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A powerful vision of a coming storm, warnings of divine consequence, and a call to obedience — discover why fearing God may be humanity’s most urgent need.

“Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
— Proverbs 9:10

I grew up in a family and institutions with almost no “fear of the Lord”. Perhaps that is why Our Father, Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit have given me some powerful lessons to help me to know and share how important it is to have it. In this article, I will share some of these experiences that I write about in much more detail in my new book, Warnings from the Living God.

Jesus Warns of the Coming Storm

In the year 2000, God led my wife Kelly, our young family and me to live in Germany. While there He brought us to join a vibrant church community and a weekly prayer group made up of Christians from around the world. For one hour each week, we gathered to pray in silence, seeking the presence and guidance of Jesus.

During one of these prayer meetings, I received a vivid vision as depicted above, which became the cornerstone of my book and is on the cover.

In the vision, I saw myself standing with a small group of people on the edge of a high rocky cliff beside a lighthouse overlooking the ocean. Out at sea, a storm was building. Dark clouds gathered, the wind strengthened, and powerful waves rolled across the water.

As I watched, I noticed ships scattered across the ocean. Although they were large ocean-going vessels, it became clear that the growing storm would be too great for them to withstand.

The people on the ships could see the light shining from the lighthouse. But simply seeing the light — or acknowledging it — would not save them.

To endure the storm, they needed to be standing on the solid rock with the Lighthouse.

Obedience to God will strengthen us to endure the coming storm

In the vision, I understood that the lighthouse represents Jesus Christ, the “Light of the World” (John 8:12). The rock represents God the Father — the unshakeable foundation.

Jesus warned me then that a serious storm was coming. Those at sea on the ships are like the people in the world who can see the light of Jesus but are not standing with Him. Merely acknowledging Jesus as the Son of God and the Saviour, would not be enough to save them from the storm. We must obey Him.

Only those who are standing with and for Him on the Rock of Ages will endure the storm that is approaching. The strength needed to withstand the storm comes only from the living God.

This vision is consistent with Jesus’s Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders, in which He teaches that, “Whoever hears these sayings of Mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.” (Matt 7:24-27).

The Consequences of Disobedience to God

Jesus also warns us in this parable, “that those who hear His sayings and do not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand”, and when the storms came, it fell, and “great was its fall.”

Since becoming a Christian in 1995, God has shown me the cost of disobedience to Him through personal experience and scripture.

It truly is as Moses warned the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land – that if they obeyed God’s commands, He would bless them and they would flourish. However, if they disobeyed Him, they would be cursed, and suffering would come upon them (Deuteronomy 28).

This principle is repeated throughout the Old Testament and remains true today. God has great mercy and compassion, but persistent disobedience brings serious consequences. God showed me that this still applies today to the nations as it does to people in an extremely powerful way:

In 2010, while praying with my wife, Kelly, and our son, Vincent, God said to me, “Tomorrow I am going to make a major statement.” By a vision I was shown that this statement would be physical in nature. Then God said, “For Me it will be nothing, but for man it will be big.”

The following day, Vincent was monitoring the news for “God’s major statement” that we all knew was coming. Then the news broke that a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, in one of the worst natural disasters in modern history. Over 300,000 people died, and up to a million were left homeless.

Our Father then led Kelly and me to discover why He brought this calamity upon the Haitian people. That they persist in disobedience to Him through voodoo and occult spiritual practices, which are against His Commandment to have no other gods before Him (Exodus 20:3) and are an abomination to Him (Deuteronomy 18:9–14).

Fear of the Lord Helps Us to Obey God

It is important for us to remember that God our Creator has not changed to accommodate the modern beliefs of people. His Commandments remain the same, and He still requires individuals and nations to obey Him. It is we who must change, not God.

The “fear of the Lord” is not terror, but a deep awe and reverence for God. It comes from recognising who He is – the Creator of the world, the universe, all of the living, including humanity. It also comes from realising what He will do if we persist in wickedness.

Jesus warned us to “fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28).

This reverent fear of God’s power helps us to obey Him. Obedience to Him leads us to receive the abundant life that Jesus came to bring us and avoid the calamities that follow disobedience.

Since the 2010 earthquake, the people of Haiti have continued the widespread practice of Voodoo as their national religion, and they have experienced ongoing suffering — further earthquakes, cholera outbreaks, poverty, political instability and gang warfare. This ongoing tragedy can serve as a stark reminder to us that whether we have fear of the Lord and obey Him, has serious consequences for our life, our nation and the world.

Now is the Time to Get Right with the Lord

God guided me in prayer that the approaching storm Jesus warned me about began in earnest with the Covid Pandemic. I believe we are now living in what Jesus referred to as “end times”. The signs of the “beginning of sorrows” that He spoke of to His disciples (Matt 24:4–8) are increasingly evident.

We are now living in a spiritual war in which revelations of widespread evil are occurring.  This troubles many people. However, Jesus warns us that it is God whom we must fear, not man.

For Christians, this is the time to look deeply at ourselves. Those who have grown complacent toward God, “who say in their heart that the Lord will not do good and nor will He do evil” (Zephaniah 1:12-13), have a window of opportunity to repent and turn wholeheartedly to Him before the long-prophesied return of Jesus to judge all.

Now is the time to stand with Jesus on the Rock of Ages, to be passionately seeking to be right with God, to do His will, to resist evil in our own lives and the world — that He will know us on His return.

I was guided by God in a prayer during the pandemic to write the book Warnings from the Living God. It is written to help people understand the storm we are now in and to be spiritually prepared for what is to come. The promise of Jesus that He made two thousand years ago remains today: those who will stand with Him and “endure to the end shall be saved” (Matt 24:13).

“Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways.”
— Psalm 128:1