“OLD WELLS, FALLEN MANTLES and NEW FOUNTAINS”
A Vision of The Coming Great Awakening
~by Michael Edds.
I moved to a major U.S city in June 2000 to assume the position as Head of School for an interdenominational Christian High School . The school was new but had numerous problems, the most severe totally unknown to me. Prior to my arrival, a teacher had been arrested for involving a student in pornography. The teacher had been convicted and sentenced. Upon my arrival, the incident had become front-page news in the community. To say the least, I was shocked and stunned.
One night I could not sleep. I was very angry with the Lord for putting me into this greatly stressful mess. “Surely, I thought, I deserve better than this.” Around 2 am, I got up to sit on the couch and pout. In spite of my upset state, anger and disgust, the Presence of the Lord settled in the living room. God did not even pay attention to or address my complaint. Instead, His presence was so strong that I physically trembled. He spoke these words, “Old Wells, Fallen Mantles, and New Fountains.” He instructed me to get my Bible. By that time, I too had set aside my complaint. His Presence was so great that I did not know if I could survive it.
I opened my Bible to Isaiah 35: 3-7: “The eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing, for IN THE WILDERNESS SHALL WATER BREAK OUT and streams in the desert. AND THE PARCHED GROUND SHALL BECOME A POOL and the thirsty land SPRINGS OF WATER.”
I was directed to verse 19 of [Isaiah 43]: “Behold I WILL DO A NEW THING. Now it shall SPRING [BURST] FORTH . Shall ye not know it?”
The Lord was moving so quickly through the scriptures that I could hardly keep up. His presence was incredibly strong. I felt like I was floating. Leaving Isaiah, the Lord took me to Joel 2:23: “He will cause to come down for you the rain, THE FORMER RAIN AND THE LATTER RAIN IN THE FIRST MONTH.” Then Joel 2:28 was given which states: “It shall come to pass afterwards that I WILL POUR OUT MY SPIRIT ON ALL FLESH. Your sons and daughters shall PROPHESY, YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS and your YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS.”
Finally, Genesis 26:18 finished the scriptures that the Lord was rapidly giving me: “AND ISAAC DUG AGAIN the WELLS of water which they had DUG IN THE DAYS OF ABRAHAM HIS FATHER.”
The Lord revealed the meaning of this vision:
The Early Church experienced the fullness of God. They had the fullness, the gifts and revelation of the Holy Spirit. They were full of boldness, power and anointing. God turned the world upside down through them. The dead were raised, the blind received sight, the possessed were set free, the sick healed and the Gospel was preached to the poor. The anger of Hell was violently aroused. The more the devil persecuted and killed them, the more they multiplied and spread. So Satan changed his tactics. By 300 AD, Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Empire. What Satan could not do through persecution, he accomplished through promotion, position, power, prestige, acceptance and prosperity. They SOLD OUT! The Church backslid and humanity later fell into the brutality of the Dark Ages.
The purpose of each Great Awakening or the bursting forth of a spiritual well was to restore an element of truth that the Early Church possessed back to the church. Luther restored ‘the just shall live by faith’. Wesley, Whitefield, Edwards and the First Great Awakening restored repentance, inward holiness and “Christ in you.” The Second Great Awakening with Barton Stone at Cane Ridge in the West and Francis Asbury in the East brought restoration in society through evangelism, missions, and great social renewal such as abolition, child labor laws, and suffrage movement. The Third Great Awakening of 1857 restored the power of prayer. Azusa Street Outpouring of 1905 restored the in filling and gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Lord stated that He was going to reopen all of the “old wells” of revival in order to restore TOTAL truth to His church.
Fallen mantles of ministry and anointing that rested upon the great men and women of God of old would be picked up and placed on godly men and women today to finish what was started long ago. They are the “Isaacs” that will revisit the old wells of revival and reopen them. The mantles of ministry did not die nor were they buried with Asbury, Wesley, Stone, Amanda Berry Smith and others. They have only been “on hold” until a generation would be born that could relate to them and pick them up. Isaiah 58:12 refers to them: “And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places, thou shall raise up the foundations of many generations, and thou shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.” The Lord said, “What once was shall be again.”
Malachi 4:5 prophecies that “I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And He shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” He said this was not just a generational reconciliation between the old and the young. It is a restoration of His people to the Faith once delivered to the Saints, the Faith of our fathers. The Lord said He was tired of the apostasy, deadness, programs, personality cults, plans and politics that have nearly destroyed His church. He is going to restore HIS church by returning the “Faith of our Fathers to their children (descendants) and the children (descendants) to the Faith of our Fathers.” The old wells will BURST forth and the fallen mantles will be picked up. This will be a “suddenly”. Isaiah speaks of it occurring in the desert places and on the barren heights. In other words, it will happen in the most unlikely of places. The Lord continued His interpretation of the vision by explaining to me that “NEW FOUNTAINS” would gush or break forth also.
Something that has never occurred in any Great Awakening or in any historic move of God will exploded upon the scene in our day. Joel 2:23 speaks of God sending t
Get your free registration and log in to view entire article
Awake
I am awake? I am? Tell them, I Am sends you as His servant to deliver His message. I think, therefore, I am?
The apostle Paul tells us that all of nature declares the gospel of Christ so that those who have not heard the gospel are actually without excuse.
The most basic and primitive occurrence in nature is that of self awareness. I Am is inescapably with us. There is nowhere to hide.
From the first waking moment of every day the Glory of God is declared unto us. It is this mantle that we must choose to put on, or not to put on. This struggle or wrestling begins daily. We can choose to cloak it through religious imaginings, but we cannot escape it.
A great awakening? Or a secluded one. His breath is within us. The time to choose, with that first waking moment of the day. Do I kneel to superstition? Or do I place my feet firmly on the ground in communion with God and choose to walk in righteousness? Will my next action bring food to the starving? Shelter to the homeless? Healing to the sick? Do I live in reality with God or do I choose to stay asleep and wrestle with God for a blessing only in my dreams?
This is the Great Awakening. Awake therefore and do not sleep through the day with vain imaginings of what shall come for that which is at hand is worth two of what shall come. That Christ died? Surely, we all believe it. That he rose from the dead? Look into your heart and know the truth. If the truth be not in your heart, then to where do you look for it? Is it caught in the fence? Can you find it there? For what did Christ suffer and die? If Christ did not suffer with the knowledge of death, then what was his sacrifice? Have you placed your hand into his side? Have you poked at the holes in his hands?
Are you living in faith or imagination? Do you choose to answer this question honestly or do you choose to imagine? If you are imagining, then why not imagine a city of gold coming down from the sky? Place aside your worries and fears go running to where you imagine people will listen to you rant about sin and wickedness.
Or, you can firmly place one foot on the ground after another and walk with your Existence in righteousness shining forth for all to see.
Pick up your cross and suffer and die? But, what then is the message of Christ? That God does not want sacrifices of blood and flesh. A concept so repugnant that death itself spat him back.
Fight fire with fire? Do people give you vain imaginings for a choice of evils? Give them even greater imaginings for a choice of good. Leap to the very alter that epitimizes the imagination, that alter to the unknown god and declare his glories. Cloak and adorn your beliefs so heavenly that you transend this earthly muck and mire and walk on the clouds.
Savor your walk with God here and now in the muck and mire. With each step choose to live with the mantle of righteousness which shines forth relevation and does not hide in superstitious imaginings. Christ has shown us that there is the liberty to do this. If someone tells you that you need to do this or that to be saved, do not listen if it is not for the here and now. Have you been told that you must believe this way or that way? Have you repeated this message to others? How dare I to presume to tell others how God will choose to save their souls.
Choice, my friends. That is the great awakening. Liberty of choice. Oh Lord, in the morning, will I direct my prayer? Unto thee or will I kneel to superstition?
Why do nations wage war? What choice was made in the morning? Today, I will build many machines for destruction of my fellow man. I will beat my plow shear into a sword.
Why do some people find it easier to take a bunch of fertilizer and turn it into a bomb and go to the market and blow themselves up? Wouldn't it be much more interesting to take that fertilizer, put it into the ground, raise a good crop and take that to the market instead?
We loose patience waiting for the crops to grow. We loose patience tending sheep. We fail to savor the quiet moments. Those moments in time and space where we meet with God alone and ponder His majesty. And we choose to not listen to him say, I AM. He says it deep within us.
Here is a gift to the world. Get together with a bunch of friends. Find an old 15 speed bicycle. Fascine it securely like an exercise bike. Take a 60 inch by 60 inch square sheet of 1/2 thick steel and fashion it into a large sprocket. Place the rear gears of the bicycle in the middle of that sprocket and connect them to the drive of the bicycle with a very long chain so that the drive may be peddled at a safe distance from the sprocket. Connect the outer tines of the sprocket to a generator. Take turns with your friends generating electricity. Build several more and place them in a warehouse and then give your electricity through a cooperative to needy families. You get the benefit of the exercise, the environment gets a clean source of energy and perhaps a child stayed warm all winter, had a light with which to see in the dark and read or a refrigerator to keep fresh milk.
Oh, but what about corporate profits? And wouldn't my time be better spent in Australia? Corporate profits would not suffer. In fact, they would rise through the manufacture and maintenance of new products. The electricity generated is being given to those who couldn't afford it in the first place. How many churches are to be found in North America? If all the bretheren pitched in some spare time, I dare say that enough electricity could be generated to light the entire world. That electric cars would be the norm and not the exotic.
Those who have an ear, may they listen well. May those who live in superstition find their freedom.
Post new comment