence--I was too busy feeding the seed and not seeking Him. I had found my redeemer, and this one wasn't carrying me!
The First Commandment says,
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
Idolatry seems to be as innate to the human nature as a child's first word being "no". Drawn like a moth to a flame, we search for men, ministries, anointings, and movements who have the ready-made methods and answers. It is just so nice to have someone else seek God and have the right truth that I can depend on.
Too many Christians make gods out of ministers and then curse them when the chosen deity is not able to deliver a pain-free life. Too many preachers act as though God put His sheep on the earth to make a minister's ministry happen. It appears that both preacher and believer are prone to unGodly, delusional expectations of one another.
Repentance is coming to us for straining at gnats and swallowing camels.
How prone to wander we are!
Driving down to a series of meetings in Florida, the Lord kept telling me,
"There is no time left. It has been spent. Tell the people there is no time left."
I sincerely believe our lives are about to change suddenly, drastically, and cataclysmically. The anti-Christian climate is strengthening; it may be fever-pitch by the next presidential election. Everything that can be shaken is being shaken. Jesus is about to return and many of us have not been hitherto good soldiers, being so entangled and overcome with so much that is smothering. I know that I have misspent much time the last decade, with a lot taken for granted. I have presumed upon the goodness of the Lord and His people--I have many regrets.
A few months back, a prophetess I have known for 25 years, whose word and walk I greatly respect called me. She told me she had been praying for me. She told me I had 2 years to get my ministry on track and to write the books God was dealing with me about. That may be personal just for me, or it may be because what is happening in the church, nation,and world. It may be a combination of both.
I don't know yet.
What I do know is that I have felt such an urgent and sober need to be ready. Many others I am in contact with have echoed this, as well as the certainty that rough days are ahead.
"Rough days are ahead!" has almost become a mantra in my inner man. This seems to be the focus of my messsage to the Body--I don't like it, but am compelled to plead.
The cry of the Holy Spirit is to bend, to seek God, and to allow Him to create a heart in us that will not be shaken.
There will shortly be a smattering of natural disasters in this country combined with serious terrorist threats to 3 major metro areas. What I saw in the spirit was like a wall that someone slung a wet paintbrush at and spattered it indiscriminately, but left a pattern that was extremely visible. Our tender underbelly will be exposed and Americans will be forced to see our vulnerablity and helplessness without God. These will be other shots over the bow by the Lord trying to warn us that the days are short. Outside our borders, the hatred of America and the global jihad will increase. This is the time for harvest action.
I repeat, the time has been spent.
The Lord gave me some Scripture that is most encouraging for this season,
"Thus says the Lord,
'A voice was heard in Ramah,lamentation and bitter weeping,Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.'
Thus says the Lord:
'Refrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears;; for your work shall be rewarded says the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope in your future, says the Lord, that your children shall come back to their own border.'" Jeremiah 31: 16-17
This is the season for the heartbreak of losing time, territory, provision, and loved ones to the "land of the enemy", to be turned to joy. What has been lost and the prodigals are returning to "their own border". What we have sown in tears is about to be rewarded!
So many have labored with sorrow upon sorrow, and brokeness even unto desolation. I believe this is the hour of turning away from death unto the Lord. I believe this is the time for fragrance to come from the crushing.
I know the gelding and castration of God's people has reached the pinnacle (see August Newsletter) and we are recovering our rights to spiritual reproduction, authority, and the warrior spirit. Our birthrights of discernment, the fear of God, respect of balanced ministry, and laying down our lives for one another is on the horizon of restoration--all the wells of our inheritance that have been filled up by the enemy are about to be re-dug!
I also believe condemnation and ruthless non-God self-dissection is being dissolved by the Holy Spirit. Let's look at the next section of Jeremiah 31:
"I have heard Ephraim bemoaning himself: 'You have chastised me and I was chastised, like an untrained bull; restore me and I will return, for You are the Lord my God. Surely, after my turning, I repented; and AFTER I WAS INSTRUCTED, I STRUCK MYSELF ON THE THIGH; I was ashamed,yes, even humiliated, BECAUSE I BORE THE REPROACH OF MY YOUTH.'" Jeremiah 31: 18-19 (caps are my emphasis)
I will have more to say about Jeremiah 31 as I expand this newsletter.
The last thought driving down is about the new over the counter abortion pill, RU486. Although a number of women have died from this poison, the political correctness, bloodlust and dirty money of the abortion industry have beguiled the FDA. This is a foolish and detructive decision! This drug will kill women, kill babies, and produce many deformities.
You younger folk do not remember the horrors of thalidomide, a mild sedative given to pregnant women worldwide in the early 60's. The birth defects as a result of this were heartbreaking.
A few years ago, I had a vision of myself ministering as an older man. I was going down a prayer line, laying hands on people. I came to a young man who was horrifically deformed. We both began to weep. I asked him what had happened to him. He looked at me in his suffering and said,
"My mother took the French abortion pill when she was pregnant with me."
This pill from hell will be available without prescription in October or November unless God intervenes. It will be a Pandora's Box of death and suffering in the name of "birthcontrol". The longer I live, the more I believe the secular bureaucracy of our nation is going to one day cause the horrors of Nazism to pale in comparison. How many little girls will bleed to death or become sterile, or develop horrible cancers, especially ovarian, later in life? How many innocent babies will be killed or maimed? I suspect a drug of this strength will effect the chromosomal integrity of immature ova still in the ovaries, yet to mature and be later released.
No one really cares, after all there is an agenda to be pushed at all costs--not really about women's rights or their safety. And there is a lot of money, really dirty, blood money to be made. What if a generation is exterminated or limited reproductively? There are already too many parastic people on Mother Earth. Remember that abortion is a lucrative money-making industry with networks of agencies receiving funds that must fan one another's flame and feed one another's beast.
Baal lives!
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