History: The Greatest Prophecy

by Nathan Shaw

Have you ever been on a journey and not realized until well into the journey? This happened to me over the last three years.

• In 2017 I woke up one morning and heard God say, “If you don’t follow the traces, you won’t discover history.”
• In 2018 God highlighted the importance of accessing heaven’s libraries. I had just moved house. God told me to speak “Mahaniam” over the house. Mahaniam means the place of the double camp. It was the place where Jacob camped and encountered a second camp—the angels of God (Genesis 32:1-2). Mahanaim is about the supernatural realm overshadowing the natural realm. My new house had a separate room for my library. As a deliberate act of faith I would step into the library as if I was also stepping into heaven’s libraries.
• In 2019 God spoke to me about 50 year cycles in the history of New Zealand. God’s Spirit had moved in significant ways in each of the 50 year periods. Viewed together they formed a beautiful tapestry of God’s redemptive purposes for New Zealand. In fact, the tapestry was a prophecy about the identity and destiny of the nation.

Although God had spoken these things to me in 2017, 2018 and 2019, I never saw the connection until 2020.

The more you look at the tapestry of history the more you see. As God highlighted specific events and people I would start researching them. Book after book that I needed was either out of print, rare or hard to find. I found myself in and out of libraries with both accessible and restricted collections. I became acquainted with second hand book shops that specialized in rare books and I spent hours scouring the internet.

God is about to open up history in a profound way. History will come alive. It will bring understanding to the past and the present. It will impart identity and destiny. It will prophesy to the present and the future. Aside from Jesus Himself, history is the greatest prophecy. From history, strategic treasures are waiting to be mined, and a remarkable story is waiting to be told.

The book of Revelation is most often associated with the future. It’s interesting that Revelation has more allusions from the Old Testament than any other book in the New Testament. Layer after layer of allusions are packed into its 22 chapters. You can’t really understand Revelation without having a firm grasp of Genesis to Malachi. To understand the future you have to understand the past.

In Revelation 4:1 John saw a door standing open in heaven. After this he heard a voice like a trumpet saying, “Come up here!” Instantly he found himself before the throne of God where he was shown many things. As I was going on the journey of “following the traces” and “mining the treasures” of history, God was also calling me to “Come up here!” and see things from His perspective. I needed access not only to earthly libraries and books, but also to heavenly ones. In the midst of the ongoing chaos, confusion, misunderstanding and pain generated by history, we can so easily lose sight of God’s sovereignty over all things. When we respond to the call to “Come up here!” we begin to see the prophecy of history with remarkable clarity.

As I understood history from heaven’s perspective I began to see the future with greater clarity. Down here on the earth it is so easy to be blinded by things that we perceive as blocking God’s purposes. From heaven’s perspective the intercession from previous generations is much greater than the negative forces that can come through colonization, government and even the church’s resistance to the Holy Spirit. There are some things in our future that are absolutely certain, based on the intercession of past generations alone (Revelation 8:3-5). When we stand in agreement with this intercession the results are powerful.

In the 1960s and 1970s demonic systems of thought systematically infiltrated many universities. The result was the secularization of history. The past, the present and the future all belong to God. Only through His Spirit can we interpret them correctly. Indeed, the spirit of prophecy speaks to the past, the present and the future. Demonic systems of thought, on the other hand, seek to deliberately undermine and contradict God’s perspective. In this generation God is raising up many voices who will make history come alive. They will be devoted to sound scholarship, detailed analysis and careful study. But most of all they will respond diligently to the call to “Come up here!”

© 2020 Nathan Shaw.

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Prophecy, History and Anointed Scholarship – Nathan Shaw

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