One of the most common questions I receive about this
vision concerns how I received it. That is an important question, and I will attempt to brietly answer it here. First, I must explain what I mean by visions and "prophetic experiences."
Prophetic experiences, as 1 call them, are numerous and diverse. They include all the primary ways God spoke to His people in the Scriptures. Because the Lord is the same today as He was yesterday, He has never ceased to speak to His people in similar ways. The same supernatural experiences found in the Scriptures can be seen throughout church history.
In his sermon on the day of Pentecost, the apostle Peter explained that dreams, visions and prophecy are primary signs of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the last days (see Acts 2:14 to 22 )
As we are obviously getting closer to the end of this age, these signs are becoming increasingly common.
One reason why experiences such as dreams, visions and prophecy are becoming so much more common now is because we will need them for accomplishing our purposes in these times. It is also true that Satan, who unfortunately knows the Scriptures better than many Christians, understands the importance of prophetic revelation in God's relationship with His people. Satan is therefore pouring out his own counterfeit gifts in great measure to those who serve him. However, there would be no counterfeit if there were not a genuine reality, just as there are no counterfeit three-dollar bills because there are no real ones.
Soon after I became a Christian in 1972, I read Peter's sermon in Acts chapter two and understood that if we were in the end times, it was important to understand these ways the Lord would be speaking to us. I do not remember praying at first to have the experiences myself, but I did begin having them, which gave me an even greater impetus for understanding them.
Since that time, I have gone through periods when prophetic experiences were very frequent. I have also gone through long periods of time when I did not have such experiences. Yet, after each period of not having them, they returned, and were either much more powerful or much more frequent. Lately they have been both. Through all of this I have learned a great deal about prophetic gifts and
prophetic people, and I am planning to address the full scope of the prophetic ministry in a book soon to be released.