As "prophetic" voices around the USA trumpet the shaking that is coming in September (2015...which never happened), I think it appropriate to see what the Bible says about God bringing shaking. With such loud voices, passion and seeming authority demanding our attention it might surprise you to know that the shaking that is coming is not what you think, and it is not a cataclysmic event.
About 6 years ago I had a very profound vivid dream. In the dream I saw a dark cloud filled with lightning and thunder and it veiled what I thought was the glory of God. The cloud came to America and began to sweep across the landscape, changing everything it touched. I saw people on a road and because they were unprepared, they were swept away.
Suddenly the next scene I'm in a public bathroom where I am hanging upside down on a bar. There is a man in the corner named Mike and then in the next scene I am standing outside the bathroom, which looks like a rest stop, and the sun is shining bright. When I woke up the Lord immediately gave me Isaiah 43:19, "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?"
I shared the dream with others and thought maybe it meant judgment coming on America (that is what it felt like). But I couldn't get away from the nagging thought that there was more than I realized. It was about that time that I started discovering the gospel from the perspective of grace and so for a long time I couldn't reconcile why the dream said coming shaking-judgment but the gospel seemed to say something totally different.
Then one day I was in prayer and felt compelled to go to Hebrews 12: (please read it here)
18 You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; 19 to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, 20 because they could not bear what was commanded: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” 21 The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling with fear.”
22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
25 See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” 27 The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
I had been studying the eschatology of the NT and the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Suddenly it all made sense. The dream was telling me either that with the help of an angel (Michael), or that he was giving me a Mic (rophone). And that the entire perspective of a soon coming dark judgment from God was a WRONG perspective... (my hanging upside down) in which God was going to turn me right side up and cleanse my perspective (bathrooms often mean cleansing of something in dreams). What God intends for us to see is a bright sunny future.
It also meant that many were going to be swept away be the false prophetic words that brought gloom and doom.
Theology isn't established by a dream, but rightfully dividing the word of God. So I'm not asking you to believe my dream... that was just for me personally in the process of learning. God was Fathering ME.
The dark cloud of gloom of Mt Sinai that the author of Hebrews speaks of at the giving of the Law was the exact one that I saw in my dream. This was the perspective I was seeing still in the future that was erroneous. Those Jews in that day were facing the end of the old covenant Law when the earthly city of Jerusalem was about to be destroyed by Rome. NOTICE that it says, "ONCE more" God would shake the heavens and the earth. Not in their generation and again in another generation and multiple times throughout history. Once.
The purpose? So that everything of the Law in which they trusted would be shaken loose, and only the eternal would remain. The natural city, the temple, the priesthood, and the sacrifices would utterly be shaken so that the only thing that remained was the spiritual kingdom, the Jerusalem which is above, you as the temple of the Spirit, the priesthood of the believer, and Jesus as a priest of the new covenant not the old (he wasn't from the tribe of Levi therefore could not be a priest representing the Law).
The writer of Hebrews was convinced that it was so close that he said,
- For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things about to come. (Hebrews 10: 1)
- as they saw the Day drawing near (Hebrews 10: 25)
- and the fury of a fire which is about to consume the adversaries of the gospel (Hebrews 10: 27: Jerusalem was burned with fire in AD 70)
- For yet in a VERY LITTLE WHILE, He who is coming will come, and will not delay. (Hebrews 10: 37- coming in the last judgment of the Law)
- For here we DO NOT have a lasting city, [natural Jerusalem] but we are seeking the one that is about to come [spiritual Jerusalem which is above]. (Hebrews 13: 14)
So what is going to happen in September (2015)? There could be some self fulfilled prophecies. Every economy is fragile so there is no prognosticator-prophetic insight required to know our national debt is a problem. But God isn't the author of our problems, he is the answer to them.
The shaking the Bible speaks of is over! The only shaking today the byproduct of the good that he is revealing. We are only shaken to the degree that we too hold on to a perspective that dishonors the New Covenant. God reveals truth in love and we get the grace to see it and believe it!
The real shaking that is coming will only be the personal shaking that Christians feel as they have been duped by false prophets selling books about something that will never take place. The real shaking is the religious system that is built on bad eschatology and the disillusionment that will come to those loyal to that system.
But the good news is, if they will humble themselves, they will start to see that what God is really up to is advancing his kingdom. It is an optimistic kingdom filled with peace, love and hope. This was the message of Isaiah 9:7,
Of the INCREASE of His government AND PEACE
There will be NO END...
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Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ O. Krause