Vancouver, Washington
Sunday, November 27, 2011
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A Prophetic Dream about Reaching the Nations
It
is rare that I remember my dreams when I wake up. Even when I do
remember them, they aren't often very vivid. Last night I had what I
believe to be a prophetic dream. It was so clear and vivid, and I woke up remembering the entire dream. At first I just
dismissed it as my imagination. Yet as I sat down to spend time with God
this morning, Holy Spirit spoke to me about it's significance.
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THE DREAM
I
found myself in a foreign land. All around me was a desert for miles
and miles, except for a river that flowed to my right. God began to
speak to me about building a "modern day Noah's ark." But instead of a
boat that would save people and animals from God's wrath in the form of a flood, I was to
build an enormous metal vehicle with giant wheels that would collect and
contain people from all nations on the earth, especially the remaining
unreached people groups. This vehicle would then transport these people from every tribe, tongue and nation safely into the
heaven. The schematics and blueprints were so clear. I knew exactly what
this vehicle was to look like before I even began to build it. But in
my dream, I found two other guys who I shared this heavenly mandate with
in order to get some help in building the vehicle. When I approached
them about it they simply took the blueprints from my hand, brushed me
off and told me that they would build it without my help. I wan't upset
at all about this, as I was just so thankful that this vehicle was going
to be built, as God had commanded.
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Time passed and the two guys that had taken the blueprints from me came and let me know that they had finished building the vehicle.
As they unveiled their finished work, I gazed at a vehicle that had
very little resemblance of that which was laid out so clearly in the
heavenly schematics. I shook my head in disbelief and told the two guys
that it was entirely wrong. The vehicle in the blueprints was to be
indestructible and over thirty feet tall, made of unpainted
brushed-chrome with wheels nearly twenty feet tall. The vehicle they had
made looked more like a Disneyland tram that was long and painted
nicely to make it attractive. In my dream I believed that these guys
weren't trying to purposefully do anything wrong in taking creative
license and deviating from the original plans, forming a vehicle that
they had genuinely thought would accomplish the task more effectively.
But it was still not the vehicle that God had wanted to be built.
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Just
then two large blue stones fell from the sky which the two guys caught
and tried to carry with a great amount of difficulty. I then saw lips
form from the sky itself and the voice of Papa God telling the two guys
that they had really blown it and the vehicle not only was displeasing
to Him, but incapable of finishing the task of bringing the nations and
unreached people groups into His Kingdom. God then told me that I was to
build the vehicle to the exact measurements that He had originally
given me in the heavenly blueprints. Of course, I agreed and built the
vehicle. It was an amazing thing to behold. People from every tribe,
tongue and nation began to fill the vehicle as it made it's way to
heaven. Then I woke up.
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SOME INTERPRETATION
As I sat in God's presence this morning, pondering this dream, it became clearer and clearer to me
what it meant. Of course, most of it is pretty obvious to me, as there
have been many prophecies over my life concerning reaching the nations.
Much of the imagery in this dream simply confirms that which God has
already spoken to me for many years now.
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As
we have now traveled to nearly every continent to reach the remaining
6,000+ unreached people groups, we have tried to partner with other
missionaries from various missions organizations. As a whole, most of
these missionaries operate under a program which their missions
organization has given them as a "blueprint" to reach the nations. It
generally starts out in learning the language and building relationships
with the indigenous people they are attempting to reach and spending
years laying a foundation through the Old Testament leading up to
Christ. Yet when we visit with these missionaries, they find that after
as many as twenty years or more, they have only seen a few people come
to Christ, and are frustrated at the meager fruit that the many years of
their labors have produced. Of course, there are exceptions to this,
and we have partnered with many different missions organizations and
churches, but even so many of the churches that have been planted on the
foreign mission field in the years past have turned into religious
establishments that don't look much at all like the Kingdom of God that
Jesus spoke of. I am not in any way trying to criticize missionaries or
missions organizations that operate in such ways, nor do I think that
any fruitfulness that has been produced in years passed is somehow
invalid. More than anything, I have compassion on these missionaries,
organizations and churches, and would love to see the tides turn for
them. I believe that the vehicle that wasn't built to heavenly
specifications by the two guys in my dream is symbolic of this older
pattern or model of missions that may have been established with pure
motivations, and may have even worked a bit for a season. It is a model
that creates boxes which become limitations to the Spirit of God truly
moving among the nations. It is a religion that becomes stagnant like
all still water that hasn't been stirred. It is an unholistic approach
to reaching a world that has needs on so many levels.
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There
is an end-times harvest of souls waiting to be reaped in every nation.
The vehicle described in the heavenly blueprints in my dream is one that
is built with the love of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. We
have seen thousands of people come to Christ in many nations over a
short period of time because we have asked God, "What does love look
like in this culture?" and, "What are heaven's strategies in reaching
this specific people group?" Love looks like feeding the hungry. Love
looks like digging a well and giving a village clean water. Love looks
like rescuing girls from sex-trafficking and placing them in a loving
environment where they can be healed and given back their innocence and
dignity. Love looks like adopting children that have no parents and
starting a children's center. Love looks like healing the sick. Love
looks like raising the dead. Love looks like preaching the gospel. Love
looks like starting a Bible school to train indigenous people in Kingdom
culture. Love looks like dreaming with a people group about sustainable
projects that will ensure their village's existence into the future.
Love looks like a lot of things. And it is heaven's strategies that we
must have if we want to see every unreached people group and nation
brought to Christ in our lifetime. I am tired of people dying and going
to hell because they haven't had an opportunity to hear and respond to
the holistic gospel of Christ that I have been talking about. With a new
breed of missionaries of laid-down lovers of God, the vehicle of my
dream that is huge and indestructible will be filled with people of
every tribe, tongue and nation.
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On
a personal note, God has really been speaking to me about all of this,
especially on the Iris Latin America trip. It would be so easy for my
family and I to spend our lives living among a people group, learning
their language and culture, hearing from heaven and bringing them to
Jesus. In fact, we have done this in various settings over the years.
But what the Lord has really been speaking to me about is the fact that
my family, or Jesse and Tanya on our own can only bring a handful of
people groups into heaven in our lifetime. But if we invest into other
world-changers and train them, we can see much more Kingdom impact than
simply running on our own. This was evident to me in Central America
over the past two months. I saw tremendous growth in each of the team
members as Jesse, Tanya and I did our best to lead them in love, in
power and in freedom. I believe that this dream has something to do with
our involvement in training missionaries with Iris Ministries, both in
Mozambique and in Micronesia. I know that we will be able to run to the
ends of the earth with this great end times army and build the vehicle
of my prophetic dream according to Papa God's specifications. I am still
not sure what the two large blue stones meant in the dream, but I am so
in love with our God who speaks to us in various ways.
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Christian Young
