100 Year Prophecy

by William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army

A Godly Man’s Vision

I came across a warning from a man who lived more than 100 years ago. You’ve probably heard of him: General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. Before it was known as the Salvation Army, his organization was originally named Christian Revival Society. This unique preacher had a burning passion to see true revival come to his generation.

God gave General Booth a prophetic dream that would become a clear and sobering warning. His vision included six parts still relevant to us today—maybe even more so than when he preached them. His revelations have proven to be extremely accurate. 

As the 20th century began, Booth was asked by someone what he saw as the greatest dangers for the next hundred years. Below are what he identified as the chief dangers which would confront the coming century.

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Politics Without God

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General Booth saw that there would be a day when civil government in the Western world would no longer have the fear of God. I thank God for the founding of this nation. We do still have “In God We Trust” on our currency. 

But the question for us now is: What god do we really trust in anymore? Is it the one, true God? Is it the Creator of heaven and earth? Or is it one of the many false gods worshipped in America? Which god are we really trusting in?

If they had their way, some people right now would remove “In God We Trust” from our currency. They are already starting to do it. When will God judge America? Perhaps He already is. Perhaps it has already begun yet we are too blind to see it. Where is the real power of the Word of God in America today? The true power is lacking

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Heaven Without Hell

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I challenge anyone to name a preacher today, at least in the media world, who will still preach a message on hell. It’s difficult to come up with one. In fact, we have countless preachers who go out of their way not to even mention hell. Consider these Scriptures and what God says about those who deceive others:“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18).

“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 5:6).

We desperately need men of the cross and men of the Word who still call themselves “preachers of the gospel” and will be bold enough to say there is still a heaven to gain and a hell to shun.

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Salvation Without Repentance

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If you were to ask Christians today to repent, many would wonder, “Repent? What does that mean?”

Forgiveness from sin without repentance from sin is the popular message of the day. John the Baptist said it this way in Matthew 3:7-8: “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (NASB). 

The spirit of John the Baptist and the spirit of Elijah are coming again, which must precede the return of Jesus Christ. The message of these two prophets and the message today will still be to repent and flee the wrath to come. What we hear today from a totally self-absorbed, consumer church is “fix my problems” and “it’s not my fault.” We want forgiveness, but we don’t want to repent.

Booth was right. Repentance is a forgotten, lost word in the church today.

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Salvation Without Regeneration

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General Booth predicted that we would see increasing numbers of people claiming to have salvation yet not having truly become new creatures in Christ.

The preaching of “You must be born again” must be discovered in our gospel message. Clarity on these points is even more crucial today because we live in an hour when a counterfeit “New Age gospel” is preached on every corner. We’re told we can be “saved” without getting bogged down in boring, old-fashioned, stuffy doctrine. And the idea of being “saved” without going overboard with a lot of Bible language, doctrine and ultimately truth tickles the ears of many. 

Most preachers today couldn’t even biblically define regeneration, much less actually preach it boldly in their pulpits on Sunday mornings! In my very own city, one of the largest churches here decided not long ago that they shouldn’t even “bother” wasting their precious service time (which is only 59 minutes long—with a guarantee) to partake of Holy Communion anymore. The church has stopped receiving communion entirely in Sunday services in this large church.

We have salvation without real regeneration.

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Religion Without the Holy Spirit

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Few have understood as well as General Booth that religious conformity is quite different from genuine conversion brought by the Holy Spirit.

Second Timothy 3:5 says that in the last days we will face an epidemic of those, “Having a form of godliness but denying its power.” 

Jude sounded a similar warning: In the last days, there will be an increase of those who are “devoid of the spirit” (Jude 18-19, NASB).

Years ago a great man of God said, “If the Holy Spirit left the planet tonight at midnight, tomorrow morning 99 percent of church activity, church programs and Christian ministry would go on untouched.” A sad commentary. Yet, I agree with him.

Too often we “do” church out of soul-centered hype, leading in the flesh. It’s done merely by carnal manipulation. I am convinced that the so-called church in America will simply show up for a good show and not even really know or be able to discern if it is the Holy Spirit or not. It’s a good show, so we go and watch as spectators. But it might not be the Holy Spirit.

I write this with brokenness. I write this with sadness. I write this as a warning as I pray today, “Lord, give us spiritual discernment to sense and know Your Spirit.” We have preachers today claiming to carry every kind of strange and unbiblical “anointing,” yet we see Christian religion void of the true, precious Holy Spirit.

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Christianity Without Christ

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General Booth foresaw the rise of a form of pseudo-Christians, characterized as those who are “denying the Master who bought them” (2 Pet. 2:1, KJV). The bedrock of our message must always be the centrality of the person of Jesus Christ.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:23, “We preach Christ crucified,” (NIV) and in verse 18: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Why do we have such a powerless church today? Oh, we put on a good show and stir up a lot of soul-centered hype, which may result in large offerings. But there is little to no power of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because we do not preach the cross. We do not preach Christ crucified.

Church, hear me: The cross is our power. A strong delusion that all religions need to simply “coexist”—that no matter what you believe, we can all still “get along”—is infiltrating the church today. It may sound good and “spiritual,” but it’s not scriptural. You can’t find that in the Bible, and I refuse to compromise the Word of God. 

May you who have “ears to hear” truly hear this timely prophetic warning.

 

THE UPSIDE DOWN-NESS OF PRAYER
Norman P. Grubb
A human being without God as the real self within is sub-human. He is in the condition that the Bible calls dead (“dead while he lives”), as Paul describes it in I Timothy 5:6. He has a false self-centered existence derived from Satan, the spirit of self-centeredness, who has possessed all men since the fall of Adam.
 
When a person comes to Christ, however, redemption severs the bond between the satanic spirit and the human spirit. At the Cross of Christ, the old bond, or union, is replaced. A new union between the liberated human spirit and the Holy Spirit takes place as we partake in the resurrection.
 
Man in Christ has become God indwelt and has been restored by grace to the status of normal humanity. ‘I will dwell in them and walk in them.’ ‘It is God that works in us to will and to do His good pleasure.’ ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’ The Bible says it in a thousand other ways.  Here, now, we have the groundwork for an understanding of prayer.
SOURCE OF PRAYER
Prayer, therefore, is an indication that God is stirring within us concerning some special need. This is why the solution to dryness or deadness in the prayer life is not to ‘try’ to pray more, but to give up praying in place of the prayer of self-effort, relax back into the recognition of the Indwelling Person. See Him, flow along with Him in thankfulness, praise, and love; for these also are the movings of His Spirit in us. In literal fact, God praising God, God loving God.
 
We shall soon find that He is sharing His outlook and concern with us! As we do this, we shall soon find that He is sharing His outlook and concern with us, looking through His eyes; and we shall be feeling His concern for this or that need, or for this or that person. 
 
This is the source of prayer: the Spirit making intercession for the saints, who know not what to pray for as they ought. This is ‘praying in the Holy Spirit.’ But this response leads to something else of greater importance. For if God shares a burden or need with us which is on His heart, does He not already intend to fulfill it? More than that, has He not already fulfilled it in His sight, where past and future are one?
 
The best evidence that God has already fulfilled our need is the statement that before there ever was sin and need, there was already the provision of the Savior (I Pet. 1:29). That is God’s upside-down-ness to our material sight; the supply provided before the need!
 
Paul says that Adam was ‘the figure of Him that was to come’ (Rom. 5:14). How can a fallen Adam be a type who points to a redeeming Adam? Because it is forever the positive that swallows up the negative, just as mortality is swallowed up in life.
 
Wherever there is a negative on earth--a have not, a need, a weakness, an unsolved problem, a sickness--His unchangeable character of perfect love necessitates His provision of the supply, strength, solution, health.
 
Love is always a debtor (Rom. 1:14). It must move in and pay its debts of self-giving service. Because God is love, the full supply is never in doubt. ‘Before they call, I will answer.’ As God’s word was to Isaiah, His word is just the same today.
FAITH CHANNELED
Why, then do we have these problems, these needs, at all? Because human redemption is mediated through human agencies: first through God’s human agent, Jesus, and now through His sons. So God puts us in tight spots to channel His creative faith through us.
 
Our calling upon God in prayer is merely the evidence that He has stirred us into action. The answer is already there with Him, before we call. Now, as our calling moves on to the act of faith, God has His human agent in gear through whom He can channel the answer. It is never our need or problem or weakness, any more than it is our supply or solution. Both are His. We are merely the human agents through which supply can reach need.
UNION THROUGH GRACE
The whole point is: whose prayer is it? Is it the supplication of the Spirit through us, or our own? Let us boldly say that it is His supplication. The revelation God has given us regarding union is all about what He thinks, what He wills, and what He sees through us in our normal daily lives.
 
Well then, when we pray, why not say, ‘Lord, I am boldly interpreting this need as evidence that you have the supply already on the way. I believe it. I receive it. Thank you!’ Then, if the supply doesn’t come as we expect, whose business is it? Obviously, His. Leave Him to mind His own business.
 
One more point. What about unanswered prayer, so often seen in cases of illness, or concerning the unsaved, and sometimes in the case of material things. If God wishes to appear a failure to the natural eye, let Him do so! He did at Calvary. Don’t take back as your concern what you previously committed to Him. Don’t accept blame from the Accuser for apparent failure or for apparent unbelief.
 
Lots of us get tangled up and condemned at this point. And don’t take back a great heavy burden as if the final answer depended on how much of it you carried.
 
Leave your burdens with God. Give the praise that really counts to Him; not that which comes from the visible answer, but that which is based on naked faith.
 
Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed....These all died in faith, not having received the promise....But they receive enough by the faith which has the witness in itself to endure as seeing Him who is invisible, and to know, as the poet said, ‘On earth the broken arc, in Heaven the perfect round.’[1]
 
[1] Norman Grubb. “The Upside-Downness of Prayer" (Glen Ellyn, IL: Union Life Magazine, Infinite Supply, Vol. 2, 1981).