Darrell B Jr.

Early Thursday morning, March 2, I awoke from a dream. The dream had three parts interwoven together.In the first part, I was at the General Assembly getting onto an elevator with a prominent minister of the Church of God. The inside of the elevator was modern, but the outside of the elevator was outdated. Instead of using cables and pulleys to lift and lower it, it had a hydraulic lattice that would expand and contract as the elevator would go up and down.

The elevator was going up, but we were supposed to be going down. It was very important that we get down to the floor level and avoid going up at all costs, so we got out of the elevator and began to climb down the lattice type system. The bars of the lattice were greasy, dirty and dangerous. As we neared the ground level, the lattice began to contract, making it impossible to hold on without losing fingers. So the prominent minister let go. He fell to the floor, got up and was no worse for the wear. He then told me to let go, and it would be all right.

Then came the second part of the dream. There was a city that expanded from the east to the west as far as the eye could see and beyond.

There were nice houses built on the southern hills extending into the base of southern mountains, they too stretched from east to west.

In the north was a valley that was overflowing with low income housing, crack houses, homeless tenements and the like. The valley extended northward, and again stretched from east to west.

Right in the middle, as a dividing line between the two was a row of old churches. Each church was a different color, but each church was the same general style of building, and each church was in a state of disrepair. Where the stained glass windows should be, they were covered with plastic. The steeples and portions of the roof were covered with tarps. The churches were falling apart. There was a sense that some of the churches were trying to make repairs under their plastic coverings, but most churches were content to continue with business as usual, oblivious to their dilemma.

Finally came the third part of the dream. The prominent minister and I walked onto the main floor of the General Assembly. At the front of the auditorium was gathered a large number of pastors. These pastors were elderly and feeble and came from those dilapidated churches which stretched from the east to the west.

On the platform was the General Overseer…not by name but by position. He was exhorting these ministers very slowly and deliberately. As he spoke it almost seemed to be in slow motion.

The General Overseer ministered to these pastors from Isaiah chapter 3. He explained his concern that God was going to remove his benefits from the church (Isaiah3:1-3) if they continued to speak out and work against the will of the Lord, disobeying their God given mandate; because this was an eye sore to God (Isaiah 3:8). He encouraged them that God would still reward the righteous with the fruit of their work (Isaiah 3:10). Finally he warned them that their failure to pass on the faith to a new generation would cause their replacements to not want to lead, not know how to lead, and thus cause them to lead out of corrupt motivations which will give way to anarchy (Isaiah 3:4-7, 12).

Over the course of his message he outlined two basic sins that were particularly offensive to God. First, the leaders had taken advantage of the Vineyard by plundering the poor which is like grinding God’s people into dust (Isaiah 3:14-15). Second, the bride had covered herself with arrogance to attract the men of the world (Isaiah 3:16).

This is what I believe the Lord is saying to me in this dream.

We are entering a late season. We have been so focused on going up that we have been reluctant to go out. As a result our churches are becoming a place of segregation and separation between the affluent and the afflicted.

God has promised a harvest for the righteous, so there is still hope. Yet we have a problem with pride, and oppression is in store for the proud.

We can’t keep the blessings to ourselves; we must let them flow from us to a new generation outside of our buildings. If we will not pass on the mantle while infusing God’s blessings into our cities, then God will lift the mantle from us, leaving the next generation devoid of the knowledge, the anointing and the passion necessary for Godly leadership.