Back in May of 2017, a strange event happened to me. The following is what I recorded in my prophetic journal:
“A couple of Saturdays ago, I had been helping my wife erect a greenhouse. It was one of those tubular framing kits you can pick up at Sam’s Club. I had just finished anchoring it down, when I heard a big wind sound. My wife and her friend on the other side of the livestock paddock began screaming for me to look out. I looked up into the bright blue sky with light clouds and scattered chemtrails to see debris tumbling high in the air on the opposite side of the greenhouse.
Because of my physical position, I hadn’t really gotten a good visual on everything, but according to my wife’s account a huge dust devil or whirlwind had suddenly developed directly over our burn pile, had picked up the trash from it including 4×4’s, pallets, entire 10×10 greenhouse covers, nail-studded 1x8s , etc. and had lifted them above treetop level before scattering the heavier items all over the yard and hurling the rest directly at the greenhouse where I was. The debris-laden whirlwind tore right through our horse fence, sending the horses fleeing to the back side of the field. Then, just before impacting the greenhouse, as my wife put it, ‘The birch trees stopped it’. Thankfully, the greenhouse was spared as was I.”
Nothing like that had ever happened in the fifteen years I have farmed this 20 acres. Interior Alaska isn’t exactly famous for its twisters. I felt strongly that this was some sort of a spiritual event. I texted a buddy in Florida who warned me that it was likely a spiritual attack. I didn’t disagree, but felt that perhaps additionally God was trying to communicate something. I wasn’t sure what, however.
I pondered and prayed about it for a while. On the way to visit a church the next morning to hear a visiting guest speaker from out of state, I felt as if God said He would confirm the symbolic significance of the event by having the speaker mention whirlwinds, and sure enough, in the middle of the sermon, the speaker randomly deviated from his topic and spoke briefly about whirlwinds of God’s judgment. The hair began to stand up on the back of my neck.
Then on May 17 of that year, Lana Vawser, a prophetic voice from Australia, posted this:
THINGS ARE NOT WHAT THEY SEEM!
Posted on May 17, 2017 by Lana Vawser
Things are not what they seem. There is a whirlwind that’s being created by the spirit of witchcraft to hinder your vision, stall your steps, and abort the birthing and keep you caged in torment. It’s not going to happen! God is blowing away the smokescreen, revealing truth and you are transitioning into a whole new realm of revelation of who He is, the season that is upon you, and the promised land you are entering into. TRUTH, the REVELATION of HIS TRUTH is going to set you free!!!
This whirlwind that this demonic spirit is creating, is causing many of you to feel like you’re drowning, you won’t make it through and you’re not at the right place at the right time. This whirlwind caused by this demonic spirit is causing many to feel condemned, fearful and not feeling the peace and delight of the Lord.
The Lord is not only about to part the waters so you can move out of this demonic whirlwind that’s trying to take you out, but you will be showered with extravagant confirmation, blessing, provision, increase and life where your eyes will see and ears will hear the resounding voice of your heavenly Daddy declaring “You are in the right place at the right time and you haven’t missed a step. I am so proud of you for how you live your life with a resounding YES to Me.”
I was really paying attention now.
The Lord reminded me that I had not burned that brush and debris pile for over a year. Between not bothering to get a burn permit and too much dry or windy weather, I had procrastinated. I felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me that the brush pile represented the fleshly works of mankind, including myself. In other words, the wood hay and stubble referenced by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15:
11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
St. Clement of Alexandria, born Titus Flavius Clemens in Athens, lived 150-215 AD. He was a Greek convert to Christianity. Educated thoroughly in Greek philosophy and poetry, he settled in Alexandria Egypt where he befriended Pantaenus, the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement converted and eventually succeeded Pantaenus as head of the school around 190 AD.
Anyway, this early Christian Church father referred to Hell as a purifying fire. Specifically, a “wise fire that penetrates the soul.” (Stromata 7.6) He based this on two principles: First, that God does not take vengeance, which is the requital of evil for evil, but chastises for the benefit of the chastised (Stromata 7.16) Secondly , that God the Father has given providence over all creation to His Son, to whom is placed in subjection all the host of angels and gods.
“Wherefore also all men are His; some through knowledge, and others not yet so; and some as friends, some as faithful servants, some as servants merely. ….And how is He Savior and Lord, if not the Savior and Lord of all? But He is the Savior of those who have believed, because of their wishing to know; and the Lord of those who have not believed, till, being enabled to confess him, they obtain the peculiar and appropriate boon which comes by Him.”
– Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 7.2)
Clement believed a true knowledge of God would eventually lead everyone to convert, by virtue of man’s rational nature. However, those who put off submitting themselves to the refining fire of the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to burn up their hay, wood and stubble will find a whirlwind of judgment coming suddenly upon them and turning their carefully hoarded fleshly resources into chaos.
So, consistent with Paul and Clement, I felt that my burn pile represented man’s fleshly work. I could have burned it, but I dallied and preserved and stashed it until the whirlwind showed up and wreaked chaos and destruction upon it. It sort of reminds me of 1 Timothy 5:24.
24 Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after.
“That’s where the world is right now,” the Lord seemed to say. “Smugly preserving their pet agendas and plans and works and theologies and vices and peccadilloes and fetishes and pride. Delaying their own necessary and inevitable moral inventory. Considering themselves enlightened when they are blind; wise when they are foolish; rich when they are poor; clothed with honor when they are naked; blessed when they are cursed; pure when they are filthy. They are followers of the blind and students of the ignorant. The time has come–the kairos moment– to place all of these empty resources which they value on the sacrificial altar of my merciful fiery judgment and allow them to be purified until only the gold and silver and precious stones are left. Or else I will unleash the merciless whirlwind and scatter those hoarded resources in a swathe of terrifying chaos and loss.”
Remember how my horses fled in panic before the whirlwind? Horses in scripture represent man’s might and human resources. They often symbolize the pinnacle of military power. Yet eve they became helpless before a whirlwind brandishing tumbling timbers.
Shortly after this, I ran across this now dead-linked article on Yahoo. https://www.yahoo.com/news/evangelicals-trump-whirlwind-theyre-fine-030853540.html Its headline riveted my attention ” To evangelicals, Trump is the whirlwind. And they’re fine with that.”
Suddenly I began to see references to Trump as a whirlwind everywhere. Like here:
I also found similar reference in several now dead links from such sources as The Guardian, The Week and Salon. I had never noticed the popular analogy before.
I did not vote for Trump. I had never been personally fond of the guy. Yet months prior to this whirlwind dream, Father God had explained to me that it was He who placed this man in this position for this time, like Cyrus of old, to perform an important work on the secular level before and in preparation for a greater work to be culminated on the spiritual level.
Fast forward to 2020. I just saw a video in which Dutch Sheets brings up the old whirlwind imagery in a speech on Pentecost Sunday, 5/31/2020, at Oasis Church in Middletown, OH. Here is what he said.
The whirlwind is coming, folks. It is, in fact, already here. Even the strong horses of human resources are fleeing before it. If all of our eggs are in the flesh basket, or on the burn pile, so to speak, we will be destroyed and scattered. Only the greenhouse will be spared. By the birch tree.
The greenhouse, of course, represents new life. Fascinatingly, the birch tree which stopped the debris was also symbolic. In multiple cultures around the world the white birch tree represents new beginnings, regeneration, hope, new dawns and the promise of what is to come. The birch tree is thought to carry ancient wisdom and yet appears forever young. Ancient Siberians hailed it as sacred, calling it the ladder that spanned the gap between heaven and earth.
So the whirlwind was a warning to those who do not comply with God’s messenger of merciful judgment, while the birch tree and greenhouse represented God’s promise of protection and abundance.
We know the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm?
-Virginia statesman John Page to Thomas Jefferson after signing the Declaration of Independence.
With two exceptions, “whirlwind” when appearing in scripture is associated with providential judgment, as in Nahum I:2,3:
2 God is jealous and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. 3 The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
Let us voluntarily submit our flesh to God’s whirlwind, so that we may be spared the coming judgment against ungodly and unlawful institutions of man. It is better that we surrender our fleshly ways now than to have them destroyed shortly by the wrath of God.
The dRhema 