Showing posts with label Author- Perry Stone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Author- Perry Stone. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Opening the Gates of Heaven by Perry Stone

Tour Date: March 17, 2012

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It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!



Today's Wild Card author is:


and the book:

Charisma House (March 6, 2012) 

***Special thanks to Jon Wooten of Charisma House for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Perry Stone directs one of America's fastest-growing ministries, The Voice of
Evangelism, striving to reach the world with the gospel of Christ through
regional conferences, television, CD/DVD resources, printed material, and
missionary sponsorship. An author and international evangelist, Stone is
recognized worldwide as an authoritative teacher of Bible prophecy. He continued
his education through Lee College extended studies and holds a BA in theology
from Covenant Life Christian College. He lives in Cleveland, Tennessee, with his
wife of twenty-seven years, Pam, and their two children.

Visit the author's website.


SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:


Walking in and under the favor of God
Do your prayers, praise, and worship sometimes feel like a routine? Weeks or
months may pass with no demonstration of any financial, spiritual, or personal
breakthrough.

In Opening the Gates of Heaven, Perry Stone shows you how to release the flow of
heaven's blessing through both God's revelation and the intervention of angelic
messengers. With powerful examples from the lives of biblical characters and
current examples from his own life, he reveals:

* Twelve truths he learned from the greatest prayer warrior
* The keys to recognizing the gates of heaven
* What you should do when God says no or delays answers
* Seven spiritual laws you must follow for answered prayer
* How to pray through the battle of the firstborn

You do not have to be bound by the frustration of empty prayers and miracle-less
living. God's desire to meet your needs—and to pour out an overflow of
blessing—is a part of His covenant with you.



Product Details:
List Price: $15.99

Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Charisma House (March 6, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1616386533
ISBN-13: 978-1616386535


AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:


Contents

Introduction

1 The Man Who Saw the Gate of Heaven 5
2 The Five Gates of the Holy Spirit 17
3 Prayer Types and Secrets 29
4 Seven Spiritual Laws for Answered Prayer 41
5 Who Closed the Heavens Over My Head? 57
6 Praying Through the Battle of the Firstborn 73
7 Miracle Prayers—Making the Impossible Possible 89
8 Praying in Whose Name—Jesus or Yeshua? 107
9 What to Do When You Don’t Know How to Pray 117
10 Twelve Significant and Effective Insights
My Dad Taught Me About Prayer 137
11 The Power of Meditating Upon the Lord 153
12 Releasing the Angel of Blessing 161
13 When the Joseph Ring Is Placed on Your Finger 183
14 The Power of a Spoken Word 201
15 Using the Power of the Seed 211
16 The Principles of Harvest 223
17 Offering God Something He Doesn’t Want 235
Conclusion: Important Principles for Opening Heaven’s Gates 243
Notes 253




CHAPTER 1

The Man Who Saw the Gate of Heaven


And Jacob called the name of the place where God spoke with him, Bethel.
—Genesis 35:15


Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, was in serious trouble. He had deceived his brother, Esau, and his father, and he had taken the blessing intended for the firstborn son from Esau (Gen. 27:41). Fearing physical reprisal, Jacob went into exile, traveling far from
home, and eventually arrived at a location near a place called Luz (Gen. 28:19). One evening as the sun was setting, Jacob stopped for the night and, using stones as a pillow, lay down to sleep. Late that night as he drifted off to sleep, he experienced a mysterious and wonderful dream. In his dream Jacob saw a ladder whose base was setting on the earth, but the top of the ladder reached into heaven. When we think of a ladder, we picture a stepladder with steps that one climbs to reach the roof of his house. The Hebrew word ladder is cullam and is actually a staircase. This is evident, as Jacob saw angels going up and coming down the ladder. This supernatural ladder may have been in the form of a spiral, a common heavenly design. Through the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have observed that in the galaxy in which we live, and in other galaxy forms, a “majestic disk of stars and dust lanes” can be seen in the form of spirals. When Solomon constructed his temple in Jerusalem, there was a winding (spiral) staircase that wound from the ground floor to the second tier chamber, and a second winding staircase led from the middle to the third story of the sacred building (1 Kings 6:8, kjv).

One of my ministry partners, when hearing me speak about this ladder, made an interesting observation. She noted that the double-strand molecules of nucleic acids such as DNA were in the form of what is called a double helix. The double helix appears as a twisted ladder that is held together by base pairs that are like steps from the top to the bottom of the helix.2 While the DNA ladder is found in the blood molecules of all humans linked to life itself, Jacob’s ladder was a ladder of life, linking and connecting the heavenly to the earthly, or the world of men with the world of angels and the supernatural. Since the galaxies of the universe are spiral, perhaps this heavenly staircase
was in the form of a spiral, linking to the DNA spiral of life that God implanted in the first Adam at the beginning of Creation!

The dream of this ladder stunned Jacob. We read his reaction after he awoke:

And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!”
—Genesis 28:17

Two important points are noted in his statement. The term “this place” identified the land on which Jacob had slept that night. For years I pondered on the exact location of the place Jacob was speaking of where the dream occurred. The Bible says he called the name of the place Bethel, which in Hebrew means “house of God” (Gen. 28:19).
He identified the land where he laid his head as the “gate of heaven.” At the time of the dream, no physical “house of God” had been set aside for the Hebrews (Jewish people) in the land, as the Hebrew family only consisted of Isaac, Rebekah, Esau, and Jacob. It would be centuries later, after Israel expanded to six hundred thousand men (Exod. 12:37), that Moses constructed the traveling wilderness tent called the tabernacle (Exod. 25:9). Generations later David’s chosen son, Solomon, built the sacred temple in Jerusalem (2 Chron. 3). However, centuries earlier than the building of either the tabernacle or the temple, Jacob had identified the site where he had the dream—this place—as the “gate of heaven.” The holy Mountain of the Gate of heaven.

There was only one location on earth set apart from ages past where God placed His name (Deut. 12:5, 11, 21). That place was Jerusalem (Salem), which was also the place where Melchizedek, the first king and priest of righteousness, lived (Gen. 14:18–24). In Jacob’s time there was no holy temple set aside for worshiping God that we know of, just altars that were built by Abraham from natural stones, where special sacrifices were offered (Gen. 8:20; 12:7; 13:18; 22:9).

The man Melchizedek was personally known to Abraham. According to Jewish tradition recorded in a religious Jewish writing called the Book of Jasher (mentioned in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18), Melchizedek was still alive in the time of Isaac and during the early years of Jacob’s life (Jasher 26:5, 10; 28:18).3 In the city of Jerusalem (called “Salem” in Genesis 14:18 and Psalm 76:2), there was a sacred mountain called Mount Moriah. It was this mountain to which God Himself led Abraham to test him by commanding him to offer his covenant son, Isaac, on an altar (Gen. 22:2). It was upon this same mountain, Mount Moriah, that Solomon constructed the elaborate and expensive temple, one of the most expensive buildings in world history (2 Chron. 3:1).

For many years I believed that Jacob was at or near Mount Moriah when he experienced his dream, for he called the place the “gate of heaven.” From Jacob’s family history, he understood that Moriah was the place where his grandfather Abraham had paid tithes to
Melchizedek (Gen. 14:20; Heb. 7:9). He was also aware that his own father, Isaac, had been placed upon a stone altar by Abraham and that a ram had taken his place (Gen. 22:13). Thus the land of Moriah (Jerusalem) was not a strange or new territory for Jacob. It had been designated as the location for the future house of God—the temple, where future offerings, sacrifices, and holy incense would be offered and the holy smoke would ascend toward the gate of heaven for generations!

In the early 1990s I was in Jerusalem in an office near the famedWestern Wall discussing the vision of Jacob’s ladder with Yehuda Getz, the head rabbi. He was asked by a young minister, ScottThomas, where Jacob had the vision of the ladder reaching fromheaven to earth recorded in Genesis 28. The rabbi replied, “Jacobwas sleeping somewhere on the Mount of Olives, and the ladder wassitting on the Temple Mount, on Mount Moriah.” Personally I hadalways believed this, but I knew that in the biblical narrative therewere no specifics as to the name of the place, other than it was calledLuz (Gen. 28:19). The word Luz refers to some type of a nut tree—perhaps an almond tree. In Moses’s day, the almond was consideredas a holy fruit. The rod of Aaron was made from the branch of analmond tree (Num. 17:8).

Rabbi Getz referred to the religious and sacred history found in the Book of Jasher:

And Jacob went forth continuing his road to Haran, and he came as far as mount Moriah, and he tarried there all night near the city of Luz; and the Lord appeared there unto Jacob on that night, and he said unto him, I am the Lord God of Abraham and the God of Isaac thy father.

—Jasher 30:1

The fact that Luz is linked to Jerusalem can be discovered by carefully reading Genesis 35:6:

So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him.

The name Luz was identified with Bethel, a Hebrew word meaning “house of God.” This story reveals that while at Luz, Rebekah’s nurse died and was buried under an oak tree (v. 8). God later revealed Himself again to Jacob, and Jacob built a pillar and called the place Bethel (the house of God). The following verse reveals a clue:

Then they journeyed from Bethel. And when there was but a little distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel labored in childbirth, and she had hard labor.
—Genesis 35:16

The area of Ephrath is today Bethlehem. In fact, Bethlehem is called Bethlehem Ephrath (Ephrathah) (Mic. 5:2). Today near the entrance to modern Bethlehem is the traditional grave of Rebekah, who died while giving birth to Benjamin (Gen. 35:19). Genesis 35:16
says “there was but a little distance” from Bethel to Ephrath. If the Bethel in Jacob’s dream was Jerusalem, and Bethel was a “little distance” to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem, then the distance of about eight miles between Jerusalem and Bethlehem would be considered a “little distance.”

The rabbinical traditions and the textual evidence indicates that Luz was an early city near Mount Moriah, later called the “house of God” by Jacob. It is interesting that after Jacob saw the angels, knowing he was headed into Syria for an unspecified time, he vowed to God that if He would bring him back safely to the land of his fathers, he would
offer God the tenth (Gen. 28:22). This word tenth in Hebrew is the word ‘asar, which is a word linked to the tithe (ma’aser) and refers to the tenth offered to God (Lev. 27:30, 32).

Twenty years passed, and the angel appeared to Jacob instructing him to return home to Canaan (Gen 31:13, 18). Notice the words of the angel:

Then the Angel of God spoke to me in a dream, saying, “Jacob.” And I said, “Here I am.” And He said...“I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and where you made a vow to Me. Now arise, get out of this land, and return to the land of your family.”

—Genesis 31:11–13

God recalled the angelic visitation twenty years prior, reminding Jacob of Bethel and of his vow when he anointed the stone pillar. In the Old Covenant, when altars were built and anointed, the spot became sacred and was marked by God Himself. By reminding Jacob of his vow and the anointing of the pillar, He was recalling Jacob’s prayers, promises, and covenants made at these altars.

When Jacob returned from Syria twenty years later, there still was not a physical house of God in Jerusalem or anywhere else in Canaan. However, generations later it would be one of Jacob’s sons, Levi, who was selected to lead the holy priesthood, and the children of Jacob (called the children of Israel) would present tithes and offerings in the same area when Melchizedek ministered and where Abraham offered Isaac and Jacob saw the ladder. This location was a gate, a portal into the spirit world, and an opening in the atmosphere enabling angels to ascend and descend to carry the tithe and offerings before God and to release the blessing back to earth.

In reality, this gate of heaven was positioned over the Temple Mount itself. The base of the stairway sat on the solid rock of the Temple Mount platform, and when ascending upward, it led to the entrance of the temple of God in heaven. Thus the city of Jerusalem became known as the “city of God” (Ps. 46:4) and the city of the “great King” (Ps. 48:2). The mountain where the temple was constructed is called the “holy mountain” in sixteen Old Testament passages, including Isaiah 11:9; 56:7; and 57:13. The blessings released to the high priest, Levites, and Israelites on the mountain and at the temple were the result of an open heaven, a spiritual ladder reaching from the holy of holies to the throne room of the Almighty in the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2; Rev. 4:1–2). This stairway to heaven enabled God’s chosen people to have access to reach up to God, and in return, God had access to reach down to man.

Jacob revealed that the house of God was the gate of heaven, meaning there was a portal or spiritual opening above the sacred mountain. When the apostle John was on the island of Patmos, he heard a voice saying, “Come up here,” and he saw “a door standing open in heaven” (Rev. 4:1). The Greek word for “door” is the same word for “door” used throughout the New Testament—thura, meaning a portal or an opening. John actually saw the other side of the “ladder,” or the “gate” side (entrance) of God’s heavenly temple. When he entered through the door, he was “in the Spirit,” meaning caught up in the ecstasy or visionary gift of spiritual vision through the influence of the Holy Spirit (v. 2).

John then described “the other side of the ladder” as he entered the open portal door and was standing upon a massive floor of crystal, called a “sea of glass” (v. 6). When light strikes a cut diamond, there are sharp colors of blue, green, orange, and red that actually flash from the sparkling cut stone. A crystal prism catches light and produces the same colors of a rainbow. The floor of the heavenly temple radiates the light of the Eternal One, sitting upon the throne in the center of the heavenly temple. The Almighty dwells in a glorious light that no man can approach (1 Tim. 6:16). As the light radiates throughout the temple, the reflection on the crystal floor flashes beautiful colors.

In Revelation 6 John can actually see under the clear floor and observe the souls of martyred saints under the golden altar, clothed in white robes (Rev. 6:9). Later, in Revelation 15:2, the glass floor has the appearance of being mingled with fire, which has a reddish and orange glow when burning.

John also saw a throne and described the one sitting on the throne to be like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance. The throne was and is the central feature in the heavenly temple. John said:

And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald.
—Revelation 4:3

On the breastplate of the high priest of the earthly tabernacle there were twelve individual precious gemstones—three stones positioned in four rows in a golden breastplate (Exod. 28:15–21). The first stone was a sardius (v. 17), the stone representing Jacob’s first son, Reuben. The jasper was the last stone on the breastplate (v. 20) and was the stone for Jacob’s last son, Benjamin. The fact that these two stones are the first and last stones on the breastplate of the high priest reveal that the

Almighty is the first and the last. It is written, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End” (Rev. 1:8).

These two stones also hold a clue concerning Christ Himself. The Hebrew name Reuben means, “Behold a son,” and the name Benjamin means, “Son of the right hand.” Christ was introduced at His baptism as God’s Son (Matt. 3:17). After His resurrection He ascended to heaven and is now seated at the right hand of God (Acts 2:33). Thus, the first and last sons of Jacob represent Christ’s earthly ministry and His heavenly ministry.

John described a rainbow that was like an emerald (Rev. 4:3). The emerald is sea green and, according to some, was the stone used to identify the tribe of Judah in ancient Israel.4 The emerald was also considered a wedding stone. The rainbow is mentioned as a covenant sign given after the flood of Noah, indicating that God would never again destroy the earth by water. On earth when we see a rainbow, we only witness half of the bow—as the other half remains in the heavens, around about the throne.

When Ezekiel saw the throne of God, he wrote:
And above the firmament over their heads was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like a sapphire stone; on the likeness of the throne was a likeness with the appearance of a man high above it.

—Ezekiel 1:26

The appearance of a sapphire is interesting, as this beautiful royal blue stone is referred to in several places where God revealed Himself to Moses and the elders. In Exodus 24:10, when Moses and the elders saw the Lord, the pavement under His feet was paved with sapphire. The same occurred in Ezekiel’s vision above, where he describes the firmament above the heads of the cherubim as the appearance of a sapphire. There is a Jewish tradition that when God wrote the original commandments with the fiery finger of His hands, they were inscribed on stone tablets of sapphire.5

This may seem more of a tradition. However, I have a man on my ministry board of directors who is a specialist in laser research and development. Years ago he shared with me how it would be theoretically possible for the original stones of the Ten Commandments to actually be sapphire. He explained how a percentage of the earth’s
crust contains aluminum oxide, and sapphires can form in rocks poor in silica and rich in aluminum. When aluminum oxide is heated to a high temperature, it forms sapphire crystals. Thus, when God wrote with the fiery finger of His hand (Exod. 31:18; Deut. 33:2), the fire from God’s finger could have caused the stone tablets to form some  type of sapphire crystals.

In Ezekiel’s vision, the prophet continued describing the interior of God’s throne as the color of amber, with fire moving inside the throne (Ezek. 1:27). Later Ezekiel described the one on the throne with the appearance of fire from the waist up and fire from the waist downward (Ezek. 8:2). This may have been what the writer to the Hebrews alluded to when he wrote, “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29). The Hebrew word for “amber” is chashmal, and it probably means, “a bronze-type color.” This is likely, since in John’s vision the feet of Christ appeared as brass that had been polished through a fire (Rev. 1:15).

As John’s eyes continued to view the magnificent heavenly scene, he observed three phenomena occurring in connection with the throne of God.

And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.
—Revelation 4:5

Thunder, lightning, and rainbows are associated on earth with storms and rain. In John’s vision, the thunder and lightning indicated the coming upheavals and judgment to be initiated on earth shortly. The voice of God, however, was also identified with a sound like thunder when it was heard upon the earth (John 12:28–30). Lightning is one of nature’s most powerful and, at times, dangerous forces. In Psalm 144:5–6, lightning demonstrates this great power of God as it is released through a manifestation.

The rainbow is the symbol of God’s covenant to man (Gen. 9:13). The voices heard coming out of the throne may be the voices of praise and worship that ascend up the ladder, arriving at the throne of God. We read that God inhabits the praises of Israel (Ps. 22:3), giving us a picture of God as He sits enthroned on the praises of His people. Isaiah saw the Lord “high and lifted up” and described the seraphim crying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord” (Isa. 6:1–3). We could say that God is sitting upon His throne and riding upon our praises!


John was the last of the biblical prophets to see a vision of the temple of God in heaven, recorded in the Book of Revelation. This is the same temple where Ezekiel revealed that the anointed cherub, Satan, once worshiped on the holy mountain and walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire (Ezek. 28:14). This is the same temple where Moses stood on Mount Sinai, piercing the veil and catching a glimpse of the sacred furniture, which he then constructed for the tabernacle, using the pattern of the furniture he saw (Exod. 34:2). It was the same heavenly temple that David tapped into when he drew the building plans for the temple Solomon would build, including the ark of the covenant, called the pattern of the chariot of the cherubim (1 Chron. 28:18). In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah looked upward and saw the seraphim with six wings, flying through the heavenly halls of the temple of God in heaven, crying “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord” (Isa. 6:1–3). From this same holy mountain, Ezekiel viewed four “living creatures” carrying the throne of God from the northern part of the universe upon their shoulders, moving it like a chariot (Ezek. 1). While in Babylonian captivity, the prophet Daniel tapped into the realm of the spirit and witnessed the Ancient of Days sitting upon His throne surrounded by thrones (Dan. 7:9–10). It would be the apostle John, six hundred or more years later, who would describe those sitting upon the thrones as twenty-four in number and identifying them as elders (Rev. 4:4).

One day, at the great gathering together and the resurrection of the dead in Christ, a multitude that no man can number will be thrust instantly through this supernal portal, entering the temple of God, standing on the crystal sea, and viewing the other side of the ladder (1 Thess. 4:16–17; Rev. 5:11). However, we need not wait to have access to the literal presence of God! By understanding the process of opening the heavenly gate, we can access the divine counsel and presence of the Creator through our prayer life. This process is accomplished through the ability of the Holy Spirit.

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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

How to Interpret Dreams and Visions by Perry Stone

Tour Date: 5/12/2011

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It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!


Today's Wild Card author is:


and the book:


How to Interpret Dreams and Visions

Charisma House (May 3, 2011)

***Special thanks to Anna Coelho Silva | Publicity Coordinator, Charisma House | Charisma Media for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:



Perry Stone is the best-selling author of numerous books, including The Meal That Heals and Breaking the Jewish Code. He directs one of America’s fastest-growing ministries, The Voice of Evangelism. An international evangelist, Perry holds a BA in theology from Covenant Life Christian College. He lives in Cleveland, Tennessee, with his wife, Pam, and their two children.


Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Is God Trying to Tell You Something?
Have you ever had a dream or vision that was so vivid that it remained with you for days? It is possible that your dream had a spiritual connotation and your vision was a message from God.

In How to Interpret Dreams and Visions, best-selling author and evangelist Perry Stone explains the guidance and warnings encrypted in our visions and dreams. With his unique blend of Bible knowledge and spiritual insight he provides answers to questions such as…

Is my dream really from God?How do I distinguish between types of spiritual visions?Why am I having nightmares or unclean dreams?· What do my dreams of a departed loved one mean?





Product Details:

List Price: $15.99
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Charisma House (May 3, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 161638350X
ISBN-13: 978-1616383503

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:


The Last Days— Time to Pierce the Veil



But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the

Lord is, there is liberty.


-2 Corinthians 3:14–17



The spirit world is as real as the air we breathe and the water we drink. The natural realm is a reflection of the spirit world. Earthly things are patterned after heavenly things. (See

Hebrews 8:1–5.) Our world consists of trees, rivers, mountains, and cities. The heavenly city, New Jerusalem, has the tree of life, the crystal river of life, and a mountain where God is worshiped called Mount Zion (Rev. 22:1–5). These heavenly realities were the original Creation that was reflected on Earth when God created man. Humanity has struggled to believe in a world that cannot be seen with the eyes, touched with the hands, or smelled when we breathe.


To the skeptic, angels are myths, and demonic spirits are the dark imagination of Hollywood scripts. The prevailing attitude is the Thomas syndrome, which says, “Unless I can see it and touch it, I will never believe it” (John 20:25, author’s paraphrase). The fact is that there is an invisible veil covering both the natural eyes and the spiritual understanding of men and women, and only when the veil is lifted or pierced can the realities of the invisible realm become visible. The Bible is a book written by forty different authors over a period of about fifteen hundred years of time that tells the story of men called prophets who were inspired of the Lord and who pierced this veil and saw marvelous eternal and heavenly images that brought to mankind the revelation of God.

Paul wrote that there is a veil, similar to scales, over the eyes of our understanding that clouds the light of God’s revelation from entering into our minds and enlightening us with life-changing insight. If we live behind this veil, then we will never know or experience God’s best for us. This veil, which at times manifests as a lack of interest in spiritual matters, a dullness in our understanding, or a spirit of unbelief toward the idea of Bible-based spiritual manifestations, must be lifted to experience the unseen. This ability to see the future was the gift that set apart the biblical prophets from their false counterparts in surrounding idolatrous nations. These Hebrew visionaries had a reputation for knowing the unknown behind closed doors.


One such example can be seen when a Syrian general sent his army to capture one of God’s prophets, Elisha. When Elisha’s servant saw the army, fear gripped him. However, after Elisha prayed for the eyes of his servant to be opened, the fear turned to faith as the servant saw horses and chariots of fire encamped round about them both, forming a protective hedge. (See 2 Kings 6:8–17.) There is a covering of some sort on our physical eyes, which prevents us from seeing the activity of the spirit world. However, when we sleep, we are still able to see images through dreams or visions. In Scripture, men like the apostle John recorded these dreams and visions. John was on an island when he suddenly saw a “door in heaven open,” or as we would say, “heaven open,” and this opening projected his mind and spirit into another world, a world just as real as the world we live in. (See Revelation 4:1; 19:11.) These two biblical incidents from Revelation indicate two important facts: something occurs on Earth and something occurs in heaven to cause information to be released and the veil removed. On Earth our eyes must be “opened.” This happens when our inner vision, which creates the images in our brain at night, receives information from the heavenly realm, which “opens,” allowing eternal information to pass from the heavenly realm to the earthly realm.


One question posed by sincere seekers is: “Why would God be concerned about revealing events to us that have not yet occurred?” A simple answer is that He does so to prepare us for something or to cause us to intercede in prayer to prevent or to change a situation.

For example, when King Hezekiah was informed by Isaiah to set his house in order because he would soon die, the king began to earnestly pray, and his death was delayed for fifteen years (Isa. 38:1–5).


Another reason God is concerned is because He knows we need to

understand certain events in the future.


Why is the Spirit World Veiled?


Human eyes cannot see into the spirit world. God is a Spirit (John 4:24). Angels are spirits (Heb. 1:13–14). Satan’s kingdom is organized into four levels of spirit rebels (Eph. 6:12), and every man is a tripartite creation of a body, a soul, and a spirit, or, as some teach, a spirit with a soul living in a body (1 Thess. 5:23).


In the time of Adam and Eve, God entered the Garden of Eden and communicated directly with man by walking through the garden in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8). Adam and Eve could see and hear God clearly. After they fell into sin, “the eyes of both of them were opened,” and they saw they were naked and felt shame (Gen. 3:7). Although their eyes were opened, at the same time their eyes were veiled. From that moment forward, angelic visitors appeared in the form of a vision, a dream, or would take upon themselves human form, just as the two angelic messengers did when instructed by the Almighty to investigate the sins of Sodom. (See Genesis 19.) Even the writer of Hebrews wrote to be careful when entertaining a stranger because you might not be aware that it is an angel (Heb. 13:2).


If our eyes could be opened and the veil lifted, we would continually see angels, demonic entities, and other forms of spirit beings. While some may wish to see into the invisible realm, the fact is that when great men of God and Hebrew prophets have pierced this veil and seen, for example, angels in their full glory, the reactions have normally been to fall down and be gripped with an overwhelming feeling of fear. Abraham fell into a deep trance (Gen. 15:12) and fell on his face when God talked to him (Gen. 17:3, 17). Ezekiel describes seeing the Almighty upon His throne, with cherubim and amazing heavenly beings appearing like wheels spinning within wheels (Ezek. 1), and he too fell upon his face (v. 28). In several instances when a vision of God or the angelic realm manifested, the prophet fell down upon his face (Ezek. 9:8; 43:3; 44:4). Daniel described an angelic visitor with brass-colored arms and feet, white hair, a gold belt, and eyes like fire. His reaction was so visibly powerful that even the men with him who did not see the vision became overwhelmed and began “quaking” and fled, hiding themselves (Dan. 10:5–7, kjv). Daniel found himself on his face with no strength remaining in his body (vv. 8–9). When John saw the resurrected Christ in heaven, he “fell at His feet as dead” (Rev. 1:17). Even Balaam’s donkey fell down when it saw an angel of the Lord (Num. 22:27)!


When the veil is lifted and a mere mortal taps into not just a vision or dream, but into the actual unseen world of angels, demons, heaven, or hell, the human body is unable to sustain the glory of the heavenly realm without responding in some manner. If we could live with our spiritual eyes continually opened, I suggest we would never get any work done and would be continually disrupted in our sleep.


Scripture instructs believers to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). I cannot physically see God, but I believe in God because of the Bible’s evidence and because I have faith that undergirds my confidence in the Word. With my human eyes I am unable to spot an angel flying through the heavens or a cosmic conflict between warring angels and prince spirits called the “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). However, because my inner being is also a “spirit,” I can at times sense or feel the presence of the Lord, the warmth and peace of an angel, or the dark oppressive

wicked spirits that are in my earth zone. To pierce the curtain of the unseen, a believer must be in tune to that particular realm of spiritual activity.


When my seventy-seven-year-old father was praying for my twenty year-old son, who was kneeling before him at Dad’s small home in Tennessee, with tears in his eyes my father said to Jonathan, “There is a future.” He was encouraging his grandson not to just live for the moment but to discover, plan, and prevail for his future, which the Lord has already laid out for him and his little sister. At that moment I realized that this is what life is really all about—the future. When God laid out a detailed plan for man’s redemption from sin, He prepared the details long before Adam fell. Jesus is called “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). When Christ was praying before His death, He said that God had loved Him from “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). God planned a future for all of mankind before Adam and Eve were created and fell into sin!


Once man sinned, God Himself released the first prophecy by predicting that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). God spoke this about four thousand years before Mary gave birth to the Messiah (Luke 2). After Cain slew his brother, Abel, God wasted no time in replacing Abel with Adam and Eve’s new addition to the family, a son named Seth who would initiate a nine-generation lineage of righteous men, leading up to tenth man from Adam, Noah. (See Genesis 5.) God continually has your future on His mind and in His purpose


The Almighty’s passion for the future is also witnessed in the fact that God thinks generationally. When God established His covenant through Abraham, He was planning that Abraham’s descendants would become a nation. First God promised Abraham a son and to make a “great nation” from Abraham’s children (Gen. 12:2). Years later God predicted that Abraham would be “a great and mighty nation” (Gen. 18:18). Years passed, and then God visited Abraham’s grandson Jacob, changing his name from Jacob to Israel. God enlarged His promise by saying to Jacob, “A nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you” (Gen. 35:11). After the nation of Israel expanded from seventy souls to more than six hundred thousand men of war (Exod. 1:5; 12:37), the Lord announced that the nation would be “blessed above all peoples” (Deut. 7:14). From one simple individual, Abraham, to seventy souls who went into Egypt under Joseph, in four hundred years the nation grew to six hundred thousand men marching through the Red Sea and on to the millions of Jewish people now in the world. God was beginning the preparations for one large family called the children of Israel when He was making covenant with one man—Abraham! This is why God changed Abram’s name (meaning “father”) to Abraham, meaning “father of many” (Gen. 17:5). Israel began with a dream and a vision!


Securing confidence and boldness for the future is so significant to the Almighty that He allowed men to enter into the dream dimension and receive vital knowledge for themselves, for their leaders, or for the nations in which they were given authority. A few examples of significant dreams that altered situations, set destinies, or brought prophetic knowledge are:


. God warned King Abimelech with the threat of death if he didn’t return Sarah to Abraham (Gen. 20:6–7).

. God confirmed in a dream for Jacob to leave Laban, taking his wives and sons to Canaan (Gen. 31).

. God prepared Joseph’s future by giving him two prophetic dreams when he was a teenager (Gen. 37).

. God allowed Joseph to interpret the dreams of the butler and the baker while in prison (Gen. 40).

. Joseph interpreted both dreams of Pharaoh and prepared for a seven-year famine (Gen. 41).

. It was the “barley cake dream” that gave Gideon confidence to fight the Midianites (Judg. 7).

. God appeared to Solomon in a dream, granting his request for the gift of wisdom (1 Kings 3).

. Daniel was the only man in Babylon capable of interpreting the dream of the metallic image (Dan. 2).

. Daniel later interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s “tree dream,” predicting the downfall of the king (Dan. 4).

. Daniel experienced a major prophetic dream of world empires symbolized by wild beasts (Dan. 7).


Nearly six thousand years of human history have demonstrated that just because God plans a person’s future, it is no guarantee that opposition will not eclipse the light of the revelation. There is a plan by the kingdom of darkness to distract, disrupt, and destroy the future, both God’s prophetic plan and your personal destiny. Each person is said to have a “destiny,” which is simply your future according to God. Just as God revealed to Jeremiah that He foreknew him when he was still in his mother’s womb and that He preordained him to be a prophet (Jer. 1:5), God has a predetermined plan for each person. With all of the clutter and clamor and mixed voices speaking into our lives, our minds can become cloudy and our understanding fogged with numerous possibilities from which we must choose. This is why at times God will permit a believer to pierce the world of the natural and enter the realm of a dream or a vision so that secret strategies of the enemy can be exposed and the hidden plans of God can be revealed. Warnings that are perceived and received can help you avoid potholes and pits in your path to destiny, and understanding God’s plan will empower you to pursue that purpose.


The disrupting of God’s will in our lives can begin at a very early age. During major prophetic cycles and seasons of prophetic fulfillment, children come under severe attack from the adversary. This was seen when Pharaoh ordered the male infants born to the Hebrews to be cast into the Nile River (Exod. 1:22). The time was coming when a deliverer would bring the Hebrews out of Egypt, and the adversary was no doubt attempting to preempt the prophecy by killing the possible male child deliverer before he could become a man! The second assignment of an evil ruler was when Herod commissioned Roman soldiers to encircle the area of Ramah and kill all male children who were under two years of age, attempting to slay the future king of the Jews that the wise men came to worship (Matt. 2).


From a personal perspective, if we survive our birth and live to be teenagers, other battles begin. When he was a teenager (age seventeen), a plot was organized against Joseph by his own brothers (Gen. 37). They were sick of this dreamer, Daddy’s favorite little spoiled boy, running around with an expensive coat! Joseph was doing well until he began to confess his dreams of success that would come to him. At that point his brothers conspired against him, and Joseph ended up in a pit, then in a prison, and spent thirteen years in what seemed negative, dream-killing circumstances.


I was a young teenager when the Lord began to reveal to me His will and I began planning for it. I encountered various types of verbal persecution from my own spiritual brothers in the same denomination of which I was a member. When David—just a

teen—was anointed by Samuel as the next king “in the midst of his brothers,” jealousy arose among certain brothers much older who may have felt they deserved the position more than their kid brother (1 Sam. 16:13; 17:28).


When I was a teenager, the Holy Spirit inspired me to organize a ministry called Voice of Evangelism when I had only preached in three states. Ministers said, “Perry isn’t the voice of anything, much less of evangelism.” They were correct from the natural perspective but wrong in the Spirit. The Lord had a future for me! At age eighteen

I formed a “7-Point Outreach Plan” that included a ministry outreach through books, revival meetings, magazines, and other forms of branching out. Then I began overhearing statements like: “Who does he think he is, Billy Graham or Oral Roberts?” Without sounding arrogant, I knew something these other men did not know. I had a small glimpse into the future. I had both heard and seen in my spirit and through dreams and prayer that I would be used of the Lord to one day have a worldwide ministry Thus, once you see your future, you can learn how to hold off the adversity and know why there is opposition against your destiny!


Watch out for that girl!


When my father, Fred Stone, was a young, black-haired teenage minister, he met a very attractive girl about his age who was gifted in playing the piano and singing. Of course, the common belief was that if you were a minister, your wife needed to be a singer or musician. The girl took a liking to him. However, Dad had a dream in which he saw this girl coming out of a barn embracing a young man. He realized the girl was having relations with this boy. He heard a voice say, “I have warned you; have nothing to do with that girl.” Dad said that after this dream, the girl tried to get close to him in friendship; he would say hello but go no further. Even Dad’s uncle, a noted minister, rebuked Dad for not expressing more interest in such a talented young girl. But three months later the girl’s father told Dad’s uncle he was glad Dad had not formed a relationship with his daughter, because she was pregnant out of wedlock by a fellow she knew.


When I was the same age as my father, a similar situation was repeated in my life. I was eighteen years of age, traveling from church to church conducting weekly revivals. At one location, a family I knew with a daughter about my age wanted me to go out with her to eat. My policy was to only go out with a group of young people and avoid going out alone with the opposite sex. Soon she began to speak to friends that she was serious about me and thought our friendship could lead to eventual marriage. At the same time I dreamed that she was pregnant. In the dream the Lord told me to avoid her. The same week, three noted ministers spoke to me in confidence and said, “You must be careful around this girl. There is something not right about her.” I sent word to her through a friend not to have any contact with me again. One month later it was confirmed that she was pregnant, and she married the father of the child shortly thereafter. Years later she and her mother came to hear me minister in a church and asked to speak with me. Her mother, a very godly woman, required her to apologize to me for plotting to pull me into her situation without my knowledge. The girl said, “I was hoping you would suddenly fall in love with me and marry me before anyone knew I was pregnant with this man’s baby.”


In both cases, more than twenty-six years apart, the same type of snare was laid for Dad and me. By following the same type of dreams and inward warnings, we both avoided missing the will of God and entering into a situation that would have been not only questionable but also embarrassing and detrimental to our early ministries. These


illustrations reveal how strategies are set to disrupt God’s purposes, but God is concerned about the details of our personal lives because circumstances affect our destiny!


Often when we think of a spiritual dream we envision a visitation that warns us of national calamity or an international warning on the same level as what the Old Testament prophets received when warning the priests and the kings of coming calamity. However, God has indicated in Scripture that He is concerned for each individual and not just for the collective population of a nation. Christ revealed that the Father watched a sparrow fall to the ground and saw the lilies in the field grow (Matt. 10:29; Luke 12:28), and if the Almighty is concerned for the smallest in His creation, how much more is His concern manifested toward man, who is made in His image (Gen. 1:26).


The Need to Know


The understanding of the Book of Daniel was sealed “until the time of the end,” when “knowledge shall increase” (Dan. 12:4). Numerous prophecies are assigned to occur in the “time of the end,” a term used in the Book of Daniel five times (Dan. 8:17; 11:35, 40; 12:4, 9). Other predictions will unfold in the “last days,” a phrase coined to identify the time frame prior to the return of the Messiah, listed five times in the New Testament (Acts 2:17; 2 Tim. 3:1; Heb. 1:2; James 5:3; 2 Pet. 3:3). The final outpouring of the Holy Spirit will occur in the “last days” (Acts 2:17) and includes sons and daughters prophesying and experiencing visions and dreams. Among this final generation there is a need-to-know attitude about their future and destiny.


This need to know is obvious when one considers the millions of dollars spent by sincere yet uninformed individuals on fortune-tellers, astrologers, séances, and psychics. According to the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life, “about 1 in 7 Americans consulted a psychic or fortune teller in 2009.”1 The only reason these false prophets of greed are consulted is to determine the hidden and the unseen and to know in advance the person’s future. Why should the body of Christ sit back and refuse to tell this generation to seek God for His direction, when the adversary will provide a horoscope for that purpose? There is a human need to know, and our knowledge for redemption can be found in the Bible—as well as the guide for practical living found in those inspired Scriptures. However, there are times we are uncertain concerning personal and national decisions that can be seen and understood through visions and dreams.

However, the invisible veil must be pierced in the mind and in the understanding. This begins with the “dream factor.”
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