Prophetic Dream of God’s Judgment

After a career as a naval officer in the United Kingdom and Australia, I served as captain of the OM Ships International‘s Doulos and Logos 2 together with my wife and sons. OM Ships is involved in worldwide evangelism and literature distribution. Later, I was director of the Naval & Military Bible Society (UK) where I was contacted by Dr. Jim Linzey and invited to be on the translation committee for the Modern English Version Bible.

I read Linzey’s prophetic dream Charisma published on May 9, which reminded me of a particularly vivid dream I had back in 1985 as a very new Christian recently baptized in the Holy Spirit at a Pentecostal church. I rarely remember dreams, but I have never forgotten this one and often ponder its spiritual implications.

The Prophetic Dream

I was living in Sydney with my family and serving in the Royal Australian Navy. The dream commenced with me sitting on a cliff at Long Reef near Dee Why in Sydney’s northern beaches when a massive tsunami came in. It was night time. I did not see what havoc it must have caused in Sydney as I was immediately transported to London’s Trafalgar Square. London was a wreck with buildings reduced to rubble, but the buses were still running. I caught one going north. At Oxford Circus, it turned east along Oxford Street and then north into Tottenham Court Road, where I got off and went into a church hall that was still standing. It was filled with people wearing coats (winter?) being addressed by a man on a stage who I assumed to be a pastor, but he did not seem to know what to say. I climbed on the stage and told him just to preach the gospel of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Spiritual Implications

I thought the dream might have been a throwback to the London Blitz in World War II. However, the simultaneous combination of a giant tsunami, presumably caused by an underwater earthquake in the South Pacific, and the catastrophic destruction in London on the other side of the world might suggest a vision of the worldwide earthquake, the last bowl judgment in the Great Tribulation as described by the apostle John:

The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” And there were noises and thundering and lightning and a great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake, as had never occurred since men were on the earth. The great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the Great was remembered before God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. Every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. Great hail, about the weight of a hundred pounds, fell from heaven upon man. Men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because that plague was so severe (Rev. 16:17-21).

Whatever the dream represents, the meeting in the church hall must be a warning to the unsaved to put their trust in the Lord and for the saved to endure patiently waiting for the Lord’s return and to avoid the coming tribulation.

Pastors must preach the gospel, and all Christians must witness to the Lord Jesus Christ in these precarious times that point to His imminent return. We would have to be ignorant of Scripture or spiritually blind not to see the many sign posts of the approaching end. We must not be like the Pharisees and Sadducees to whom Jesus said: You can discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times (Matt. 16:3).

Regrettably, few churches teach about the end times in the United Kingdom, probably due to ignorance and fear of causing division. Thus, in retirement, I mostly teach eschatology. {eoa}

Richard Prendergast is a retired commander from Her Majesty’s Royal Navy (Australia and United Kingdom), an ordained minister with Elim Church, former director of the Naval & Military Bible Society (UK), and a translator for the Modern English Version Bible.