When a member of our prayer group, Ellen, gave the following prophecy in 1982, we thought it was from God. We paid heed, and started a vigil, and met for an hour for many, many nights at the homes of various members, praying for the body of Christ. Other prophecies followed this one, but hers started the whole thing.

We recently visited Ellen in a nursing home. She had had a stroke, some fractures,  was in a wheelchair and on oxygen. I brought her a copy of her prophecy  and she followed the words intently as we read it to her. Her first words as we finished reading it were, “Where did the words come from?” She confirmed again, as we knew in 1982, that those words just weren’t hers. Twenty-eight years later the words and the call are just as fresh and as urgent.

My body is dying, prepare a vigil
In weeping and mourning, come.
Is there any among you willing to die
That my body might live?
It is you, my people, who are killing my body –
It is you, my people, who have the power to restore it to wholeness.
Search your heart – Are you willing to die to self –
Your ego, ambitions, jealousies, sin?
Are you willing to begin to live a new life –
A life centered on me – putting aside any claims you think you have –
In perfect obedience to my will?

The road to Calvary is harsh, my people,
But it is the only road for my disciples.
Death awaits you as it did me at the end of the road.
I had to pass through death to come to resurrection, to victory.
Search deeply into your hearts –
Do you believe enough?  Love enough? Trust enough to enter the grave with Me, and dare to hope in resurrection?

Don’t make the mistake of jumping into this lightly, my people.
I ransomed you at the price of my own life,
in humiliation and suffering.

I am calling you to be people of Calvary, willing to suffer, willing to die to yourselves,
in atonement for your sins and those of the world.
The time of trial and tribulation is intensifying.
I need you, my people, to be a beacon of light in the darkness.
The only source of light is my love in you.
There is no room for my love as long as you are filled with self.
The victory is within your grasp if you are willing to pay the price and not count the cost.

My love will not fail you.

Come, my people, in weeping and mourning, return to me. Restore my body.

————January 19, 1982

I have written about prophecy before, in Words From God and How Does God Speak? Knowing people like Ellen and hearing words like these helps me to believe, as we say in the Nicene creed, that God “spoke through the prophets” and still does.

Prophecies such as Ellen’s are far from rare, occurring worldwide.  Here is an interesting site on prophecies.