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PEARL HARBOR for THE CHURCH - A Vision
James Kehrli
In December of 1984, about a
week after I purchased an old 1940 Cadillac sedan, I was driving around
thinking about times gone by, particularly the time before and during
World War II. Suddenly I heard the Lord say to me, very softly, “It’s
1940 and Pearl Harbor is coming up for the Church.” I thought about
betrayal, warfare, death and awakening! I prayed to the Lord about it and
He began to reveal to me more about Pearl Harbor. He reminded me of a
scene from the film, “Tora Tora Tora,” in which one of the Japanese
military leaders remarked, after their attack on Pearl Harbor, “I fear all
we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible
resolve.” I thought about the Church finally waking up to her true
condition. I thought about the terrible price our country paid in the
1940’s to wake up to the realities of the world political situation. The
price was human life, suffering, and destruction. But we did wake up. I
thought about December 8, 1941, when we declared war against the Axis
powers. Before that time we were sending arms, supplies and money to our
allies, but we were not sending men to help fight. We watched China, the
Pacific Islands, France and much of Europe fall to Germany, Italy, and
Japan, but we were not personally affected so we did not enter the
warfare. It took a catastrophic event to wake us up.
I prayed about and meditated
on what I had heard until May of 1985, when I again heard from God during
a baptismal service in our Church. The person to be baptized was an older
lady who was quite concerned, even a little frightened, about being fully
immersed.
But she, after fifty years
of disobedience and rebellion against God, desired to be baptized for the
first time. Right before I was going to enter the water with her, a
message in tongues came forth from my wife. The Lord gave me the
interpretation by means of the following vision. This vision describes a
future time of great hardship and great blessing for the Body of Christ.
He showed me a deep harbor
with blue-green water that was clear and calm. There was a Person in the
water. This Person was not swimming or standing, but just floating in an
upright position. He was motionless, like a sailing ship listing in a
windless sea. Many Japanese Zero aircraft came in from the east and
proceeded to dive-bomb and strafe the body in the water and the body began
to slowly sink. Eventually the body was entirely under the water. As he
went down, I could see that there were many little people on this Body. As
this Body sank deeper into the water, many of these small people jumped
off just before they were about to enter the water. There were thousands
of people jumping off and swimming away from this slow but steadily
sinking Body. Some of these people jumped onto beds, which the Lord made
clear to me were beds of adultery, and floated away off to the left.
Others jumped onto whiskey bottles and paddled away; still others jumped
on books, while others swam off on their own strength. All of the people
were floating, swimming or paddling in the same direction.
I looked over in that
direction, which was to my left, and I saw an extremely beautiful,
gigantic woman, with skin and clothing of a deep reddish purple hue
standing solidly on the harbor floor. She stretched out her arms toward
the sinking Body and got the attention of many as she very sweetly,
seductively, and sincerely called out, “Come unto me all ye that are weary
and heavy laden, and I will give you WHAT YOU WANT!”
The people who were jumping
off were in a panic, like rats leaving a sinking ship. Some scurried to
higher ground on the Body, going from the shoulders to the ears and
finally jumping off the top of the head right before it went under. It was
clear that THEY DID NOT WANT TO LEAVE THIS BODY, but it was equally clear
that they were not going down under the water with it either. The Body
now was completely under the water, sinking steadily toward the bottom.
Some of the little people hung on as it sank, but after a few seconds of
holding their breath, they gave up, swam for the top, gulped a mouth full
of air, and swam off toward the woman.
The apparently lifeless Body
sank deeper and deeper into the clear blue-green water. As it sank I could
see at the bottom of the harbor a beautiful, large, perfect pearl -
obviously of great value. It was supernaturally large and beautiful,
lustrous, pure and round. As I watched, I could see the Body change shape
from that of a single being, with little people desperately hanging on it,
to many little individual people swimming deep enough to get to this
beautiful Pearl. As they went deeper, many chose to quit and swim to the
surface for air and life and then go over to the beautiful woman. All who
quit diving eventually swam over to the beautiful woman.
Finally, I saw a number of
these small people swim to the Pearl and touch it, and embrace it. But to
do this, everyone who dove down reached a point when they realized that
their own natural ability to hold their breath and dive deeper would not
be enough.
Those who dove down and
touched this Pearl all came to understand that they would have to expend
all of their natural strength before they touched and embraced the Pearl
of Great Price. This did not keep them from diving down though, because
the closer they got to the Pearl, the more of His beauty they saw.
I saw many touch and embrace
the Pearl and then immediately shoot straight up. As each of these little
people shot up from the floor of the Harbor, each had the Pearl. As this
group of individuals rose higher and higher, they all became one Body
again. By the time these Pearl-laden people reached the surface they
burst forth from the waters as one Body, the Body of Christ. These people
were manifestly His own possession and they in turn possessed the Pearl of
Great Price, Jesus Christ Himself.
As the Lord was showing me
this beautiful picture, He spoke to me and said, “Even as Jesus came out
of the waters of baptism, so My Body will come out of Pearl Harbor with a
new and powerful anointing of My Holy Spirit, and a new and deadly power
to fight the enemy.” He said that there indeed would come upon the Church
of Jesus Christ a Pearl Harbor experience like the United States
experienced on December 7, 1941. He said that when the Body of Christ
begins to sink under the water, because of a soon-coming, devastating
attack of the enemy, MANY will choose to desert our Lord Jesus Christ
because they do not esteem the Pearl of Great Price (Jesus Himself) worth
the price - death to their own selfish desires. They will not make the
selfless effort of love to dive deeply enough to embrace Him because they
do not love Him more than their own lives. Many will choose not to
identify with what they assume is a defeated individual or group. They
look upon themselves as winners and will not identify with a Jesus that is
apparently being defeated. They will choose to identify with the beautiful
woman of the harbor who gives them what they want. As the vision revealed,
many who leapt off the sinking Body because the woman of the harbor
promised them success. Because of this they went to her. Many others did
not feel that it was necessary to pay such a high price to apprehend
Jesus, and they felt that the beautiful woman would give them Jesus on
their own terms.
As the Body of Christ came
out of the waters of death, the Lord said that His Body was now fully
alive and would now fight the enemy with purpose and real anointing. Also
His Body would now use only supernatural weaponry. He spoke so clearly to
me about the weapons. He said, “Even as the United States entered the
Second World War using conventional weapons to fight the enemy, and ended
the war with the atomic bomb, a weapon beyond their comprehension; so My
people will begin this spiritual war with conventional weapons in the
Spirit, but by the end of this war to end all wars, they will be using
atomic bombs of the Spirit.” The Lord made it clear that we will come out
of the water equipped with God-given anointing to REALLY heal the sick,
work miracles, and deliver those in demonic bondage. He also made it clear
that before the warfare ends, we will be moving in a dimension of
spiritual warfare that is unimaginable to us now. We will do greater works
than Jesus did and we will see the demon hordes routed like never before.
After this message in
tongues and interpretation was given, my attention turned back to the
woman who was to be baptized. Then the Lord said that the Pearl Harbor
experience for His Church would be similar to this woman’s baptism. I
closely watched this baptism to see what the Lord meant. The woman was
very nervous and quite afraid of going under the water. I assured her that
she would be all right. After several moments of prayer and a short
teaching on what baptism represented, she was plunged underneath the
water. She came out of the water with her hands lifted up, praising God. I
had not told anyone what the Lord told me about this woman’s baptism,
because I did not know exactly what was going to happen. When she
recovered her composure, she began to testify about what had just happened
to her. She said that she was extremely fearful at first, but that when
she got under the water a Beautiful Peace swept through her, and all her
fear was gone. This beautiful peace became joy as she came out of the
water and she praised God for His great comfort, love and mercy.
I believe that God was
showing us that we need not fear what He will put us through. His purpose
is to bring us peace, joy, cleansing and power. He was also showing us
that His Church will go through a baptism. It is a baptism of the Body of
Christ.
It is a death and a
resurrection. We must trust Him to bring us out of this watery tomb of
death and into the glorious resurrection power of His Son. We must
understand that a harbor is a place of SAFETY and REFUGE. God’s people who
are involved in these events will need to be safe and protected. The
Harbor of the Pearl of Great Price is the only harbor that will provide
refuge and safety, and ALL who believe will be more than willing to pay
the price of dying to their own desires.
Pearl Harbor is the death
and resurrection of the Body of Christ, being prepared to do His work in
His way, with His heart. It is the final separation of David from Saul -
the David Church being purified and separated from the Saul Church.
It is the final AWAKENING
blast of the trumpet of God to rouse His people for battle. It is the
judgment that begins with the house of the Lord. It is the refining fire
that separates the gold from the dross. It will be preceded by the Lord
dealing with His true people to both survive and desire this final
preparation for battle. It is the promise of unmatched power and purity:
power over sin, power over the enemy, power to live a much more virtuous
life, and power to glorify our Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ by the
power of the Holy Spirit. Even now, God is dealing with those in the
David Church even as God dealt with David. Whenever David would start to
fall asleep to God’s purity and purpose, the Lord would abruptly DEAL with
David to AWAKEN him. God did not waste this kind of effort on Saul because
Saul CHOSE to be asleep to God and His desires.
Pearl Harbor is a warning of
betrayal and disaster. The Church in the past has gone through many Pearl
Harbors of betrayal and disaster. Jesus was betrayed and killed and rose
again. English Puritans experienced Pearl Harbor in the early 17th century
and survived because they could not obey the law that the Church of
England tried to force them to obey. They fled England and eventually
sailed to the New World, where they laid the spiritual foundation for what
eventually became one of the greatest revivals in the history of the
world. John Bunyan wrote “Pilgrim’s Progress” at the bottom of the harbor
as he was betrayed by his own country and thrown in jail for not attending
the services of the Church of England and for preaching in a way that did
not conform to this church’s liturgy. Had he given in and done that which
they asked he could have been a free man. But for conscience’ sake he
chose not to do so. Because of this uncompromising obedience to the
Scriptures and to God Himself, he was able to rise to the highest place in
the history of Christian literature. Today he still blesses us with the
fruit of that resurrection power.
To those who are not awake
and prepared, Pearl Harbor will come suddenly and tragically, as a thief
in the night, and they will be swept away to Great Deception. To those who
are more open to the will of God than they are to pleasing religious men,
it will be an expected ordeal, a call to arms, and a prelude to great
victory. The initial stages will be the harbinger of the greatest move of
God in history, the greatest Revival and the greatest manifestation of
Christian Unity that the world has ever known.
Volume 13, 2009 |
