The vision as described by Peter Hill
It happened at an early morning prayer meeting the day after my arrival in Amsterdam in April 2016.
The Anglican Chaplain, a colleague along with my son James, was reading from Ezekiel 37 from verse 15 on – ‘the joining of two sticks and the divided Israeli Nation being brought back together as one.’
This was a short visit before continuing my first journey to the UK to explore Call The Nation To Prayer. The passage was the set reading for the day.
Although I had read this passage of scripture before, I was more familiar with the earlier passage from Ezekiel 1-14: ‘The Valley of Dry Bones.’ But as the reading continued, I found myself riveted to what I was hearing. I found myself seeing England in my spirit, and what I was seeing in particular was somewhere in the centre of the nation.
As I looked, I saw these two sticks from Ezekiel being bound together as if it was happening in England. As I thought about these two sticks, they took on the appearance of shepherds crooks!
Then it dawned on me that what I was seeing could be a symbolic joining of the Word and the Spirit. I remembered a well known prophecy which Smith Wigglesworth had given 70 years ago – ‘That when the Word and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest movement of the Holy Spirit that the nation, and indeed the world has ever seen…’ (read more – click here).
This left me with some questions. For one, this passage was the Lord instructing Ezekiel in regard to Israel. As I further thought on what I saw, I realized this illustration from Ezekiel’s encounter was somehow being illustrated in a ‘picture’ parallel form, but only this time it applied to what is happening in UK.
My second question was the two sticks.
From studies made, the two sticks may have been two wooden tablets that could contain writing or actual sticks with writing on them. Without question those in the Church who have held an emphasis on ‘The Word’ and those who have held an emphasis on ‘The Spirit’ over many years have had and continue to have a loving shepherding care over the flocks they oversee.
But there are also unfortunate manmade divisions! It is my firm belief that we have entered a time when we are being impressed by the Holy Spirit along with Godly conviction to come together ‘As One’ . . . see John 17.
Call the Nation to Prayer 