Preface

In early 1995, the Lord gave me a dream, which was the first of a number of prophetic experiences tied together. I published a condensed version of the FIRST DREAM IN THE MORNING STAR PROPHETIC BULLETIN AND THE MORNING STAR Journal, under the title of The Hordes of Hell Are Marching. As I continued to seek the Lord about this great spiritual battle that I had seen, I had a series of visions and prophetic experiences that were related to it. I published condensed versions of these in The Morning Star Journal as The Hordes of Hell Are Marching, Parts II & III.

This series became probably the most popular writings we have ever published. We were deluged with requests to have all three parts published together in a book. I determined to do this and set about to fill in all that had been left out in the condensed versions. However, just when I was ready to give this to our editing department, I had another prophetic experience that was obviously related to this vision, and contained what I felt to be the most important parts of all.

These are included in Parts IV - V of this book (some of Part IV was published in Part III in The Journal). There is also a considerable amount of previously unpublished material in the first three parts of this book.

HOW I RECEIVED THE VISION

One of the most common questions that I receive about this vision concerns how I received it. I believe that this is an important question, and therefore will attempt to briefly answer it here. First, I must explain what I mean by visions and "prophetic experiences."

Prophetic "experiences" as I call them are numerous and diverse. They include all of the primary ways in which the Lord has spoken to His people in the Scriptures. Because the Lord is the same today as He was yesterday, He has never ceased to relate to His people in the same ways, and these experiences continue to be found throughout church history. As the apostle Peter explained in his sermon recorded in Acts Chapter Two, dreams, visions and prophecy are primary signs of the last days, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. As we are obviously getting closer to the end of this age, these are becoming increasingly common in our time.

One reason why they are becoming so much more common now is because we will need them for accomplishing our purposes in these times. It is also true that Satan, who unfortunately knows the Scriptures better than many Christians, also understands the importance of prophetic revelation in God's relationship to His people, and he is therefore pouring out his own counterfeit gifts in great measure to those who serve him. However, there would be no counterfeit if there was not a genuine reality, just as there are no counterfeit three dollar bills because there are no real ones.

Soon after I became a Christian in 1972, I read this passage in Acts Two and understood that if these were the end times it was important to understand these ways that the Lord would be speaking to us. I do not remember praying to have the experiences myself at first, but I did begin to have them, which gave me even more impetus for understanding them.

Since that time I have gone through periods of time when they would be very frequent. I have also gone through long periods of time when I would not have any such experiences. However, after each period of not having them they would return, and were either much more powerful, or much more frequent.

Lately they have been both. Through all of this I have learned a great deal about the prophetic gifts, experiences, and prophetic people, which I will address in more detail in a book soon to be released.

There are many levels of prophetic revelation. The beginning levels include prophetic "impressions." These are genuine revelations. They can be extraordinarily specific and accurate when interpreted by those who are experienced and sensitive to them. However, it is on this level that our "revelations" can be affected by our own feelings, prejudices, and doctrines. I have therefore resolved not to use such expressions as "thus saith the Lord" with any revelations that come on this level.

Visions can come on the impression level, also. They are gentle and must be seen with "the eyes of our heart." These, too, can be very specific and accurate, especially when received and/or interpreted by those who are experienced. The more the "eyes of our hearts" are opened, as Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:18, the more powerful and useful these can be.

The next level of revelation is a conscious sense of the presence of the Lord, or the anointing of the Holy Spirit, which gives special illumination to our minds. This often comes when I am writing, or speaking, and it gives me much greater confidence in the importance or accuracy of what I am saying. I believe that this was probably experienced by the apostles as they wrote the New Testament epistles. This will give us great confidence, but it is still a level where we can still be influenced by our prejudices, doctrines, etc. This is why I believe, in certain matters, Paul would say that he was giving his opinion, but that he thought he had the agreement of the Spirit of the Lord. In general, there is much more of a need for humility than dogmatism when we deal with the prophetic.

"Open visions" occur on a higher level than impressions; they tend to give us more clarity then we may have even when we feel the conscious presence of the Lord, or the anointing. Open visions are external, and are viewed with the clarity of a movie screen. Because they cannot be controlled by us I believe that there is far less possibility of mixture in revelations that come this way.

Another higher level prophetic experience is a trance, such as Peter had when he was first instructed to go to the house of Cornelius and preach the gospel to the Gentiles for the first time, and such as Paul had when he prayed in the temple in Acts 22. Trances were a common experience of the biblical prophets. Trances are like dreaming when you are awake. Instead of just seeing a "screen" like in an open vision, you feel like you are in the movie, that you are actually there in a strange way. Trances can range from those that are rather mild, so that you are still conscience of your physical surroundings, and can even still interact with them, to those where you feel like you are literally in the place of your vision. This seems to be what Ezekiel experienced rather frequently, and what John probably experienced when he had the visions recorded in the book of Revelation.

The visions contained in this book all began with a dream. Some of it came under a very intense sense of the presence of the Lord, but the overwhelming majority was received in some level of a trance. Most of it came on the level where I was still conscious of my surroundings, and could even interact with them, such as answering the phone. When they were interrupted, or when things got so intense that I would have to get up and walk around, when I sat back down I would immediately be right back where I had left off. Once the experience became so intense that I actually got up and left the mountain cabin where I go to seek the Lord, and drove home. Over a week later I returned and almost immediately I was right back where I left off.

I have never known how to "turn on" such experiences, but I have almost always had the liberty to turn them off at will. Twice, large portions of this vision came at what I considered to be very inconvenient times, when I had gone to my cabin to get some important work done while facing a deadline. Two of our Journal issues were a little late going out because of this, and the last book I released I had hoped to finish a few months earlier. But the Lord does not seem to be very concerned about our deadlines!

In the dream and the trances, I had what I consider to be greatly magnified gifts of discernment and words of knowledge. Sometimes when I look at a person, or pray for a church or ministry, I just start to know things about them of which I have no natural knowledge. During these prophetic experiences these gifts were operating on a level that I have never personally experienced in "real life." That is, in this vision I could look at a division of the evil horde and know all of its strategies and capabilities at once. I do not know how the knowledge came to me, but I just knew it, and in great detail. In some cases I would look at something or someone and know their past, present and future all at once. To save time and space in this book I have included this knowledge just as matter of fact without going into an explanation of how I got it.

USING PROPHETIC REVELATIONS

I must state emphatically that I do not believe that any kind of prophetic revelation is for the purpose of establishing doctrine. We have the Scriptures for that. There are two basic uses for the prophetic. The first is for revealing the present or future strategic will of the Lord in certain matters. We have examples of this in Paul's dream to go to Macedonia, and the trance in which he was told to immediately leave Jerusalem. We, also, have examples of this in the ministry of Agabus. One of these related to a famine that was to come upon the whole world, and the other had to do with Paul's visit to Jerusalem.

We, also, see such revelations being given for illuminating doctrine that is taught in the Scripture, but is not clearly seen. The example of Peter's trance is one that illuminated both the will of the Lord, and sound biblical teaching that the Scriptures were very clear about (the Gentiles being able to receive the gospel), but which had not yet been understood by the church.

The visions in this book do contain some strategic revelations, and they also illuminated some biblical doctrines that I had honestly not seen before, but now see quite clearly. However, most of the doctrine that was illuminated to me in these experiences I have known and taught for years, even though I cannot say that I have lived them all very well. Many times I thought about the warning that Paul gave to Timothy to pay attention to his own teachings. Many of the words spoken to me in these experiences I have, myself, taught many times. I know that I fail to practice some of my own teachings the way I should, and, therefore, many of these I accepted as a personal rebuke. Even so, I also felt that they were general messages and I have included them here.

I was encouraged by some to write this as an allegory, in third person like The Pilgrim's Progress, but I decided against it for several reasons. First, I feel that some would have taken this to be the result of my own creativity, and that would have been wrong. I would like to be this creative, but I am not.

Another reason was that I felt that I could be much more accurate if I related it just like I received it, and I did my best to convey these experiences just the way that they were received. However, I consider my memory of details to be one of my greatest weaknesses. At times I have questioned my own memory for certain details in this vision, and I think that you should therefore have the liberty to do the same. I think that this is right with any such messages. Only the Scriptures deserve to be considered infallible. As you read I pray that the Holy Spirit will lead you to the truth, and separate any chaff that may be present from the wheat.

Rick Joyner