William Porter – writer, speaker and church leader

We don’t need to look much at the horizon regarding the weather in England – sometimes rainy, often grey, we don’t have many dramatic weather fronts to watch out for. In other parts of the world it is different. On a family holiday in Florida three years ago, we assumed hot weather and warm blue skies would be the norm; we didn’t know frequent thunderstorms were possible in the summer months. We soon learned to keep an eye on the horizon, at any brewing thunderclouds; within minutes we could be in a late afternoon deluge, and as soon again, back in hot sun drying out the rain drenched land.

Jesus was once asked for signs by his skeptical audience. He took it as an opportunity to challenge them about their spiritual short-sightedness: “When evening comes, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times” (Matthew 16v3).

In the 2020’s, in tumultuous and exciting times, I believe we need more horizon level spiritual thinking. We must discern more what is on the way. There is the naturally changing world with its issues and newsworthy events. Yet, through it all and behind it there are supernatural dimensions. What is God saying and doing through it? What do we need to be alert to? In short, what is the spiritual horizon level that we need to be aware of ahead of time?

The prophecies of Joel in the Old Testament can help us with horizon level thinking. He was a prophet-preacher at a time of crisis in his nation. They faced twin problems – they were in a time of drought, and a locust swarm was devastating the country. He was looking to the horizon in prayer to see what God was doing and what the future would look like. God helped Joel to see a future beyond their crisis and a greater kingdom horizon of what God was going to do for His people. This vision became one of the most celebrated prophetic passages in the Old Testament, that begins with the words, ‘In the last days, I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh’ (Joel 2v28).

I don’t think Joel was expecting to see and hear all that God showed Him. Yet, because he was alert and praying, God gave him horizon level discernment. The hinge phrase in this passage is ‘the Day of the Lord’: “The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord’ (v31). This is such a powerful phrase. The Day of the Lord in scripture is the season when God breaks in, when He acts to right wrongs and bring salvation to His people. In short, it became a great Messianic hope for the people of God, and in the New Testament, morphed into then phrase ‘the Day of Christ’ for Christians – the return of the Lord.

This Day of the Lord is described as both ‘great’ and ‘dreadful’. Why is that? Well it is because there will be amazing things that God will do – an outpouring of His Spirit – and also troubling things that God will also bring about – wonders on the earth, blood, fire and billows of smoke. I would put these descriptions of the great and dreadful in the categories of glory and shaking that is elsewhere described in the bible, and that I detail in my book ‘The Forerunner Cry’. You see, this prophecy of Joel is important for today, because it still awaits a future fulfilment. It was only partially fulfilled on the day of Pentecost; the initial eschatological sign of the Spirit poured out on the church was awesome, but there is a greater fulfilment to come, including awesome signs before the Day of the Lord and His return.

So today, I want to encourage you to lift up your eyes, and ask God to give you more horizon level thinking and discernment this year and into this decade. If there is more revealing of God’s glory and more shaking of the earth, then we need to correctly interpret the signs of the times. We will look more at this prophecy of Joel another time, but for now, keep you eyes on the horizon and watch out for what God shows you!

Photo by Mounzer Awad on Unsplash

Writing my book on the End Times has been challenging, yet publishing it this year has led to some wonderful opportunities to share on the themes of the signs of the times, how we live as disciples today and the hope of the return of the Lord. I have felt nervous too because, once you have written a book, then your teaching, viewpoints and convictions are out there, in public, ready to be weighed and critiqued.

One of my key strap lines has been ‘get ready for glory, shaking and Jesus’ return’. I wanted to put it as the subtitle of the book, but my publishers thought it might sound rather extreme for some potential readers! Yet my conviction continues to grow that glory and shaking are two overarching themes of the biblical End Times. I would say that they are actually mark the new paradigm of the context of Christianity in these coming decades of the twenty first century. A paradigm is the generally accepted perspective of a particular discipline at a given time, like Darwinism in the sciences, or secular humanism in the social sciences. To change a paradigm is to alter the collective thinking of a group of people or culture. As I read my bible, it seems fairly clear that normal life on planet earth intensifies the closer we get to Christ’s return. The generation preceding those days has to live with an intensification of both light and darkness, with both troubles and revivals. As the signs of the times increasingly point to the nearness of the coming age, I believe the church needs to wake up to a new paradigm of Christian living right now – we are not living in ordinary days, we are coming into more extraordinary days of glory and shaking!

I happen to be reading a biography of Leonardo Da Vinci right now, the great artist, inventor and scientist of the Renaissance. One of his most expansive legacies apparently is not his great paintings, but his notebooks. There are still over 7,000 pages of his notebooks in existence today, probably just a quarter of what he wrote. In them he kept a record of all his observations of the world, his fascination with nature, with the human body, with inventions, with scientific studies, and with artistic ideas for his paintings. Most of these were sketches, breathtakingly drawn, but which never became reality. Yet Leonardo stood as a genius at the forefront of the Renaissance culture, sketching out the artistic and scientific possibilities of a coming age. His notebooks are one of his most treasured legacies today.

I sketch out this paradigm of glory and shaking tentatively but with conviction. I am far from a genius, and many other voices speak with more clarity than mine. Yet I am convinced that this coming glory and shaking are real and will affect everyone living in the final generation. In my book I have traced the outlines of five marks of the coming glory of God: outpourings of the Spirit, a radically renewed church, massive harvest of faith, transformation of many communities, and a turning of the Jewish people to their Messiah. I have also sketched ten aspects of the prophesied shaking of all things: wickedness & wars, global power shifts, financial instability, environmental troubles, dark technological advances, social unrest, fully liberalised morality, emergence of a one world system, greater hostility towards Christians, and the cumulative ‘groaning’ of the earth.

These ‘signs’ of glory and shaking will need fleshing out and carefully measured against biblical prophecy. I hope to use some blogs in coming months to elaborate on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of these marks and encourage you to read your bibles and weigh what I am sharing. This of course is far from an academic exercise, and the real application is to help us all stand well in the midst of exciting and troubling times; how to navigate our way through the glory of God coming in increasing power and diverse ways, and through the growing shaking of much in human society of what we trust in. An encouraging saying in the book of Proverbs says: ‘The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out’ (Proverbs 18v15). That is surely a good exhortation for all who follow Jesus in these times.

God bless you.

One of my objectives in writing this blog and publishing my book is to help people begin to realise what a unique generation we could be living in, none other than the years before the coming of Jesus in glory.

I was reading Luke chapter 10 in my daily devotions yesterday. In a verse that I have always skipped past, I noticed that Jesus says to his disciples, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” How often God uses a little hidden verse to stir your heart in faith. Jesus was in effect saying that they, of all generations, were privileged to live in the days of His coming and the kingdom of God being inaugurated. So many prophetic words, so many hopes, so much build up of anticipation, over the centuries, and the disciples just happened to be alive at the right time and in the right place to be witnesses of it all.

If there was a specific generation of believers who were alive when Jesus came as anointed Messiah 2000 years ago, then logically there will be a specific generation of believers who will be alive when Jesus splits the skies and returns on the clouds as king of kings and lord of lords! That is, if you really believe what the bible says.

Usually we can ignore that concrete reality; as long as we just recite the creed in a general fashion – believing that on one vague future day Jesus will ‘come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end’ – as long as we don’t consider what historical time frame that will be, then we are safe. Safe from considering whether that time could be near, safe from preparing our lives to live ready for his return, safe from the challenge of what the decades preceding his coming will be like from a biblical point of view.

But if we do start to ponder, as I have been doing these last few years, whether we, our children and our grandchildren could be the very ones upon whom the fulfilment of the End Times prophecies comes, then it messes with our heads, in a good way! We start to examine bible prophecy with a more vital interest, we watch the signs of the times with a fresh set of spectacles, we begin to see everything we do as Christians and as church with a clearer and more urgent purpose.

Doesn’t every generation of Christians believe they are in the last of the End Times? I would answer ’no’ from what I read of church history. There are definitely some groups throughout the church age who have had a strong eschatological fervour. These have been particularly prevalent at turns of centuries or times of impending disaster. Yet they are small pockets of Christians. What is different now is the sheer number of Christians worldwide who are sensing that God is calling us to prepare for the return of His Son Jesus.

There is so much more to say about the urgency of the times right now, which I will look at in future blogs. However my basic premise begins with a Holy Spirit stirring in hearts. And when that surge of interest and expectation of End Times things is global, and then you add some incredible prophetic signs of the times, then it is certainly worthy of attention.

Could we be those to whom the Lord says as he returns, ‘blessed are your eyes that see what you see’? This is where I believe End Time thinking is best started, not with our heads in the clouds, but with our heads between our knees in prayer; Lord could it be this generation? This is End Time reality check 2.0. That is one of the things I am wrestling with, and I hope you might wrestle with it too.

God bless, William