My Calling and the Vision of the Bride of Christ

My Calling and the Vision of the Bride of Christ
by David Stewart

In 1979 I felt a very intense burden to pray for the lost. I also felt compelled to seek an anointing for evangelism in my own life. During a period of time that lasted about eight days or so food became unimportant. I remember waking up during the night to pray for the lost. There was a travailing in prayer that I had not experienced before. This desire was from God. He was leading me toward an unexpected destination.

After about eight days God answered my request. But it was not at all what I was expecting. One Sunday afternoon my wife, our baby, and I were driving into town for the evening service. Our small daughter had finally fallen asleep and I began to pray. Because I had been consumed lately with the thought of those without Christ, naturally I began to turn my prayer toward this matter again.

Then, it seemed without any conscious effort on my part, I began to pray for "The Church" - the Church Universal. This was strange because I had no understanding of this concept nor had it ever entered my thinking before. Suddenly, a weeping came over me that I was unable to control. A grief rose up in my heart that seemed unreasonable to me. It felt as though a knife were sawing through my heart. A sensation similar - I suppose - to what I would feel if I were mourning the death of my wife and children. An uncontrollable, unbearable grief entered my heart.

I looked out the driver's side window, bewildered by what was happening to me. What I saw was stranger yet! I saw the Lord come for His people. He was a distant figure, high up in the sky. I thought to myself, "Oh, no. I'm a good Baptist boy. We Baptists don't have hallucinations!" Then in the field below the Lord I saw a multitude of people. I suppose there were millions. I watched as they all faded and only one person was left, far away on the horizon. In the Spirit my vision came up close to this person in an instant. It was someone standing with their back turned toward me. It appeared that it was a woman in a long dress, like a wedding dress. But something was wrong. The dress was stained, filthy, and torn. I then came up very close behind the woman as she turned her head to look at me. When I saw her I screamed in horror!

What I saw was not a woman at all but a young girl - far too young to be in a wedding dress. Yet she had some features of an old woman. The teeth were nearly all gone. The hair was present only in patches. I could tell she was not much more than a skeleton; emaciated, sickly, diseased. There was a blank, hopeless stare in her eyes that resembled photos of starving women I have seen from Ethiopia.

At this moment the phrase came to mind, "the bride of Christ". I thought, "Lord, You cannot marry this!" I looked up at the Lord. He turned His back and left! I looked back at the woman but she was gone. In her place were the millions again like I had seen at the beginning of the vision. They all were looking up toward the place where the Lord had been. They all had their hands raised but, strangely, no one said a word. It seemed peculiar to me that there was no sound from such a multitude. No one was praying. Not a voice was heard crying out. They were not asking the Lord to return or anything at all. Then I heard the Lord say to me, "GO, GET MY PEOPLE READY TO MEET ME, FOR I AM COMING SOON!"

It seemed that another infinite burden was laid on me now. The commission seemed ridiculously impossible. I said, "How, Lord?" I really did not expect a reply but He answered instantly, "This is how." Then He somehow touched me in my heart with a love that removed all the pain I had felt during the vision. I had an experience of God's love that was so holy I believe it may not be permitted to try to describe it, if any words existed to describe it. I actually had to ask God to stop it lest I die from pure joy. He did so instantly. The grief left me so completely that I immediately doubted that I had even seen the vision at all.

We went on to the evening meeting at church. I was relieved that this strange experience was over. Things were fine until the people began to gather and the service started. When I looked at the crowd gathered there an uncontrollable weeping and grieving came over me again as during the vision. This happened at every meeting we attended until I had to simply stay home, the pain was too great to bear. I began to watch preachers on TV instead on Sunday mornings. But when the camera would pan across the audience I would weep for God's people. I wept for two years, from 1979 to 1981 until there were no more tears to cry.

What does the vision mean? Is this the way God looks at us? No, God the Father does not see us this way. He sees us through the blood of His Son, Jesus. So, what then? I believe the vision represents the practical state of the Church (at least in 1979). This is a picture of our preparedness and our love for the Lord. We are not ready to enter into the great things of God. We are immature and inexperienced and we have suffered the effects of the curse and the abuse of the enemy. We, as a whole, have not cleansed ourselves and prepared ourselves to meet the Lord and to enter into a deep relationship with Him. His heart is grieved for His bride who gives herself to every god that walks down the street!

There is no voice of condemnation from this vessel. Just an exhortation to "prepare the way of the Lord". Jesus is coming soon. He is coming for a Bride that is pure and ready to meet Him. Let us be that Bride and so we will also take with us a multitude of otherwise lost souls.

8-25-96