I was preparing to go on a day hike with my family. I put on my hiking socks and shoes, and we drove away in our car. We headed south towards a national park and then turned onto a major interstate that was heading southwest. I recognized the number as Interstate 80. The highway was packed, four to five lanes across, with cars spaced awfully close together and moving very slowly, crawling along in an orderly progression.
I could see our destination to my right, but it had been heavily raining the day before, and the entire area was flooded. It was not very deep, but it was wide. The flooding extended across the interstate. We followed along with the other cars, traversing the shallow waters.
Despite the traffic and flood water, I kept pressing forward to reach our destination. Immediately I found myself on a rolling dirt road. Two dirt roads were going in slightly different directions, and only a few cars were left around me. I stayed on one of the roads, crossing shallowly flooded ravines. I looked to my left and could see a beautiful southwest desert landscape. It was stunning; red sandstone plateaus and mesas rising out of the desert
I then found myself walking and not driving. I climbed a small hill to get a clear view across the horizon. I crested the hill and saw a canyon in front of me. It was not particularly deep, and it had a rounded bottom. Many large boulders had rolled down. A steep ridge formed out of white limestone, and red sandstone was on the other side. It was beautiful, but I was not able to see beyond. There were remnants of buildings set into the cliff wall on the other side of the canyon. The walls were made of hand-carved blocks of white limestone.
Behind me was a large rock outcropping. Unlike the limestone and sandstone around me, this rock was very dense, like granite or basalt. It had an irregular, rather unattractive appearance, but it was ancient and weathered, and a rectangular concrete box tunnel penetrated the rock.
Several other people, including my wife and teenage son, stood near me on the hilltop. He was standing close to the edge, and I warned him to step back for safety. I saw more people coming up the hill. Most were teenage boys. They were heading towards the canyon and followed each other down a ravine that led to the bottom. They were careless in their descent, rolling and tumbling down. But they did not appear to get injured.
I then went over to the concrete tunnel to see where it led. I peered in and saw the bottom was wet as if it had flooded recently. I felt drawn into it, but several other people near the entrance warned me that it flooded periodically. The people were peering into the tunnel but would not enter out of fear. I scanned around and saw that the top of the hill appeared to have been washed over by flood waters.
I walked away at first but still felt very drawn to go in. I also felt in my spirit that the tunnel was an entrance to an old church. I peered back into the tunnel and saw it led to a church. I entered the tunnel alone and followed it briefly until it opened into a vast, dark underground mezzanine. There were four or five social gathering rooms on three sides, but they were all empty. The rooms had windows, and there was natural light penetrating them. But they had an outdated and abandoned quality as if they were from a recently bygone era.
I looked to my left and saw a steep granite staircase about six to eight feet across that led to a set of glass swing doors at the top. The doors were made from very thick glass and were opaque. The treads were relatively narrow and very tall. I knew the sanctuary was upstairs and climbed very quickly to get there.
I entered the sanctuary through the swing doors, walking at first through a small mezzanine and then turning sharply to my right. The sanctuary was ancient and shaped in a semi-circle. The walls went straight up, maybe forty or fifty feet, and angled inwards, forming a pinnacle above the center podium. The podium was raised about three to five feet above the main floor. There were chairs around the base of the podium at the floor level facing into the sanctuary. These were for the worship leaders to sit.
Another double-hung glass door leading to the outside was along the outer wall, along the center of the building. I could see sunlight beaming through the glass. The outer wall contained narrow, tall, slotted windows, allowing filtered light into the sanctuary. The main sanctuary floor was a polished stone consistency and was level. Hundreds of chairs were arranged in a semi-circle configuration facing the central podium. The chairs were wood and looked like antique school chairs with wooden bookrests. The podium itself was very well-lit, almost illuminated. It was ornate yet simple at the same time, decorated in fine hardwoods and gold overlays.
I looked around the room and saw only a handful of people. Several worship leaders sat in the chairs around the podium, and several others were randomly scattered throughout the sanctuary. A pastor was standing on the podium wearing a black suit. He was maybe fifty years old and slightly overweight. Except for the pastor, everyone in the building were women in their late forties to fifties. The building had an ancient Catholic feeling but was unpolluted by idolatry.
I walked around the podium and sat about two or three rows back in a chair. The worship leaders started singing, almost chanting with this most powerful song. Their books were in English, and I could understand the words. The chanting grew more intense. I could hear angels singing in the uppermost parts of the building, and I could see the pastor singing and raising his hands toward heaven. The light was pouring down over the central podium. As the intensity of the singing increased, so did the light. The pastor was lifted maybe eight or ten feet above the podium. I was very moved in my spirit by the worship. However, I was surprised to see a woman sitting in front of my right who seemed utterly disengaged. There was no response from her.
When the song finished, another woman sitting behind me asked to anoint me with a bottle of olive oil. She was probably in her late forties and had long brown hair. Given my Hebrew priestly heritage, I asked to anoint her as it seemed appropriate. But she said it was proper for her first to anoint me, so I agreed. She also said that I would not be able to stand once the oil touched me. I felt skeptical as I had never been overpowered before when receiving an anointing. But as soon as her fingers touched my forehead, I was overwhelmed by the anointing of the Holy Spirit and fell into the chair.
The feeling was intense and amazing. I began praying and crying to my heavenly Father, first in English and then Hebrew. I could see Hebrew words flashing before my eyes and then an ancient text I had never seen before. It was not Hebrew. I felt like it was an ancient form of Greek, but it was completely unrecognizable to me. I wanted the Lord to reveal the text to me, but He said I must learn it first. I awoke from the dream saturated in the love and presence of the Lord.
Mat 7:13-14 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Phi 3:12-14 “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”