Bill Johnson - The Heart of a Prophet
I want you to go to and, what I wanna do is today I’m gonna use the Christmas theme to indicate what I believe is a season, I don’t know if I can call it a season change, if it’s something that God is accelerating, I don’t know. But, there’s something happening. But it’s an indicator, I think, of what God’s just doing in us, in our city, really, in our country, right now. When Jesus was announced to be born, it’s interesting that the Christmas story starts with infertility. It was infertility of John the Baptist’s parents, Zacharias and Elizabeth. They couldn’t have kids. Angel shows up, and, they’re terrified. Or, Zacharias is terrified. «Troubled» is a nice, mellow word for scared to death. I need to change my pampers, is what it means. I’m quite sure that’s it. In the original language, I’m sure that’s in there. What I’ve noticed throughout this story is that you find troubled hearts and joy. The joy follows the troubled heart.
In this case, you’ve got Zacharias, angel shows up, Gabriel shows up to give the message that his prayer has been heard and that his wife is gonna bear a son. Well, they’re too old to have kids. And God’s done that at least once before with Abraham and Sarah. But, these guys are too old to have kids. The angel shows up. And Zacharias does kind of a dumb thing. He asks the angel how he knows this is really true, what he’s saying, which is just not what you ever wanna say to Gabriel. He tends to come from the presence of God with a message. And so, you don’t ever question the authenticity of that message. But, anyway, he couldn’t talk for nine months. And, it’s probably so he wouldn’t mess up the miracle. So, angel shows up. He’s terrified. He goes from terror into joy because he has a son. But interesting, this phrase says: your prayer has been heard.
And years ago, I was reading through that. And I think it’s the William Barkley commentary on that verse. He said: in the original language, what it’s actually saying there is the prayer you no longer pray has been heard. Isn’t that amazing? You can pray something in God. And even though you’ve become discouraged, it’s still before the Lord pulling on the heart of God for a situation. So, anyway, here’s the story. He’s troubled. He hears the word of the Lord. He ends up having a son. The angel shows up and announces to the shepherds: «I’ve got amazing news for you. This is good news. And it’s with great joy. Don’t be afraid». They’re troubled. «Don’t be afraid because I have a message of great joy».
So, the trouble came first, then the joy. Here’s the deal is that God wants to do something so good that it’s going to scare you. So, expect to be troubled. Being troubled is not an enemy. It just means God reached your limit of what you have faith for and he says: I’m going past that. I’m going beyond that. John the Baptist’s dad quit praying for his son. God says: I’m going past that one and I’m going to do something that’s absolutely impossible to do. And I feel like this is a season when, well, it’s Christmas season. Some of you it’s a dreaded season because of so many things that have happened in the past. I just believe that this could be a year that God would turn all those things around and it would be a real blessed season for all. But we have this cycle of being troubled and then the joy.
Same thing happened to Mary, the angel Gabriel shows up and announces she’s going to have a child and calls Mary «The highly favored one». Highly favored. About to be divorced by her husband 'cause she’s pregnant. Highly favored. Has to leave Israel to hide in Egypt. Highly favored. Mother of the illegitimate son. Highly favored. Favor doesn’t always go well with everyone. Not everyone’s always happy with God showing favor into your life. And, how many of you want more favor? I should have asked you before I gave you that little lesson.
You know, favor’s just expensive. Here’s the deal: I have increasing favor on my life. I know that that’s true. I see it all the time. But I have favor 'cause I said and, sometimes, saying yes to Jesus, again, costs me the favor that I just obtained. It’s not mine, my responsibility is to say yes to Jesus. If he gives favor or opposition, that’s my assignment. That’s another subject for another day. Let’s just get in it. So, here, we’ve got this favor thing. But there’s something else that happened here. And this is what I wanna see. I wanna show you a season.
And so, to do that, we’re gonna go right here into Matthew 2. Are you there? Just say: yes. Yes, we’re there. «When the wise men saw the star», verse 10, «They rejoiced with exceedingly great joy». I just wanted to highlight that one because this «Exceedingly great joy» is a word that means violence. It’s a violent word. It doesn’t mean they went and beat up people. It just means it was so extreme that they stepped out of their comfort zone and it brought destruction to the powers of it was a violent act. Joy is a violent act. Joy is a violent choice that you and I make.
And the wise men were not, it’s not three wise guys that brought some gifts for Jesus. This was royalty. The wise men were magi. This is royalty. And what does royalty do when they come to honor another king? They don’t bring a token gift. I don’t know if you’ve thought about it. When the queen of Sheba came to Solomon, what did she do? The gift she brought was extraordinary. What would this team of royalty, and it doesn’t say there was three wise men. It just say there was three different kinds of gift. There could have been 20. There could have been 25. We don’t know how many there were, but there was this entourage that left from that part of the world to where Jesus was, to honor him as the King of kings. And they brought gifts to him. And they brought gifts that royalty would bring to royalty.
They went to Herod. They announced a new king had been horn. He became jealous. In verse 14, it says: «When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt». Joseph had a dream that he was to leave town in a hurry, so he did. And verse 16 says: «Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry: and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men».
When Moses came upon the scene, an infant, you remember, was put in the basket. At that time, Pharaoh became jealous, threatened, because he heard God was raising up a king. And so, he purposed to kill all the children under a certain age. Why? God was bringing a deliverer the enemy tried to destroy by killing the children. When Jesus came on the scene as the Savior of the world, the devil, once again, inspired people to kill the children, because he had something in the last 40 years or whatever, we’ve had the slaughter of 50 million babies through abortion, because God has purposed to raise up something in this generation. And no attempt of the enemy can destroy them. It’s not the message, today, but one of the interesting features is that the Lord spoke through the angel spoke to Mary. She conceives. She goes to visit her aunt, who is quite elderly, and, Mary could have been as young as 14 or 15 years old.
And she goes to visit her aunt, who’s very elderly. And when she comes, her aunt Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist. So, when she walks into the room, the Bible says that the baby, John, inside the womb of Elizabeth, leaped for joy. Children in the womb can experience joy which means they can experience pain. So, here’s this season where the enemy works hard to prevent what God has purposed. In these two cases, it was through killing of children. I believe that this generation, there’s going to be a generation, someday, who will never see death, because of the Lord coming.
There’s something that he has purposed in the earth that has never been seen before, and that’s where entire nations become discipled in the Lord. We see it all through scripture where entire nations will bow before the Lord. I get nervous over those whose hope is being rescued from calamity instead of us embracing our assignment to see his kingdom come and impact the course of history. And that’s what we’ve been given, this incredible privilege. So, here’s what I’m wantin' to do. All of this is just to come down to one thought, as I’ve already mentioned. It’s not really a message, but there’s a theme going on is that I feel like God wants to release a gift, or open up a gift, in people, today.
So, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to look at Matthew 1. And I want you to just, we’re gonna just skip through several verses, so just follow with me verse 20. It says: «When he», this is Joseph, «But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream», go to chapter 2:12, «Then, being divinely warned in a dream», verse 13, «Now, when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream», verse 19, «Now, when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream», verse 22, «But when he heard that», whatever his name is, «Was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned by God in a dream».
Do you remember the statement that says, «And God does nothing in the earth, except that he speaks first to», how many remember that? I don’t think this is a stretch. I really sense that this is the heart of the Lord. In the Old Testament, we have the Lord first speaking to his prophets before something is released into the earth. Before God does a new thing, the prophets speak. He speaks to the prophets. Throughout the Old Testament, there was a preparation for a time when all of God’s people would be as prophets, not prophets in the sense of an office, but prophets in the sense of being able to hear, being able to dream, being able to perceive what God is saying, what God is doing. It is his heart, Moses cried out, at one point. He says: I would that all God’s people were prophets. You get into Isaiah 59 and you see that it was God’s intention for all of the people of God to be considered descendants of the prophets, which means, as a descendant, you inherit what they carry, what they give.
And so, here’s the heart of the Lord for you and for me: to carry this heart of a prophet. What does it mean? Whenever there’s a season change, God speaks to his people. Whenever there’s a season change, he speaks to his prophets. I’d like to suggest to you that the Lord wants to amp up the dream realm in every person in this room. I’ve got this sense that the Lord would start releasing prophetic dreams on a much more consistent and regular basis. You just have to do what he says. That’s kind of the requirement. You say yes before you dream it. You say yes before he speaks, that invites his voice. Yes, bill, that’s a very good point.
All right. So, I’ve got this sense that the Lord would just increase, amp up the whole anointing on us for dreams. Why? 'cause I believe it’s a shift in seasons. I believe the Lord is giving a block of time, I won’t get specific, but I believe a block of time, a number of years, where there are going to be unusual breakthroughs in every single area that you can think of. And when there is a season shift, a season change, the dreams increase. I don’t think it’s a stretch to find all these verses where God spoke through dreams when there was something new God was about to do.
I believe it’s one of the ways, but I feel like there’s just an anointing. I just have a faith for it, today, that there’s going to be an increase in our lives, with prophetic dreams. I had this dream quite a few years ago. In this dream, I was looking at this car. And it was, somehow, in the dream, I knew that it was from 1938. And, it was all oxidized. Just, really, the paint was destroyed on it. And it had kind of the spoke-type tires and rims. And both left tires on this thing were flat. And it had California license plates. And so, that, you know, most of you would dream that and think: mmeoh, pizza from last week. But it really troubled me, 'cause I felt like the Lord was speaking, but I thought: man, it must be some, because my car’s oxidized and, I got flat tires, and I did somethin' wrong. I don’t know what it is.
I remember John Paul Jackson came. What a treasure. You know, that man just died too early. And Kim Clement died here, just week and a half or so ago. I’m so sad about that 'cause it was, we needed him. We needed those prophetic giftings. This is a side note. Pray for the prophets, please. Just don’t assume all is well. They sometimes take hits that nobody else takes. And we just need these people around, you know. Your ability to hear from God doesn’t replace the prophet. And neither does the prophet replace your need to hear from God. So, just keep those two intact. Off the subject, back to this. Back to my dream. Back to my left tires that were flat. It had the old California license plate.
And so, I went to John Paul, you know, waiting for him to speak his word of correction or whatever it was that I needed. I was ready. And he said, «Well, did you have family living in California in 1938»? And I found out that, yeah, I had a uncle who lived here. My whole family’s from Minnesota, so, that’s our part of the world. But I had an uncle who lived here in California and he was a soloist for Aimee Semple McPherson. And he said: «The left tires represent what your family was born to do. And there was something that was not completed in your family assignment with», in this case, with Aimee Semple McPherson, «And the anointing that was supposed to spread». And so, this car was a symbol of something they had, old and oxidized. And the tires were flat. But the Lord was revealing it because he was giving access to restore that call, or that purpose, or that purpose, on my family line.
Well, I almost danced out of that meeting with John Paul because I thought: «It was a good dream! It was a good dream»! That’s what I want to happen to you. I want you to dream things that hook you, that drive you into the presence, where you get counsel, where you do whatever you need to do to find out what God is saying. Because I feel like this is a season shift and he’s going to dramatically increase him speaking to you and to me in and through dreams. I’m using the Christmas story, maybe even illegally in some ways, to illustrate that in a season shift, dreams increase. It’s interesting, in this Christmas story, which I hope to be able to cover more properly at another date, that the Lord spoke to Simeon, who was a real prophetic voice, and to Anna, the great intercessor, who spent her days and nights fasting in prayer at the temple praying.
All these things are indicators of a season shift, of people praying, burdened, crying out to God for things… How many of you have felt a burden for something, you’ve cried out to God, and you didn’t even know what you were praying for? You’re just praying till the thing lifted. You didn’t even know what it was. That just happens because there’s something that is getting birthed, I believe, into our city, but, I also believe, into our nation. So, what I wanna do today is we’re gonna pray for the dream realm. I just feel like the one thing I was, not the one thing, 'cause there’s a couple things I felt I was supposed to do today. But one of the things I felt I was supposed to do today is just to pray for the release of dreams where God would speak.
I’ve had him speak to me very simply, very profoundly. I’ve had him, I’ve woken up when there’s been no mystery. I knew exactly what he was tellin' me to do. And there have been other times I’ve been horribly confused, going: oh, Jesus, what does this mean? And so, what I’ve tried to do is I try to write 'em down, hoping that there’ll be a time where he either unlocks it for me, or connects me with somebody that can really, interpret those dreams. Does anybody want this? Does anybody want God to talk to you while you’re sleeping? All right. Stand up. I’ve had the Lord give me financial direction in my life through a dream. I had been praying about a particular thing and he showed me exactly what to do. I woke up knowing what to do. And I just feel like he’s going to increase, increase the dream realm. So, if you’re ready, just say: «I’m ready». Put your hands in front of you, let me pray over you, and, it’s just kind of an act of receiving.
Father, I ask that you would release now a gift in the dream realm: that you would in the same way that you speak to your prophets before anything new happens in the earth, so I ask that you would speak to these prophets, these descendants of the prophets, through dreams, through visions, all the ways that you speak. But, specifically, we say, Lord: come in the night and teach us. Teach us about you, teach us about you’re doing. Release the creative ideas, release the secrets, the insights that we need, the encounters. God, most of all, the encounters. And, Lord, I pray for people in this room with godly heritages or very that every family would be restored to the purpose for their household: that my whole left-tires-being-flat thing would just apply to every person in the room: that there would be this sense of reengaging with divine purpose for the family line. And I’m asking, Lord, that between now and Christmas that everybody in this room would see, and those watching online, as well, would see a dramatic, dramatic increase in the dream realm and give us understanding and wisdom for this, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.