BeLOnGings

I enjoy joining the dots. I believe DOTS stands for Details Of The Story.

There is in the end of the day, only one Story. It is His – Story which is fulfilled prophecy writ through the whole of our lives.

Yesterday I watched a short video from the Bible project. It concluded with the significance of the number 7 and of the seventh day. Our trip to Ireland stretched to 7 weeks this time and it was on this seventh week that I witnessed events culminate as our story synchronized with The Story.

In Part 1. I spoke of the ‘Belle of Belfast City’ being the beautiful bride Father is preparing for his Son…….A Queen for His King. Well the final weekend I was invited by the South African pastor to share at Every Nation Church.

The church meets in the chapel of Methodist College Belfast, where our sons Robin and Ben attended before leaving Belfast in 1994. It is a mere stone’s throw from the Queen’s University and literally ‘round the corner’ from where the events on last week’s blog took place!

I had been in the chapel only once before, just prior to our moving to America. It was to sing at the wedding of a young man from our community called Colin Davidson. Colin had just finished at Art College and had completed a painting for us for the Come Lord Jesus album, of the harvesting Irish farmer with the subtext, “put in the sickle, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” (Rev.14:15)

Little did we know at the time that Colin would go on to be a world renowned artist particularly known for his portraits of famous people. This included the portrait of Angela Merkel for Time magazine’s Person of the Year and Queen Elizabeth 2. The photo at the beginning of the blog literally pictures

………. ‘the unveiling of the Queen’

So as in the last blog we were back in exactly the same place, Methody chapel, this time not 50 but 30 years later! We began by singing the “Belle of Belfast City’ brilliantly accompanied by grandsons Luke and Tom🙂pictured below. Then I unpacked the prophetic message described in Part 1.

I then lead the international congregation in Lord Jesus we enthrone You, and then asked if any of them had sung the song in their own ‘hometown’ in a different language. Several people put their hands up.

This included a group who said they had sung it in Persian in their homeland, Iran. A young Iranian had just testified (through a translator) of being healed from a stage 4 cancer and coming to faith in Jesus Christ from Islam. Apparently 25 other young Iranian men had also been converted. The following Sunday there was to be a baptism service!

Here 30 years on, God had brought from the ends of the earth harvesters, to harvest those he had brought from the ends of the earth to the city of Belfast, as a part of His Irish harvest!

………for ‘the harvest of the earth is ripe’ and it is time for the bridal Queen, drawn “from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” (Rev.5:9) to be unveiled!

The Smiling Face retreat was small but select.

Nestled between numbers 22 and 24 Elmwood Avenue we knew it was our Psalm 23 shepherd who had lead each one to be at that place, as he smiled out from the flyer, pictured on the October10th blog.

(Above is Brian’s smiling face as he selfied some of the combined US/Ireland Your Smiling Face team)

I begin the last blog by mentioning that we had over the years been sent to all 5 continents At the retreat we heard from participants from Poland, from South Africa, from Korea, from the US (and of course from Ireland : ) wonderful testimonies of how Jesus had set them free!

That left Australasia as the only continent not represented.

Then Father pointed out to me that the following weekend at the Come Magnify the Lord worship gathering, much to our surprise and delight, Barbara, a friend we hadn’t seen in many years came forward to testify about the time we visited their church in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand.

I recalled singing On the Day You were Born for the first time there. A Māori lady then shared about a vision she had as we were singing, of Jesus coming on a long white cloud. The Maori name for their country, Aotearoa means, ‘The land of the long white cloud’

Barbara then went on to remind me of how the next day we went to the highest spot in the region to sing Lord Jesus we Enthrone You and invite him to take his place as King throughout that land. She recalled a tourist standing nearby had ambled up to us and said, “I know that song. We sing it in our country too.”

I recalled that on the identical spot where Barbara now stood and spoke, exactly 50 years previously, the Come Together in Jesus Name choir had been given a prophecy by David Matthews (who died earlier this year, after 77 years service here on earth.) He quoted the scripture,

‘Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.’ (Jn.12:24)

At the time the leadership team received this word as from the Lord, and even though it seemed in the natural, the musical had a lot more ‘mileage’, we decided to give it back to God, and let it ‘die’.

And now here we were again, 50 years later, hearing stories about this hospitable church being filled with students from the four corners of the globe, and our own ‘Jubilee’ event tokening the same broad reach, and a real depth of life changing testimonies!

The number 23, as illustrated in Psalm 23, represents ‘Death and Resurrection’.

After embracing the word about letting something die 50 years previously, Father had brought us back to exactly the same spot, to witness the faithful fulfillment of his promise in,

…….The Church of The Resurrection🙂

At the worship gathering, Keith sang a beautiful song he had written for us. Here is the snippet we caught……

indeed, “The plans of the Lord will stand for ever; the purpose of the Lord from age to age.”

We had now witnessed this personally in this place, as the story of the last 50 years had unfolded.

Towards the end of the evening someone initiated prayer for us. Words came about sowing in tears but reaping with joy, about a harvest of 60, 80 and 100 fold, about an anointing going with us. As the first word was given the microphone suddenly came love, and out boomed…..”Paul, the best is yet to come.’

We only had to wait until the following weekend to experience the beginnings of that word being fulfilled.

More in next week’s blog🙂

Over the years we have had the privilege of assignments on all five continents. Usually we will begin our sharing by inviting King Jesus to come and take His place in that place, as we sing ‘Lord Jesus We Enthrone you, we proclaim you are King.’

Then by way of introducing ourselves, we often would sing about our hometown in, ‘The Belle of Belfast City’

I would then speak about that beautiful Belle as being the Bride of Christ that God is preparing for His Son not just in Belfast but in every city, town and village across the globe

I reckon that makes the bride of the King we long for……the Queen.

Interestingly when we lived in Belfast much spiritual activity happened around our old alma mater, The Queen’s University Belfast (Q.U.B.).

This was where ‘the charismatic movement’ first landed, where the ‘Come Together in Jesus Name’ choir was born, and where the musical presentation ‘Come Lord Jesus’ first took place. Both these musicals spread through Ireland and beyond. These three ‘birthings’ happened literally within a quarter mile radius of one another…..at Queen’s.

On our return last month the three events I gave notice about on the blog, once again……all happened to take place around ‘Queens’

More than ever before, the Belfast folk song about the Belle of Belfast City came alive to me as a prophecy, now being fulfilled in our time!.

The chorus goes,

She is handsome, she is pretty

She is the Belle of Belfast city

She is a courtin’ one, two, three

Please won’t you tell me who is she.

‘Handsome’ usually refers to men and ‘pretty’ to women indicating that ‘the bride of Christ’ is made up of both men and women.

And who are three she is courting? Why the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In verse one we hear of conflict, ‘All the boys are fighting’ and the boys are fighting the girls, ‘They boys won’t leave the girls alone…..They pull my hair and stole my comb.’ Beyond the historic, ‘Troubles’ of Northern Ireland conflict between ethnic groups and between the genders is more marked worldwide now than ever before.

And yet out of these difficult times emerges the Belle…..

’Out she comes as white as snow

Rings on her fingers bells on her toes.’

Scripture tells us that though our sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow. This white robe speaks of the righteousness that is ours in Christ, (Is. 1:18, 61:10,11) As returning prodigals we have been given a ring of authority on our finger (Lk.15:22) and on our feet, the bells that ring out good news, from those whose feet have been shod, ‘with the gospel of peace.’ (Eph.6:15)

‘How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news. Proclaiming peace announcing news of happiness,’Our God reigns’ (Is. 52:7)

This above all is the good news, that our good God reigns in all, over all and through all!

The third verse begins,

‘Let the wind and the rain and the hail blow high.

The snow come a tumbling from the sky.

She’s as sweet as apple pie

And she’ll get her own lad by and by.”

Today we are in the midst of a ferocious worldwide storm. Yet we find the Belle, ‘sweet as apple pie’

She lives the truth of Psalm 46 for God is her refuge and strength an ever present help in trouble therefore she does not fear though the earth appears to give way for through her heart flows the stream of God’s Spirit enabling her to be still in the knowledge that God is God.

We discover the Belle does get her love. So who is “the fella with the rovin’ eye’?

‘For the eyes of the LORD roam throughout the earth, so that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.” (2 Chron.16:9)

We discover his name is ‘Albert Mooney’. What does that reveal? Albert means ‘bright and noble’ one, and Mooney means ‘wealthy’.

Is not Jesus, the wealthy one? The creator and owner of all things, it is He who is our bright and noble bridegroom……the beautiful Queen’s Coming King.

We literally met a ‘good shepherd’ several years ago when we made our traditional visit to ‘the land.’

‘The land’ is a quarter acre field my father purchased on Horn Head, Donegal. It has I think one of the most beautiful views in Ireland, but he and we have been prevented from building on it all these years. That is another story, but we do like to visit when we’ve over here and drink in the beauty for a few minutes.

The farm beside the field is owned by a shepherd and when we met him a number of years ago and heard and saw how he handled his sheep, we knew he was a ‘good shepherd’ He took us into the shed to see a new born lamb that had been too weak to feed from his mother. Lying there peacefully on the warm straw under the rays of a heat lamp, Shane, the farmer was giving feeds from a bottle filled with mother’s milk.

In the absence of development, we had given permission for Shane to use our field in the meantime. Last visit I spied a doll’s house in one corner. This time it was a miniature football net revealing the addition of two little ‘human lambs’ to Shane and his wife, that were now the object of his care and attention.

I found Shane’s step mother sunning herself next door. A pleasant, friendly and helpful woman, we’d met on a previous visit, she sported a bandage on her right wrist.

“Carpel tunnel syndrome?’ I ventured.

“Yes” she replied. ‘I had this one done last week. I’m due to have the other done next.”

‘Would you like me to pray for you to be healed?’ I ventured further.

‘O yes please.’ She eagerly responded.

I leaned over the low whitewashed wall placed my hand on her shoulder, and against that backcloth of beauty, released the healing power of ‘the great shepherd’.

Raised on the East coast of Ulster at Gilnahirk, ‘the hill of the horn blower’, each time we would visit Horn Head on the western coast we would take the opportunity to sound the horn the Lord had given us to blow in the song Lord Jesus We Enthrone You, proclaiming Jesus King, and inviting him to come and take his place here as we overlooked the town of Dunfanaghy below.

Back in town, it was time for coffee……good coffee I mean!

Fortunately we knew the spot. It was the most prominent building at the heart of the village, facing onto the town market square. A plaque commemorated it being the location of an incident related to the worst of the British Empire.

A few hundred yards away the old Workhouse now adapted for the tourists.

The ‘famine pot’ outside was another reminder of those ‘bad old days’

The ‘evil empire’ has continued largely hidden as ‘Mystery Babylon’ Now the ‘Mystery’ is being uncovered and ‘Babylon’ exposed, for its time is up! The Luciferian death cult that has usurped the seven mountains of influence (government, media, economy, religion, family, arts and entertainment, education) is soon to be displaced as the ‘sons’ whom God has been preparing rise up to take their place as the true ‘shepherds’ of the sheep, that Isaiah 2: 2 be fulfilled and ‘the mountain of the Lord’ grow to fill the whole earth.

As we entered the shop in the historic heart of the village we found ourselves in easy conversation with Kathy the owner. We quickly knew we were on the same page and she talked about her husband as the one ‘ferreting out’ the truth. As a nurse he had refused the order to be the one to go to Tory island and inject the islanders with the untested experimental gene therapy.

“Sure they had to open a clinic in Letterkenny to help the women who developed menstrual problems post vaccination.” She said. ‘There was no way I was letting my 12 year old daughter get that jab.”

‘Yes, we’ve been ostracized, but we’re still here.” She said with a quiet confidence.

As we pottered through the antiques and collectibles we came across the shepherd’s crook pictured above.

Once again Father was pointing up another hero, this time not an national or international figure such as those mentioned in the last blog, but a ‘local hero’ carrying the shepherd’s heart right at the very heart of this community we had been singing and proclaiming Jesus King over for years.

Father highlighted to me the name Kathy had chosen for the shop, REVIVE, and I realized again, “This is that.’ Something ‘utterly other than we have known heretofore’ where in the heart of the marketplace and government of this community, the heart of ‘the good shepherd’ is being manifested and ‘the mountain of the Lord’ is being established.

I had stumbled across Revival.

That is the title of the message Father has given me to share at the Chapel of Unity in Methodist College Belfast this Sunday at 11 am at Every Nation Church. 1 Malone Road. BY9 6SJ. All are welcome.

On our first day back in Ireland we took Abby’s family to Dublin airport to fly to Spain on their holidays.

On our way back to Belfast we decided to stop off at Monasterboice, one of the cradle sites of the early Celtic church. We had driven past it many times on that route, but had never stopped to visit.

Our interest was heightened by the story told by our friend Jack, an Episcopal priest from Colorado I had first met at the launch of the order of St. Aidan and St.Hilda in England just prior to our moving to the US.

Jack had returned to the British Isles a few years later to do a pilgrimage taking in various cradle sites. He later reported to me that this had proven to be a real disappointment……up until the last moment on his last stop, that is, at Monasterboice.

It was a dull wet Irish day. A bus load of German tourists irritatingly disturbed the peace of the place. About to get back into his car, he turned around gloomily to take one last look……. and that was when he had the vision!…..

He saw the Celtic monks rise up out of the earth. Their chains were falling off as they lifted their hands in triumphant praise to heaven!

I had mailed a copy of our newly pressed ‘O Ireland’ CD to Jack’s home in Colorado. It was a few days later he contacted me.

‘That is what I saw!’ He said excitedly. ‘What you described in ‘The Giant’s Song!’ That was the open vision I had at Monasterboice!’

The second reason we felt drawn to Monasterboice on our way home from the airport was our friend Maurice’s comment when we’d mentioned it a while back. ‘Best steak I ever had was at The Monasterboice Inn.’ He’d said.

Hilary was getting quite peckish, so even though evening was closing in we decided to do the Inn first.

(We were seated at table 24 a number that Johnny Enlow deals with at some length on Unfiltered# 76 in the wake of Novak Djokovic equaling Margaret Court’s record 24 grand slam wins. 24 A and B also happened to be the seats we had been allocated on the transatlantic flight.)

There was an error in the Inn’s processing of our payment. Of course nothing is ‘an error’ so I saw another wink from heaven, that we were on track, when the new sum was double grace – 55 euros.

We settled up and then set off for the Abbey. By this time daylight was nearly gone, however undeterred, just a couple of miles away, we found the abbey ruins, it’s crosses and round tower, now silhouetted against the night sky.

As we droped down into our spirits, once again the chorus rose up that we have adapted and sung dozens of times at many appointed times and places across the globe.

‘Arise and shine O mighty one

Arise and shine your sleep is done

Arise and shine your light has come.

Your light is Christ

Ireland’s true Son.’

As we made our way back to the car I noticed these candles lit on a relatively new grave ………in the hope of that resurrection moment Jack had a foretaste of in this graveyard years before when the chains of our final captivity to death will be broken!

It was during the night Father made the Abbey-Inn connection for me.

In ordering our meal at the Inn we had enquired, ‘Do you cook with seed oil or beef oil?’
‘Let me check.’ the waiter said and returned a few minutes later with the answer, ‘Everything is cooked in seed oil.’

We skipped the steak and ordered a grilled burger. It wasn’t the best we’d ever had, but it was pretty good. The food however had not been the focus of my attention, but the other people in the restaurant.

They were typical Irish folk, friendly and kind as ever, but the scripture that came to mind was when Jesus looked out over the crowd and described them as ‘harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.’ Thinking back to the restaurant scene I felt that compassion of Jesus for these ‘ordinary people’.

The SID (standard Irish diet)like the SAD (standard American diet) had taken its toll. The girls across from us just looked unwell. The man next to us got up to don his coat. ‘They tell us we can’t afford to heat the place now.’

The next day a good friend from Belfast sent me a recent video of eminent cardiologist Dr Peter McCullough addressing the EU parliament. It was a clear fact based’ presentation highlighting the catastrophic leadership failure of the last years, particularly in regard to the disastrous vaccine role out. My friend had like most everyone here, taken the jab. The shocking excess sickness and deaths in the counties that participated in the program must now be attributed to the shots until proved otherwise, McCullough asserted. Ireland has been one of those hardest hit.

Nobel prize winner John Clauson is one of the 1600 scientists recently challenging the false ‘man made climate crisis’ narrative holding the world to ransom, and having Pat put on his coat again.

Ireland’s own Ivor Cummins is a leading voice seeking to put the record straight regarding the false mainstream ‘cholesterol’ narrative, while Mary and her friends eat their way to obesity, diabetes and early death on a seed oil diet.

The censoring and shaming of truth seekers such as these (and honorary mention of Neil Oliver🙂) must be one of the greatest evils abroad.

They are a few examples of the many brave souls who have in recent years chosen to speak out fearlessly….. on behalf of ‘the sheep’

They are rising up, not as their Abbey forbearers dressed in monk’s attire living the life of a ‘Religious’, remote from the world. Rather on the seven mountains of society they are echoing the voice of ‘the good shepherd’ in their quest for truth, in love for His sheep

Next. Following ‘the good shepherd’ to Donegal.

The ‘church in the wilderness’, representing the Passover church was fed manna’. Manna literally means, ’What is it?’ It was something ‘utterly other’ to anything they had experienced heretofore.

On the day of Pentecost when the Spirit was poured out in ‘the Upper Room’ it again provoked among observers the question, “What is this?’ Once again it was something ‘utterly other’ than anything they had known to date.

Peter’s answer quoted Joel “THIS is THAT which was spoken of by the prophet Joel.’ (Acts.2:16)

Now as we transition into the age of Tabernacles should we not again be prepared to encounter something ‘utterly other’ than that which we have been used to?

I was recently at a leaders meeting where the ‘latest ‘summit’ was being talked about as promising the be ‘the latest and the greatest’ yet! It sounded to me however, like a familiar formulae. Another conference, another set of meetings with worship times, speakers, and ministry times, which no doubt God will bless.

‘But what else is there? ‘ You might ask.

It is entirely understandable that we look to the future through the lens of our past experience. This is the only framework we have to use. We’ve had 2,000 years of viewing things through a Pentecostal lens. However unless we in honesty and humility end up having to ask the question, “What is it?’ It probably isn’t the ‘it’ that we are all longing for in terms of the THIS of God’s next move’.

This is why I believe the message Johnny Enlow brings comes into the category of ‘utterly other’. Religion is only one of the the seven mountains, so the ‘Religious Revival’ many are hoping for can only be one aspect of a much more fundamental and far reaching global and societal change that accompanies the dawning of this new ‘kingdom age’ The last two Unfiltered episodes #75 and 76 on Elijah Streams once again present something that is quite ‘different’……challenging and hopeful.

Stephen Jones has on his blog at God’s Kingdom Ministries has been reporting recently on a number of world governmental leaders asking for his help in establishing an ‘utterly other’ approach to the mountain of government, now that the bankruptcy of the fraudulent western ‘democracies’ is being exposed as merely a neo-colonialism managed by an elite few evil ‘puppet masters’ in the shadows. It is indeed time for ‘the saints of the Most High’ ’to come into their own. (Dan.7:18)

When Zerubabbel rebuilt the temple we read that those who remembered the old temple wept. They couldn’t help but look back and compare ‘THIS’ to ‘THAT’’. THIS however was NOT THAT.

It was like today, a new day, requiring a new way of perceiving how God is working.

‘Behold I am doing a new thing;’ is an oft quoted scripture. But it continues, ‘now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?’ ( Is.43:19)

I will write next about how we encountered THIS is THAT in our perception of events on our first day home in Ireland.

P.S. It’s a Jackalope of course!

A few days ago riding my bike on the Parkway, I ‘bumped into’ Vernel. I know his name but nothing else about him. In fact I have wondered of he might in fact be an angel.

He reminds me of James Stewart’s guardian angel Clarence in It’s A Wonderful Life, but Vernel is a more bubbly, bouncy, cheerful black version😀

Our exchanges have been brief, with him enthusiastically reciting the praises of Jesus always ending in the bestowing of a blessing. His parting shot the other day stuck with me,

‘God’s favor be upon you.’

As I later drove all the way down to the south of the city I discovered the office I was going to was shut. Turning around I set about my second errand, then realized that the doors there too would still be closed! Not much apparent ‘favor’ thus far, …….well not as far as I could tell.

I pulled off the highway realizing I could buy those things at another store.

As I walked through its door……there he was, grinning from ear to ear as he spotted me!

It was a brother I hadn’t seen for years but who we had met when he was at an all time low point in his life. He had attended a Freedom! Retreat and things began turning around. He was reunited to his estranged wife and shortly afterwards they conceived. Sadly they hit another bump in the road and separated.

He was eager to tell me about the ‘favor’ that had followed him since that time.

“ I have become a citizen, bought an apartment, and love my job here, and look……” He said pulling up a photo to proudly show off his beautiful maturing daughter. ‘Her mother and I are co-parenting very well.’ he happily reported.

‘Ah’ I said. ‘We were meant to meet this morning.’ and told him the story of Vernel…. and God’s favor😀

A few days later I met Vernel again on the Parkway. This time I didn’t dismount, but ‘high fived’ him as I rode past.

“How’s it going? He shouted after me.

“Couldn’t be better’ I shouted back.

Then realized as I pushed up the hill how true that spontaneous response was and how the ‘high fives’ signaled the double grace and favor that is multiplied toward all of us each and every day…. whether the journey seems uphill or downhill and whether the door is closed or open.😀

Let’s keep it Real with Vernel.

P.S. We have another Freedom! retreat coming up next week end, Friday 15th, Saturday 16th. Would love for you to pray for it….or attend🙂 paulkyle.org/events