To tell this one properly, I have to give a brief history and share someone else’s dream for a moment. In the fall of 2005, my world fell apart. I was buried beneath an avalanche of personal and professional failure that culminated in homelessness for me and my family. But just before this, when the unraveling was beginning to pick up steam, I got a visit from the one friend who had remained faithful through everything. Her name was D__, and she had been for some time a spiritual mentor for me. A graduate of ITC in Atlanta, her knowledge of scripture seemed so much greater than my own and her own testimony was full of the redeeming power of an active, sustaining God. She was my friend and on this night she sought to lend me her support by sharing a dream she had been given the night before.
She stopped in on her way to church (it was a Wednesday night) hoping I would go with her. Unfortunately, I had been feeling physically out of sync for most of that day, plagued by a sore throat and dull headache. She asked how my prospects for a job looked and I chuckled at the irony. My career was so shot as that point, I couldn’t buy a gig.
“Well, what are you going to do?” she asked. “I mean, you got to get up and stop feeling sorry for yourself and get a job.” Then she half-quoted Paul, “if a man doesn’t work, he should not eat…” I had no answer for her aside from a shrug of the shoulders. D__ sat quiet for a moment, then continued, “Look, one of the reasons I came here is that God gave me a vision last night to share with you. In the vision, I had come to the house, just like right now only the whole house was a mess. Papers and trash were everywhere; the whole house was a wreck. I tried to help you but you just wouldn’t listen to me so finally I just threw up my hands in frustration and stomped out of here. But as I got to my car, I went to turn the ignition key but my hands felt wet. I looked down at my hands and they were covered with blood, human blood. I said ‘Oh God what is this? What is this!?’ And He said to me ‘his blood is on your hands.’ So K__ I’m here to tell you, to warn you, you got to get up out of this ‘cause I can’t have your blood on my hands.”
When she finished I said nothing, but I knew that her dream was not a warning for me (at least not in the way she thought). If anything, I felt the beginning of a divide between us because I too had been given a remarkable dream the night before. My dream absolutely contradicted everything that she had just said.
“That’s interesting,” I began. “I too, had a dream of blood last night. Let me tell you what God showed me: I’m in the middle of a huge procession. It’s a queue for a ‘Christian Leadership Seminar’ being given by J__ (a very prominent and influential Mega Pastor), and there are tens of thousands of us all pouring into the stadium. We’re all wearing the most amazing, resplendent white flowing robes and clutching Bibles and hymnals. The excitement and anticipation are incredible; this is manifesting itself in spontaneous outbursts of singing starting within pockets of related worship groups. These songs then roll and wash over the entire throng until suddenly a new group begins a new song starting the process all over again. And so it goes…”
“The stadium itself is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. More of a classic Greek Amphitheatre than the sports stadiums we enjoy now, the entire thing is carved out of an enormous mountain of solid black Onyx. The polish and shine of this translucent gem cut into seats, stairwells, tunnels and the stage is breathtaking. And there on the stage stands J__; tall, regal, imposing, he seems to be silently directing the masses that have gathered as they walk towards the seats and file into the varied rows according to number. Down the stairwells, into the rows, singing praises and worshiping aloud as we all search for our proper seats, the congregation gathers. But as I’m entering a new row of seats for the third time, I notice something. No one is taking a seat. The worship groups continue to walk around, but no one stops to take a seat. I say something to the lady in front of me but find myself as dismissed and ultimately ignored as the child pointing out the naked emperor.”
“At this point the whole dream shifts because from behind me, I can feel The Presence. I turn around and sure enough, up on the stage behind J__ stands the very presence of the Lord. He is here in the midst of this gathering, but no one seems to notice. As I try to get others to see Him I get out of line. I’m begging, pleading, ‘look, look…up on the stage...HE is here!’ But no one wants to listen, they only sing louder in an attempt to drown me out. And now, because I have stepped out of line from where I was, no one wants to admit me back into the line at any point. So I turn and head for the stage. He is here and I’m not going to let anyone or anything keep me from Him. I clamber over the carved rows of seats, dive into the orchestra pit and finally reach the stage. I pause for a moment to say something to J__, but I see close up he is trying to ignore me too. The profuse sweat dripping from his brow shows the effort it takes him to remain oblivious. So I walk past him and cautiously make my approach toward the overwhelming presence of God.”
“A clear voice says to me, ’come and stand by my side.’ Then as I get to a certain point and stop it says again, ‘turn around.’ I turn, facing J__’s back and the crowd and I feel the Lord’s great hand settle on my shoulder. His right hand…Then He says, ‘tell me what you see.’ The first thing I notice is the difference in point of view. From the stadium floor it looked as though J__ had the Lord behind him. But from where I stood now, it was much more obvious that J__ had turned his back to God. ‘To the folks out there, J__ looks as if he has your backing and blessing for this assembly, but I can see now he does not know you and does not want to know you.’ 1 The voice said, ’very good. What else do you see?’”
“I looked out at the moving crowd shuffling this way and that, their songs now competing with one another as if volume and ecstatic fervor were synonymous with holiness; individuals and small groups broke off from larger ones, rejoined the line with other groups and individuals, each driven by a ‘new’ interpretation or worship style. Some broke out in cacophonous tongues; others began to exhibit almost pagan ritual when engaging in their ‘new’ worship groups, but all began to recede away from the stage. At one point it was decided by some that scaling the back wall of the stadium was desirable, as if height now equaled holiness. But these were committing a grievous error as another property of the onyx was revealed."
"Onyx, while beautiful, can be quite sharp if sheared in just the right way. It has been used by indigenous peoples for millennia as knives and arrowheads. The back walls of the stadiums were roughly hewn to give a textural counterpoint to the smooth exactitude of the carved seats. As Pastors and other group leaders scrambled backward to scale- those ebon walls, they found to their dismay and my horror that the handholds and footholds they sought to grasp were sharp, crude knife blades. Cries of shock and pain began to punctuate the singing, as blood began to flow freely on the rough rock wall. The Pastors and leaders tried to cover their self-mutilation as a sign of greater holiness, exhorting the followers to copy their gruesome lead. At that point, I noticed my own pastor climbing the wall. His robes were tattered and spotted with blood, but he had managed to climb higher than the others and was nearing the top. As He reached up to grab the ledge itself, he cut his hand to nearly the bone on its razor-like edge. A huge gout of arterial spray shot straight up and over him spattering himself and those below him with gore. As he finally slid over the precipice, he stood and looked down at his tattered body and spurting, mortal wounds then raised his hands over his head and shouted, ‘Behold! I am anointed with the blood of the Lamb!’ I looked down at the floor weeping, unable to take the sight any longer.”
“I told the Lord all that I saw, and I could hear the wellspring of deep sadness in the voice as He said, ‘you see clearly.’ As I woke up I heard:
"These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.”
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