Opportunity For Change in America
by Lynne Hammond
September 27, 2016
http://machammond.org/blog/opportunity-change-america/
The winds of change are blowing right now. Every day, if you watch the news, you can see it with your eyes. You can hear it with your ears. In places all around the world, governments and cultures are being shaken. Instability is increasing.
From Europe, where Great Britain’s break with the European Union and the rising tide of terrorism are overturning the status quo, to other regions across the globe too numerous to mention, economies are quaking. Things are being displaced. Old seasons are giving way to new.
It’s happening here in the United States with the upheaval in this election. Never in our lifetime have we witnessed such political turmoil in this nation. Never have we seen anything like this. Clearly, the door has been opened for change in America.
It’s not just a door of political change, either. It’s a door of supernatural change. Spiritually, morally, economically, militarily, the United States is on the verge of a season of great restoration. I see it with the eyes of my heart as clearly as can be—
God is opening up before us a majestic new door!
I first learned about spiritual doors from a man named Philip E. Halverson. He mentored my husband and me in prayer many years ago. Some of his favorite verses were those in John 10 where Jesus said, “He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The watchman opens the door for this man, and the sheep listen to his voice and heed it…I am the Door; anyone who enters in through Me will be saved (will live)” (vv. 1–3, 9)
Brother Halverson taught us that while Jesus is the door of the sheepfold, the watchman who opens the door is the Holy Ghost. He taught us that’s why praying in the Spirit is so vital. Praying in tongues opens doors to the supernatural. It opens gateways in the realm of the spirit!
I saw a wonderful example of this when I was in Grodno, Belarus, a number of years ago on a missions trip. I’d gone there with a team from our church because the Lord had given my husband an outline about how to win a city for God and that’s where we’d been led to implement it. One evening before one of our evangelistic services, a group of us were praying and the Lord spoke to us through a word of prophecy. “I’m going to show you tonight why you’re here in Grodno,” He said.
By the time we finished praying I’d forgotten about that word, but as we were coming down the stairs to go to the service I heard a woman begin to scream. The moment I saw her I sensed the fire of God connecting us. Although she was speaking Russian and I was speaking English, I hurried toward her, grabbed her hands and, through an interpreter, her story unfolded.
She said that several years earlier, she’d moved away from her family and Pentecostal heritage to live in Grodno with her husband. When she arrived, she’d found it to be the deadest place spiritually she’d ever seen. Desperate to see a change there, she cried out in prayer. “You have to send help from heaven, Lord! You have to send laborers to this city!” For a while, nothing seemed to happen so she cried out all the more, “God, where are You?” “I want you to keep praying,” He answered.
For two years she prayed and prayed for that city. Then, six months before we were to arrive, she began seeing in visions some of the faces of believers who would come to help. The night she saw our prayer group coming down the stairs, she recognized our faces as some of those the Lord had shown her. That’s why she was screaming. She knew her prayers had been answered.
A spiritual door had been opened and her city was about to change!
In the New Testament, you can see this pattern repeated time and again. You can see that sometimes spiritual doors are opened and sometimes they’re closed. Acts 16:6 says, for instance, that when Paul and Silas first set out on their missionary journey they were “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Word in [the province of] Asia.” Door closed! They couldn’t go.
The same problem cropped when they tried to preach in Bithynia. “The Spirit of Jesus did not permit them” (v. 7). In other words there, too, the door was closed. Happily, in Troas and Philippi, “a door of opportunity was opened…by the Lord” (2 Cor. 2:12). So Paul and Silas went to those cities, preached, and saw wonderful results.
Later, Acts 19 says that in Asia the door that was formerly closed cracked open a little. Paul was able to slip in there and in Ephesus—a Devil-worshiping city where witchcraft ran rampant—he found a little group of 12 believers. Paul began ministering to them and, little by little, that first little crack got wider. Miracles began to be poured out. The Gospel was confirmed with so many astonishing signs and wonders “that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus” (v. 10).
Wow! Door open!
In 1 Corinthians 16:8, Paul called this “an effectual door.” Effectual is an energy word. It speaks of God’s mighty supernatural power. In Ephesus that power swung the door to the supernatural open so wide that eventually, not only did all of Asia open up to the Gospel, multitudes in that once-demonized place threw their witchcraft paraphernalia into piles and burned it all up.
This is the kind of door I’ve been praying for in America!
I’ve prayed for it, as many others have, for a long time now, and I sense in my heart it really has begun to open for us. We may not be experiencing it yet in the natural, but in the spirit, we’ve stepped into the season of America’s full restoration. I can already see it happening in my heart:
America being respected among the nations again and bringing honor and glory to God. America prospering, preaching the Gospel, and being a place where miracles, signs, and wonders are poured out.
This is what God had in mind for this nation from the beginning. It’s the “expected end” and “final outcome” He originally planned for us (Jer. 29:11). For years I’ve had my eyes fixed on this outcome—and nothing else. It’s all I see when I pray for America.
Recently, however, the Lord showed me something that put me on alert! At about three o’clock one morning, He visited me in a night vision or a dream (I don’t really know which) and took me up in the spirit over New York City to the place where the Statue of Liberty stands.
I know that statue well. When I was growing up, my father took our family to see it every summer. Time and again in the sweltering heat, we climbed the stairs inside Lady Liberty and heard the facts about her: Given to America by France in 1886, she represents the gateway to freedom. Her crown symbolizes her authority and leadership in the world. Her torch lights the way for immigrants to come to this country, and the broken chain on her foot declares, “You will be in bondage no more!”
As familiar as the statue is to me, however, in my vision I saw something I’d never seen.
I saw a dark, skeleton-shaped cloud, in a Middle Eastern headdress, hovering right next to the torch in the Statue of Liberty’s hand. The skeleton was blowing puffs of smoke toward her, and each time the smoke hit her, this symbol of liberty—this standard I’ve lived by my whole life!—would reel as if she was about to fall.
What’s wrong with her?! I wondered.
As if in answer, the image of a hand appeared. Starting out as small as a child’s, the hand quickly grew into a powerful fist holding a cup that was cut through by a sword marked with a crescent and a moon. The hand tried to force the statue to drink from the cup and an evil voice said, “You must drink the dregs of this cup of judgment! Punishment to your inhabitants!”
Recognizing the words as an echo of Jeremiah 25:28-29, I thought, How dare you try to use Scripture against her, you demon power from hell! Then—all of a sudden—I heard another sound. It was coming from the other side of the torch and sounded like a swarm of buzzing bees.
As bees became louder and louder I realized—that’s the voices of pray-ers!
I could tell by how they sounded they knew their authority in Christ. They knew that every demonic power and principality is defeated and that we as the body of Christ on earth are here to enforce that defeat on every side and in every place.
As they continued to pray and use their authority, a most interesting thing happened. The angels would join them! “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord! When the righteous rule the people rejoice!” the pray-ers would say.
And in response, the angels would smile and say in return, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord! When the righteous rule the people rejoice!” (Ps. 33:12, Prov. 29:2).
Every time they made those declarations, the hand would relinquish its hold and stop pushing that cup of judgment toward Lady Liberty. Gradually, the hand began to vanish and I saw again the glorious door God has opened for America. Then the Lord spoke to me.
“You can have one…or the other,” He said. “You can have My glory in this nation or you can have what the Devil is trying to do. So keep praying. Pray for America until you see the end of that dark cloud of evil. Pray until you see devil worship and every other kind of ‘ism’ driven out.”
This will be an everlasting prayer assignment for me until the Church is raptured!
And I’m sharing this vision with you today because I believe it will ignite you to pray, too. I believe it will help you realize as I have how critical our prayers are right now. Whether or not we as believers take our place in prayer right now will make all the difference.
We’re stepping on change, right now. In this nation, it’s either going to go one way or the other. So let’s declare in prayer that America will go the way of the Lord. Let’s put Satan on notice that we’ve seen his plans and they are coming to nothing; that this nation was born in the mind of God and it’s His outcome for her that is coming to pass.
As believers, we’re not just sweet little sheep following our Good Shepherd, we’re the spiritual army of God on earth. We have the authority to enforce the Word of the Lord over our nation. We have the power to yield to the Watchman, pray in other tongues, and petition almighty God, saying:
Heavenly Father, open the door to this nation wider! Increase our restoration! By the power of the blood of Jesus, and in honor of the blood shed by our founding fathers, complete the good work You began in us. Cause America to be once again a light to the nations, a beacon of the Gospel, and a testimony of Your power to the world. With You, Lord, all things are possible. So, in Jesus’ name, we believe and declare, “All America shall be saved!”
I’d like for you to have a copy of my message, The Watchman. As a thank you for a gift of any amount, we’ll send this CD to you right away. I believe it will encourage you even more to step into your position as a watchman in these last days. You can give and request your free CD HERE. Please use the Prayer Notes/Lynne Letter designation, thank you!
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Originally Posted by Quest
