As I arrived at Matthew Washington’s home for the first night of meetings in the Houston area he commented to me that he felt that I would surely say something about the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I told Matthew that I had prepared a presentation just that very day which addressed the spiritual significance of this oil spill.
As I was at my campsite the night before I began pondering this massive oil spill from the British Petroleum drilling platform called The Deepwater Horizon. As I prayed about the message the Father would have me bring to His people I was shown some things relating to the spirit that presides over the area of Houston, TX. What the Spirit of Christ revealed applies to the entire nation of America, though it was revealed through a parable taking place in the waters off of Houston.
September 2, 2008 Named Tropical Storms
The Spirit of Christ reminded me of the sign that appeared in 2008 as three named tropical storms appeared at the same time in the Atlantic. It is very rare to have three named tropical storms in this area at the same time. Each year the computer at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, randomly picks names from a database to assign to that year’s tropical storms.
Although these three storm names may appear random, they were perfectly appointed by Yahweh to bring forth a testimony of His work in this hour. Each name relates to the story of a barren woman in the Bible who cried out for God to give her a son, and Yahweh answered her prayer.
Tropical Storm Hanna relates to the story of Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel. Hannah was barren. Her husband Elkanah had two wives. His other wife Penninah had borne children to him, but Hannah remained barren. Although Elkanah greatly loved Hannah, she was intensely grieved that she had not borne children. One year when she went with her husband to Shiloh to offer sacrifices to Yahweh, she was agonizing in prayer, petitioning God to give her a son. Eli, the High Priest, thinking her to be drunk, scolded her. When Hannah explained she was not drunk, but was in deep distress of soul, Eli spoke a blessing on her that Yahweh might grant her request. The next year she bore a son, and Samuel was dedicated to the service of Yahweh when he had been weaned.
Tropical Storm Ike relates to the story of Sarah, the wife of Abraham. In her old age Sarah gave birth to Isaac, of which the name Ike is a diminutive form. Sarah was ninety years old, and past the age of childbearing when Yahweh performed for her and Abraham that which they could not. He gave them a son to serve as an heir and to provide a godly offspring to continue their name in the earth.
Tropical Storm Josephine relates to the story of Rachel, the favorite wife of Jacob. Rachel also was barren. Jacob’s wife Leah had borne him many sons, and the handmaids of Rachel and Leah had also borne sons. Jacob had ten sons and Rachel remained barren. In her great distress she cried out to God and He answered her. She gave birth to Joseph as the eleventh son of Jacob, and later she bore Benjamin as she was dying.
The message the Father was sending forth through the sign of these tropical storms is that at the end of this age it is time for the church to bring forth mature sons in His image. The church is pictured as the bride of Christ. Yet this bride has not brought forth sons to maturity. She is now in her old age and the time is at hand for the man-child company to be born from her barren womb.
Of the three storms named, the one to have the greatest impact upon the United States was Ike. Ike became a major hurricane and made landfall at Galveston Island, Texas which lies between Houston and the Gulf of Mexico. Galveston was destroyed, and over two million people in the Houston area were left without power. The devastation was widespread.
Although Ike had diminished in strength before landfall, it had the impact of a much more powerful storm due to its colossal size. At one point Hurricane Ike filled up the entire Gulf of Mexico. Following is an enhanced satellite image of Ike shortly before it had reached its full size.
It was pointed out to me at the time I was doing this study that this enhanced satellite image resembles a sonogram of a baby in the womb. The birth canal would be the opening between the Yucatan Peninsula and Hispaniola. The baby’s head is beginning to be put in position for birth. The Gulf of Mexico is the womb.
The Spirit of Christ reminded me of this parable as I pondered the testimony of the current oil spill, leading me to consider another item of news that has been featured in Houston recently. It has been widely broadcast that the largest Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in the nation has been built in Houston, TX. This six story tall (six is the number of the flesh man) abortion supercenter was opened in May, just a short time after the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster began.
Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinic - Houston
As I began putting the presentation together for the gathering in Houston, I did a search of abortion clinics in Houston. I found that the city is peppered with them.
Aalto Women’s Center in Southwest Houston
From the webpage of the Aalto Women’s Center
Aaron Women’s Center of Houston
Crescent City Women’s Center
AAA Concerned Women’s Center
Houston Women’s Clinic
Suburban Women’s Clinic of Houston
This is not an exhaustive list of the abortion providers in the city. It is enough, however, to reveal that there is a spirit of abortion that prevails over this region. The natural realm is a parable of the spiritual realm. As terrible as this flux of abortion centers is in America’s fourth largest city, an even greater number of abortions are performed in the following venues.
The reason that the church has been aborting her offspring is the same as the reason that women abort their natural offspring. A woman who desires the pleasure of intimacy, but does not desire the pain, sacrifice and responsibility of child rearing will cast away the baby growing in her womb as if it were a piece of unwanted fetal tissue. The church likewise enjoys the intimacy of being wed to Christ, but she does not want to experience the pain, sacrifice and responsibility necessary to bring forth sons to maturity. She therefore casts away every maturing son before he can bring her pain.
(Please note that men are just as responsible as women for the sin of abortion. The woman is the one being shown in type here, which is why she is the one in focus.)
In the third chapter of Genesis we are shown a profound spiritual parable. After mankind fell into sin the plan of God to have mature sons in His image did not change. However, there was only one way to bring forth sons in His image. Because of sin, the woman’s pain in childbirth had to be greatly increased.
Genesis 3:16
To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you shall bring forth children; Yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
The majority of Christians have only seen the natural aspect of these words, and even then they have understood them poorly. Yahweh does everything with great design and purpose. The natural realm is given to reveal spiritual truth. According to type, Adam is representative of Christ. Indeed, the Son of God is called “the last Adam.”
I Corinthians 15:45-48
As it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living soul." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.
Eve is therefore a type of the Bride of Christ. What Yahweh was testifying is that the only way in which He could bring forth mature sons in His image was to greatly increase the suffering and pains of the church. Even so, the church’s desire will be toward her husband, and He will rule over her.
Yahshua has accepted the suffering of the Bride as His own suffering. He has led the way, revealing the path by which all must become perfected sons.
Hebrews 2:10
For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.
Yahweh desires to bring MANY sons to glory. All of them must be perfected through sufferings.
Philippians 1:29
For to you it has been granted for Christ's sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake...
The Hurricane that did the most damage to America was Ike. We read the following regarding Sarah, Isaac’s mother.
Isaiah 51:2
Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave birth to you IN PAIN...
The Spirit is testifying that Yahweh will have sons in His image. Pain is a necessary part of their coming forth to maturity and being revealed to the world. What was Houston’s answer to the pain of Ike? She has built the nation’s largest abortion clinic. She has thereby prophetically symbolized her soul rejecting the necessary pain, sacrifice and selflessness required to produce offspring in Yahweh’s image.
This attitude is clearly reflected in the myriad of churches that dot the landscape of the Houston area. They are pleasure palaces that proclaim a message of ease and comfort, of prosperity and endless physical and material blessing.
Joel Osteen’s church is in the area, and his message is very evident in his books, preaching, and broadcasts that are watched by millions.
The churches of Houston, and throughout America, are proclaiming that they have rejected suffering. They are rejecting all sorrow, and mourning, and pain. How then can they take up THEIR CROSS and follow Christ? How can they bring forth sons to maturity? The church in America is exemplified by the Great Harlot, Babylon, in the book of Revelation. Of her we read:
Revelation 18:7
To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning ; for she says in her heart, “I sit as a queen and I am not a widow, and will never see mourning.”
What is this passage saying? The church of the last days refuses to embrace suffering even if it be the only way to fulfill the desire of her Husband to have sons in His image and likeness. Would not a natural king be filled with wrath if his bride continued to sit as his queen, to be a recipient of his seed knowing that he desired sons, but she continually aborted the children growing in her womb? Will not Christ be filled with wrath at the treachery of His bride?
People of God, it is not the prosperity preachers of this world that are the problem. It is the church’s rejection of the disciples’ cross. A sensual body of confessing Christians that refuses the necessary suffering appointed to her by God, has rejected the message of the disciple’s cross while heaping up to herself preachers of ease and comfort.
II Timothy 4:3-4
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.
Houston, Texas has been at the forefront of this great parable of the Father. Yahweh has testified of His desire for sons, sons which can only come forth by increasing the pains of the church. The church has rejected this pain and consequently aborts her sons. What is now occurring in the Gulf of Mexico is a testimony of the church’s evil choice. She has chosen death rather than life.
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf
Even as the physicians of Houston’s abortion clinics inject toxic chemicals into the womb to terminate the life of the child growing there, so too are toxic chemicals filling the Gulf and killing all life there. A recent article on the Fox News website reported the following:
The oil has reached the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. It has turned marshlands into death zones for wildlife and stained beaches rust and crimson. Some said it brought to mind the plagues and punishments of the Bible.
"In Revelations it says the water will turn to blood," said P.J. Hahn, director of coastal zone management for Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish. "That's what it looks like out here — like the Gulf is bleeding. This is going to choke the life out of everything."
Longtime friends Rancho Moore, of Warner Robins, Ga., and Kirk Darby of Navarre, Fla., drank beer from plastic cups at the Pensacola Beach fishing pier as they watched Gov. Charlie Crist and musician Jimmy Buffett, a son of the Gulf Coast whose songs famously extol beachgoing pleasures, caucus with tourists.
"A way of life is ending here," Darby said.
[Source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/04/anger-grows-bp-disaster-reaches-florida-panhandles-beaches-bp-pins-hopes-cap/]
Do you observe the prophetic element in this article? It evokes images of the judgments of God. It speaks of an end of the lifestyle of pleasure. Jimmy Buffett whose songs “extol beachgoing PLEASURES” was present when the person interviewed said “A way of life is ending here.” Yahweh will bring an end to the pleasure of the church. She will be cast upon a bed of suffering. All who joined in her sin will share in her plagues. The chief sin of the Harlot has been that she has continuously aborted her sons by choosing endless pleasure over the necessary pain to bring forth mature sons.
Revelation 18:4-7
And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, "Come out of her, my people, that you may not participate in her sins and that you may not receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her. To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning...”
This is the message of the Gulf Oil Spill that the Spirit has revealed to me. It is a serious message. Go to the news sites and look at the slideshows of the dead pelicans, dolphins, fish, and birds. See how everything is dying. Why is this so? It is because the only way in which the world can be delivered is by mature sons of God coming forth in His image.
Romans 8:19-22
For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
Unless the church embraces the pain of childbirth the creation will perish. Make no mistake, Yahweh will have His sons. The question remains, “Will you be one of them? Or will you be found in the pleasure loving harlot when her plagues are meted out to her?”
The hour is very late. Do not hesitate to decide.
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