Lessons in the Ladder Days

Candace Long: I'm Candace Long with Lessons in the Latter Days, offering biblical commentary to make sense of the times that we're living in. Jesus said that the time period before the Day of the Lord will parallel the days of Noah. So just as the flood did not sneak up on Noah, neither will the Day of the Lord sneak up on us if we look diligently at Noah's day to learn from and be prepared.

Today's episode is called Prophetic Warnings. In part two, we learned that God gave Noah's generation 120 years as a period of grace for the people to repent. Now, God was not only watching to see if the people did turn back to him, but he was also preparing Noah about what would come if they did not.

Hebrews 11 is known as the great faith chapter. Verse 7 begins this way: "Noah was warned by God of things not yet seen." Let's look deeper. The Greek word for "warn" in this verse means to utter an oracle and furnish what is needed through a divinely intimate way. This tells us how God speaks and how he warns, which is intimately to those who walk with him.

Now, before we get into how God gives warnings, let me remind you that what he was warning Noah about was not even known in his day. You see, before the flood, Noah had never experienced rain, so he had no concept of a flood and what it would do to the earth. Also, he had never seen a boat. So God's warnings had to communicate concepts and details that were totally outside of Noah's realm of understanding.

Now remember, God doesn't speak like we do. We in the Western culture want him to just tell it like it is and spit it out, but God's way of speaking is very different. He tells us how he speaks in Numbers 12. In this particular scene, Miriam and Aaron had just been complaining to each other about Moses, and the Lord got angry and called all three of them, saying, "Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting."

Guest (Male): The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the door of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward. And he said, "Hear my words. If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make myself known to him in a vision. I speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant Moses. He is entrusted with all of my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly and not in dark speech, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?"

Candace Long: This passage reveals some important things. First, God has a unique way of speaking to those he calls prophets. These are devout men and women who have been gifted to hear the revelatory and sometimes strange ways that God speaks. And secondly, God lists here the five ways that he speaks. He speaks in visions, in dreams, mouth to mouth—meaning audibly—in dark speech, and in person.

If you are new to this revelatory language, allow me to shed some light. God began speaking to me in prophetic dreams in 2002, and it's been life-changing. So much so that I've been teaching internationally hebraic principles of dream interpretation since 2005. Let me share a little of what I have learned. Dreams and dark speech are similar in that the dreamer sees pictures that have multiple layers of meaning.

The Hebrew word for dark speech means a puzzle. God gives bits and pieces of information through the senses of the dreamer. They may be visual, sound, or touch, and the spiritual gift of interpretation helps the dreamer make sense of God's meaning. And it is a gift that not everyone has, but it is just as active today as it was in Old Testament times.

The difference between a dream and a vision is that with a vision, the person literally sees an image or an entire story unfolding. Visions are literal. They don't need figuring out in the way that dreams do. This is why in Acts 2, when Peter is quoting the prophet Joel concerning the last days when the spirit is poured out, Joel writes: "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams."

Visions are given to younger ones because a literal vision does not need complex interpretation. They just need someone who is wired to see what God shows them. Dreams, on the other hand, are more obscure. They're puzzles, and what God may show a dreamer is often strange, requiring angels to help them understand the meaning. A God dream has to have biblical foundation, so the older men and women who study the word are able to engage with Holy Spirit to properly interpret the meaning.

In this form of communicating, God is able to bypass the strong demonic activity that is going on to try to prevent God from speaking to his prophets. Now, we see this in Daniel 10, when the prophet was in mourning for three weeks and suddenly he had what he called a great vision, which left him speechless. The angel assigned to bring him that end-of-days vision told him this.

Guest (Male): Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your mind to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia—that's modern-day Iran—withstood me 21 days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me. So I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of Persia and came to make you understand what is to befall your people in the latter days, for the vision is for days yet to come.

Candace Long: Now visions, dreams, and dark speech cut through that dangerous warfare atmosphere, but the prophet has to be trained by Holy Spirit himself in how to make sense of what he or she is seeing. This is how God communicated the warning to Noah about the flood and things that Noah had no way of knowing. The Lord chose someone very close to Noah to communicate with, someone Noah trusted and knew walked with God: his great-grandfather, Enoch.

Now, prior to writing this episode, I reread the lost Book of Enoch to refresh myself what Enoch had been told by the Lord and what he passed down to Noah before he was taken to heaven. To try to summarize, Enoch records that God spoke to him in three ways. First, through a series of dreams and visions. Second, through conversations that he had with angels. And third, by actually seeing the heavenly tablets that are in God's storehouses and which contain the entire future of mankind, outlining how God will deal with the righteous and with the wicked.

It is recorded that while Enoch was in heaven for 60 days, he wrote 366 books of everything that he learned. He was then sent back to Earth for 30 days to pass down the books to Methuselah and instruct the leaders in God's ways. And it was during this time that he shared with his great-grandson, Noah, all that he saw would happen with the Nephilim corrupting the earth and God pouring out his wrath to cleanse it with the flood. At the end of those 30 days, he was taken up to heaven, where he will remain until the Day of the Lord.

Now reading Enoch's writing was as if I were reading step-by-step what went on during the days of Noah, only to realize that what I was reading was written almost 700 years before the flood. Noah knew everything he was going to face. And since God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, he will not leave us unprepared for the coming Day of the Lord. He will reveal everything we need to know.

And just as God chose Enoch to hear his warnings for Noah, so the Lord will choose godly messengers who have ears to hear his warnings through dreams and visions. In the time remaining, I want to tell you about three men who I believe received important visions of warning meant for us today. These are men who were active in ministry in the 1970s, and each of them had earth-shattering experiences with God. These men have all gone to be with the Lord and left a legacy of having walked with God.

Now, before I tell you about them, I need to remind you that our faith is not in humans but in the biblical record of how God warns. He uses people to do that, and he carefully vets those who hear him and who have shown themselves to be trustworthy to preach the message accurately without any ulterior motive, to the glory of God. Now, that definition fits all three of these men. So let me tell you a little about them and what they were each given to pass on to us.

Prophetic messenger number one is David Wilkerson, described as an American Christian evangelist and best known for his book, The Cross and the Switchblade. He was the founding pastor of Times Square Church in New York City and died in 2011 at age 79. I recently reread his fascinating book, The Vision and Beyond. Wilkerson wrote that he had only two visions in his lifetime.

The first came in 1958 when he saw the Lord take him from a little town in Pennsylvania to New York City to work with teen gangs and drug addicts. That vision became reality, and his legacy includes Teen Challenge, a recovery program for addicts that has changed many lives. His second vision came in 1973 and included what he described as five tragic calamities coming upon the earth. He wrote this:

Guest (Male): I saw no blinding lights, I heard no audible voices, nor did I hear from an angel. While I was in prayer late one night, these visions of world calamities came over me with such impact that I could do nothing but kneel, transfixed, and take it all in. At first, I did not want to believe what I saw and heard. The message was too frightening, but the vision came back to me night after night. I couldn't shake it off. I believe all will come to pass in this generation.

Candace Long: Let me briefly outline these five calamities that David Wilkerson saw coming and encourage you to read his book if you want to learn more. Number one: financial confusion and economic crash was the clearest thing that he saw. He saw it striking Europe first and then affecting Japan, the United States, Canada, and all other nations shortly thereafter. It will be a recession of such magnitude that it will affect the lifestyle of nearly everyone. There will be a few good years to prepare, but then it will hit and major corporations will be bankrupt. There will be a rush to move to the country, and those who do not prepare will be hurt badly.

Number two: drastic weather changes and earthquakes. He saw nature going wild with famines and outbreaks of pestilences. Number three was a flood of filth, with a moral landslide and demonic spirit of lust bringing perversion of unbelievable proportions, including a homosexual epidemic and a falling away in the church. Number four is a growing hatred of parents by today's youth. Number five: a spirit of persecution is coming against true Jesus followers.

Prophetic messenger number two is Bob Jones, known in charismatic circles as a prophet and seer. His influence touched the lives of Christian leaders from almost every nation and denomination. Bob lived a simple life and treated the lowly and those of no reputation the same as those of note. In 1975, Bob had a very real death experience, which his wife, Bonnie Jones, describes in detail in her book about his life called Did You Learn to Love?

The experience took place in 1975 as he was driving his pickup truck on I-65 heading home to Independence, Missouri. Suddenly, a white light about the size of a basketball came in to where he was behind the wheel and began speaking to him about the three major sins that would overtake America.

Guest (Male): Number one was the acceptance of homosexuality as normal. Number two was abortion. He saw that the ways that we have allowed these children to be killed will be the exact judgment that God will bring on our nation. And the number three sin involves meth labs. There would be two cheap chemicals, and mixing them together would become a narcotic which would destroy people's consciences. This condition would be passed down to their children, damaging the chromosomes to where children would be born without a natural conviction, rendering them heartless. He went on to explain that our sin in the United States is greater because we have exported these chemicals as well as abortion technologies. Therefore, many things for us will be aborted in the days to come.

Candace Long: When Jones began warning about homosexuality and abortion specifically, the devil threatened to kill him. Bob continued preaching anyway, sharing the vision, and suddenly went through a literal death experience. The Lord showed him heaven and hell and then sent him back to share what he saw with Christian leaders and prepare them for a great awakening of young people that would come to the Lord in later years.

Prophetic messenger number three is Howard Pittman, who was raised on a small farm in Mississippi during the Great Depression. A God-fearing man, Howard's profession was law enforcement until his death experience. The year was 1979. His entire story is recounted in his book, Demons: An Eyewitness Account. He writes that his spirit was lifted out of his body and taken to the second heaven. The angel of the Lord who accompanied him showed him the ranks of evil spirits who will play the most prominent role in the end times.

This book is especially important for those of you who may be involved in deliverance ministry because Pittman gives detailed account of the social order and grouping of demons and how they work together to target believers and prepare the world for the Antichrist. He ranks these five principalities according to their rank of delegated authority and influence in the latter days.

Guest (Male): Number one are giant warring demons whose sole goal is to divide and destroy through wars, hate, rage, strife, offense, and division. The second principality are demons of greed whose end goal is to destroy the world economy. Number three are the religious demons and the dark arts. These demons are skilled in the occult, in witchcraft, magic, sorcery, speaking with the dead, and false religion. These are infiltrating our churches.

Number four he calls mystery demons. These are the demons he says that need permission from God to work in a person's life. Their anonymity is very strong, and Pittman was not permitted to recall what this demon looked like. Apparently, their power over flesh is far greater than the other demons because of their anonymity. This would manifest as mysterious infirmities, diseases with no cure, possessions, mental illnesses, etcetera. The fifth principality are the demons of lust and perversion, whose forms were despicable. They are responsible for lowering our morals.

I want you to listen to one of the stories that Pittman wrote about. This one was dealing specifically with the spirit of fornication. Howard Pittman described observing a man who was speaking intimately with a young woman at an employee lounge. Pittman writes this: "The couple did not know the angel and I were there. They thought they were alone, but standing between them was the most despicable looking of all creatures. They were laughing and joking all the while the frog-like demon was moving slowly toward the man's face. His every move was calculated. When the demon reached the man's face, suddenly, like a puff of smoke, he disappeared into the man's face, appearing to have penetrated the pores of his skin. And the angel said to me, 'There, it is finished. He is possessed.'"

Guest (Female): The angel told him about the sovereign will of man and how this demon made himself look beautiful and desirable. This man had openly invited this thing to enter. Dr. Gwen Shaw was the late founder of the End-Time Handmaidens and Servants, and she endorsed Pittman's book by writing this: "What many call harmless flirtations are demonically inspired possessions. This is the spirit which will compel a husband to betray his wife of many years, forsake his own children, and ruin his career for another woman. When he is controlled by the green frog, he becomes overwhelmed by passions which he mistakes for love. This was the spirit that destroyed King Solomon."

Candace Long: We are not living in normal times. These unclean spirits are multiplying, and they are desperate to find host bodies to inhabit. One slip of the tongue and, wham, the green frog can slide inside if we do not guard ourselves every day. We see this frog mentioned in Revelation 16. When the Antichrist takes over, this repulsive demon will play a major role in the satanic trinity of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.

Howard Pittman's experience happened over 40 years ago. He preached and taught God's message on nearly every continent around the globe. On his ministry website, howardpittman.org, you'll find 15 books and 27 audios outlining the many things he was allowed to see and hear to help us in these latter days.

I encourage you to read for yourself the experiences of David Wilkerson, Bob Jones, and Howard Pittman. I have listed their resources in the description notes to this episode, The Days of Noah, Part 3, which you'll find on my podcast page at candacelong.com. If you'd like to learn more about how God speaks through dreams and visions, you'll find my three-part dream series also on my podcast page at candacelong.com.

There is so much more to uncover and explore about the days of Noah, but always remember this: just as the Lord surrounded Noah with divine help to keep him and his family safe during times of judgment, so he will protect and strengthen us to withstand in this evil day. God alone is our refuge and our strength. I'm Candace Long. I hope you join me again next time for Lessons in the Latter Days. God bless.