I was sitting at my desk last night meditating and praying over some things that I felt were urgent and needed prayer. And I saw a sword, it was a dark sword. And I’ve seen swords in the Spirit before, and I usually recognized them as the Sword of the Lord, the Sword of the Spirit, you know, that cutting edge of God, that two-edge Sword of the Word.
But last night as I saw this sword, it didn’t look that way. It didn’t look glorious. It didn’t look like God’s sword. And I knew in my heart… (Unless you’ve seen little visions, you won’t understand how you just know without a voice telling you.) I just knew that that was a sword of division.
And as I reflected back on it this morning, sitting in the same place at my desk, worshiping the Lord, as I reflected back on it, I remembered seeing the sharpness of the point. And it was so evident that this was a sharp sword. Not just some old dull sword, but sharp and to the point, was the way it came to me. And as I saw that sword, I knew it was the sword that had been used to divide people, to divide.
And I saw the Glory of the Lord coming upon that dark sword. It had the appearance of something that had almost been tarnished or burned. So I knew that wasn’t God’s shiny Sword. But I saw the Glory of God coming on that sword, and I saw that, the blade of that sword becoming curved like that. And the Spirit of God said, “It’s a pruning hook.”
And I knew that it had taken the form of the sickle. And the Lord spoke to my heart. I know that was God giving me the revelation that the very sword that the enemy has used to divide this Body, God was going to change it by His Glory and use it for gathering the grain, for reaping the harvest.
And as I saw the shape of that sickle or that pruning hook, I also realized it could be used in cutting back the trees. You’ve seen these pruners that are used on long poles, and they have that same sickle shape. And this came to me that this is what I was seeing. And I know what pruning does for a tree.
I believe that God is going to prune us instead of allowing us to be divided. I believe He’s going to take that sword of division and use it to prune us, and then of course to gather in the harvest that’s before us.