By Rick Joyner (printed with permission)

In the last edition of The Morning Star Journal, I concluded with an account of Hurricane Hugo slamming into Charlotte, which had gone farther inland than any hurricane ever before in recorded history. The last place that hurricane force winds from Hugo were actually recorded was on the Brushy Mountains near a little comm.- unity called Moravian Falls. Little did we know that we would follow a remarkable prophetic path to the same place.

A couple of weeks after I met Bob Jones, I received a call from him. He told me that the Lord had called me to “the mountains of North Carolina” and that he had seen the place that I was to go in a dream.

Having been told myself to go to the mountains of North Carolina, but seemingly not being to get past Charlotte, I was more than a little interested in this dream.

Bob went on to say that I was called to a place that was 100 miles from where I was (The Lamb’s Chapel) and 40 miles from the Tennessee border. To get to this land we would have to go almost due North on a major highway (which turned to be Interstate 77) and then west on another highway (which was US 421). He then described the property itself, saying there was a mountain overseeing the property that had a rock face, and there was a beacon on another mountain close by that could be seen from the property. He said that the gospel would go out to the world from that mountain. He said the land was measured from oak trees to white rocks, and there was a red roofed building in the middle. I asked Bob if the red roof could be a rusted tin roof, and he said that he thought it could be.

Bob went on to share a number of details about this land, which I will cover later, but he also said that I would meet a man named Ricky Skaggs, who would come up to me and tell me about his heart for the mountain people. This man was to be a part of our ministry. I told him that I had heard of Ricky Skaggs and thought that he was a country music singer, and Bob said he had heard of him too, but did not know if he was the same Ricky Skaggs. When I met Ricky some months later, he came up to me and started talking to me about his heart for the mountain people.

I immediately told Harry Bizzell about the dream that Bob had. Harry was excited about this dream, but for me, not him. He and Louise were sure that their destiny was in Charlotte and that they would not leave their present location at The Lamb’s Chapel. As Harry was telling me this, I looked at the picture hanging above him, and I suddenly felt a prophetic anointing. The picture was of a chair that I recogniz- ed in the Bizzell’s back yard, but it had mountains in the background. I asked Harry who had painted the pictures. He said that his sister had painted it in their backyard and gave it to them as a gift. I then asked why she put mountains in it, and there was a heavy presence that seemed to engulf us both. I could tell Harry felt it too, but he was adamant that they were not supposed to leave Charlotte. I disagreed, but knew the Lord would have to persuade the Brizzells.

Soon after this the Lord spoke to me and said that Harry and Louise’s destiny in the mountains was so crucial that it actually held “life and death consequences” for their family. I felt a terrible burden from the Lord about this, but I did not feel that I could share this with the Bizzells without it really seeming manipulative. Even so, I knew I had to share it with them for their sakes. I was very clumsy when I shared this burden with them, but they took it very graciously but still remained adamant that they were called to Charlotte. I felt that I had done all that I could and would not say anything else, even though the burden did not go away.

Harry and Louise were adamant that this purpose in the mountains did not involve them, but they were willing to help Julie and me all that they could. Harry and I looked at a map to see if we could find a place about 100 miles from where we were and 40 miles from the Tennessee border. There were about six places that fit the description, so we knew we needed more guidance. It was to come through Tom Hess, who called me a few days later from Jerusalem.

Tom has a ministry called, The House of Prayer for All Nations, which is based on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. People from about 160 nations go there to pray, where intercession has been going on around the clock for many years. Tom is also known internationally as an author, with one of his more popular titles, Let My People Go, which traces all the scriptures concerning the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and what is yet to come in biblical prophecy related to them. Tom had been given a few tracts of land scattered about the United States which were to be used for a specific prophetic purpose. He was also commissioned to find the ones that were to be part of that prophetic purpose and give the land to those who were to have it. One of those plots of land were in North Carolina, and Tom thought of me.

When I asked Tom where this land was, he said in a place called Moravian Falls. When I asked him where that was, he did not know. Of course, we both speculated that it may have had something to do with the Moravians. The Moravians were true founders for both modern missions, which was my passion, and the modern intercessory prayer movements which was Tom’s. When we looked up Moravian Falls on the map, it looked like it was about 100 miles from us and 40 miles from the Tennessee border! Then Tom mentioned that the land was surveyed in a strange way because it was marked from “white rocks to oak trees,” And I immediately asked Tom to fax the deed.

Tom said he wanted to come see us and this land. When he told me when he could come, I was not surprised that it was the same time Bob Jones was planning to visit us again. One of the dreams that Bob had received concerning me was about me drawing a sword out of a stone and convening a “round table of prophets.” With Tom and Bob coming at the same time, I thought that would be a good time to host a roundtable meeting. Bob agreed. We prayed about who should be invited and set the day for the first one when both Bob and Tom would be there.

It was much later when I understood that the very first mention of the word “prophet” in scripture is in the same verse as the first mention of the word “pray” (see Genesis20:7).Our first roundtable meeting would be convened because the two most powerful intercessory and prophetic ministries that I knew about were coming to visit at the same time. They were both coming because of the smallest dot on the North Carolina map—Moravian Falls. I realized much later how important this coming together of the prophetic and intercession would be for what was to come in Moravian Falls.

We convened the first roundtable at The Lamb’s Chapel, and the interchange was lively. It was very encouraging the way so many Christian leaders were able to discuss issues of substance and depth with such grace toward one another, even when they had differences. I knew then that this roundtable concept had great merit, and in the years to come would, at times, have an amazing, if hidden, impact on events in the church.

More will be covered on the roundtables later, as some truly were historic. One of the significant events at that first roundtable was that a good number attending decided to go to Moravian Falls to see the land that Tom had offered to us, being quite captivated by Bob’s dream. I stayed behind, wanting to be a good host to our quests who were not going, but I also wanted to go alone or with a small group when I first saw the land. However when I heard about the experiences that this group had when first going to see it, I was sorry that I had not gone with them. They all came back really charged with the prophetic confirmations that they had on the trip. However, as we were to understand later, when such revelation is so high level, specific, and spectacular, it is usually because of the difficulty of the task. This was all leading to one of the most exciting but difficult times of our life.

Not long after this a couple named Buck and Elaine Petty came to meet me at The Lamb’s Chapel. As we sat outside with Harry and Louise. I asked them where they were from. When they answered “Moravian Falls,” we all sat up straighter. Before we could say anything, they began to talk about how badly a work needed to be started there, and we knew it was the Lord speaking through them.

Though we did not connect it at the time, a part of Bob’s original dream about the land included a “white stag” that ruled over the land. I asked Bob at the time if he meant “a white buck,” which is what Carolinians call a male deer. Bob said , “Yes, that’s what it was.” Later, I realized that this was a pro- phecy of how Buck Petty was called to have spiritual authority over the land where the Lord was call- ing us to go. He does have a special anointing for knowing where roads should be cut, houses and other facilities should be built, as well as who should live there and who should not.

A few weeks later, Bob called back with another word about Moravian Falls. He had been shown that Satan himself had sent a “spirit of anger” to thwart our purposes there. I thought this was interest- ing and encouraging and this was receiving such high-level attention. However, it seemed odd that a spirit of anger would be used to oppose us, but it would be revealed quickly.

After visiting Moravian Falls, Julie and I decided to move there. We found a nice little house and decided to offer the owner what he was asking, thinking that it was fair. The real estate agent assured us that the owner would take the offer and would call us that night with the acceptance. That night she call- ed and seemed to be almost in tears. She said that when she gave the owner our offer, he reacted with such rage that they had decided to break their agreement to represent him. This did not make sense at all to the agent, especially since we had offered the owner what he was asking, but immediately I thought about the “spirit of anger.” We did not pursue that house any longer but decided to just wait for more clear directions from the Lord. I was not too concerned about this since after Hurricane Hugo, it did not seem that a spirit of anger could do too much damage. However, sometimes large attacks are much easier to deal with than smaller, but sustained ones. This spirit of anger has continued to manifest itself in effective ways to make almost every step of progress difficult.

I then received a word from the Lord that I could not accept gifts for our ministry that had strings attached. That seemed reasonable, and I saw how this could protect us from many problems. However, the Lord seemed to be so adamant about this I knew that it could have importance on a level I was not aware of at that time. Then I heard from Tom Hess, who had to have a small board approve of giving us the land in Moravian Falls. Tom thought it would be a very easy thing, especially with all of the confirmation from Bob’s dream and their trip up to see it. When he presented it to the this board, they were very excited but decided they wanted to offer it to us on the basis of a 99 year lease, at $1 a year. That seemed like a great deal, but I had just heard from the Lord that we could not take gifts with strings attached, and this was a string.

I shared this with Tom, who always esteemed obeying the Lord above anything, and he said he would resubmit it to the board and did not think he would have any problems getting it released from these conditions. When he called me back, I could tell even over the phone that he was distressed. He apologized, saying that he had presented what I said to the to the board, that we could not receive a gift with strings attached, and if they wanted us to have this land they would have to just give it to us, their reaction was with such anger that he actually had a moment when he almost doubted they were Christians.

I told Tom about Bob’s word regarding the spirit of anger and that I was fine with not receiving this land from them. It had at least been used to help us locate Moravian Falls, and I had no doubt we could find plenty of land for sale there. However, the matter was not over. Donations to Tom’s ministry dried up, and this continued until he was counseled by Paul Cain. Paul knew nothing about the situation with the Moravian Falls property at the time, but he told Tom he had some property with an important destiny on it that was being wrongly tied up and that he should give it back to those that had given it to him so that this judgment would come upon them and not Tom’s ministry. As soon as Tom signed the land back to those that had given it to him, donations started pouring back into his ministry again.

The purpose of sharing this prophetic history is for the lessons it contains. All of God’s ways are higher than our ways. We often consider that His attributes are like ours because we use many of the same terms as human attributes, such as love, anger or jealousy. When the Lord says that He is a jealous God, we should understand that His jealousy is not like human jealousy. Human jealousy is usually rooted in selfishness, suspicion, and fear. God’s jealousy is rooted in love, and His anger is rooted in love. God’s jealousy over the land in Moravian Falls was such that He severely disciplined some people who may have seen to be innocent, like Tom. It was not a form of retaliation, but a protection of His purposes. The more we mature, the more we need to understand this. The things we can get away with in the Outer Court can get us killed in the Holy Place. This incident with Tom and the land put fear of the Lord in many of us and I think at least helped prevent a level of presumption about the destiny of Moravian Falls that would protect us from many mistakes in the future.

All of this increased my resolve to move to Moravian Falls, but it also increased my fear of the Lord in some needed ways. The destiny on this land had something so serious that presumption could carry serious consequences. Then something else happened that imparted an even greater fear of the Lord in regard to this matter.

As I mentioned, I had been compelled to share a warning with Harry and Louise Bizzells that their calling to move to Moravian Falls was so important that it held “life and death consequences for their family.” A few months later, Harry accompanied me to Kansas City where we spent some time with Bob Jones. When praying for Harry and Louise, Bob saw a death in the family coming before the Bizzells moved into their purpose. Harry and I assumed this would be his mother, who was very old and was advancing into senility. This was sadly not the case. Not long after this, Harry and Louise’s young granddaughter died in a tragic car accident.

Spicer had been our babysitter, and our girls, Anna and Aaryn, loved her. When we received the news of her death, Anna, who was six at the time, began wailing with a mourning deeper than I had ever heard from an adult or child. She could not be consoled, and it went on for hours. It was such an obvious spirit of intercession that we could not help but to pray ourselves as she wailed. As I was praying for the Bizzells and the Wallace’s (Spiser’s parents), I was shown that Spicer had prayed and offered herself for the purposes of God, even to the taking of her life. She had done this with great sincerity, and in heaven she is a martyr who laid down her life for the purposes of the Lord. Spicer Wallace did not die in vain, and she has a great investment in her family’s destiny and in the Moravian Falls project. Soon after her death, the Bizzells, who had land in Moravian Falls, were living there preceding me by several years.

Harry and Louise Bizzell have been two of my favorite people since I first met them in the mid 1970s. The more I have come to know them and their family, the more I consider them spiritual royalty. They have endured many tragedies, hard and confusing times, but I have never heard anything but faith and trust in the Lord come from them. This does not mean that they have been perfect. It is likely very rare that anyone ever passes one of God’s tests with a perfect score, but compared to anyone else I have known closely, they have been rock solid in their faith, and faith pleases the Lord. The Bizzells have also helped countless people along in their sojourn, including the Joyners. They made their own sojourn to Moravian Falls and planted a standard there. In anything significant that emerges there, they must be considered true spiritual fathers and mothers of it, along with Buck and Elaine Patty.

Harry and Louise also helped lay a foundation for MorningStar Ministries, though they have never been an official part of The Lamb’s Chapel. Neither of us has ever felt that an official relationship was necessary, but we consider true spiritual unity to be better displayed by different and unique ministries all being able to love each other and work together without being forced to join each other or be under the compulsion of an official organization. There are a number of different ministries on the mountain which enjoy fellowship with one another but are also free to pursue their own visions and purposes. True unity is a unity of diversity, not conformity, and it is likely that the ultimate unity of the body of Christ that is coming will not be an official unity, but rather a unity of the Spirit that transcends any official relationship.

Before moving to Moravian Falls, Harry and Louise built a lodge in the middle of an apple orchard local lore states that the apple orchards that grace the Brushy Mountains were first planted by Johnny Appleseed. Most history books leave out one of the most important aspects of Johnny Appleseed’s life—that he was an evangelist and used the apple seed to preach the gospel. One of his famous sayings was, “you can count the seeds in an apple, but you cannot count the apples in a seed.” He went about planting seeds that have now produced countless millions of apples through this region. As the Lord declared in Genesis that seeds would only produce after their own kind (see Genesis 1:11), those seeds would forever produce apples, not oranges, grapefruit, or anything else but apples. Therefore, begin- ings are important. What was the spiritual seed that the Moravians planted here? What kind of seed are we planting.

As I came to visit Harry and Louise occasionally , I yearned to join them and move to he mountains. However, I had also fallen in love with Charlotte, and the seeds that we had planted there were growing as well. Then I remembered one of the original words that the Lord had given me about moving to North Carolina, which was Deuteronomy 28:3, “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.” I knew then that our home was to be in both places. I began earnestly praying for a place in Moravian Falls. When a section of forty-six acres became available that ran anlong the ridge above the Bizzell’s I bought it. Then a little cabin became available on the same road below The Lamb’s Chapel property, and I bought it as well.

I started coming up to the cabin to spend two or three days a week just to pray and write. Immediately, I began having prophetic dreams and visions on a level and frequency I had never experi- enced before. I also began having angelic visions. For more than twenty-five years, I had been praying to have the same kind of experiences that the Apostle Paul had when he was caught up to the third heaven.” I started having those experiences as well in Moravian Falls. Soon I saw a pattern in them, an unfolding message which was to become The Final Quest Series: The Final Quest, The Call, The Torch and the Sword. These I consider to be the first installments, and ther is much more to come.

Some of these experiences of being caught up into the spiritual realm were terrifying, but there is good fear and bad fear—these were good. I had never felt so close to the Lord or compelled to know His ways. I also felt a deep desire to understand and preach the coming of His kingdom. Even though I missed my family and the work that was growing in Charlotte, it was one of the hardest things I did each week when I had to leave the mountain. Soon, I knew that I would have to move my family there.

I also started seeing that a church needed to be planted there that would be the base for “the prophetic community and teaching center” that I was faceted. This is not just about MorningStar either, because what the Petty’s and Bizzell’s have built, as well as others who have come, are all part of it. What is being built there is much bigger than MorningStar, but it is a kingdom thing. MorningStar may have a footprint there now, but it may not always be that way. The destiny of Moravian Falls is to big for any single ministry. We just want to do our part, do it well, and help in any way that we can the others who are called to be a part of this.

There is much more to be told about the unfolding history of Moravian Falls, but let me conclude This part with Bob Jones’ first visit to the property. Since having the dream, and then going to see the land that Tom Hess had proposed giving to us, Bob had not been back. When he was finally able to come to the property we had purchased, we all felt it would be a significant time. We were not disappointed.

In his original dream, he had seen a cave that the Lord had compared to the cave of Adullam,, where David had escaped from Saul, and where everyone who was distress, in debt, and discontented, gathered to him. Some of those who gathered to David there were to become the “mighty men of valor” who served as leaders in David’s kingdom. In Bob’s dream it was in this cave that weapons of war were being made, and it was his job to keep the fire going. These weapons are spiritual of course, and Bob has certainly done his job of prophetically keeping the fires going in our ministry and the whole Moravian Falls project. It was also over this cave that Bob had seen pillars of fire that were made out of lightening.

While driving up the road to our property, Bob started pointing to some of the land that we had just purchased and said that the cave was there. I told him that I thought the cave was spiritual, which he agreed, but he insisted that there was also a literal cave there. Later, I was pointing to the same land from another peak, showing Bob where Julie and I had decided to build our personal home, and Bob again started talking about the cave that was there, and that a pillar of fire that was made out of lightning exactly over the point where we were building our home. Buck Petty, who had joined us, reminded me of the cave we had been told about by one of our neighbors just a few weeks before, which had been an iron ore mine during the Civil War, which the Confederates had used to make cannons out of (obviously weapons of war).

I had completely forgotten about this cave, the mouth of which was exactly where Bob had been pointing when we came up the road. Our neighbor had also talked about how lightning seemed to always strike that point whenever a storm came near because of all of the iron ore in the mountain. That was the the pillar that was made out of lightning which bob had seen. Bob had also seen two streams on the land, which Buck had found just a few days before when he was cutting roads on the land.

I knew then that the house we designed for our home would not always be our home, but needed to be designed for additional ministry purposes. It would be a place where many spiritual warriors would come to be trained. We therefore substantially overbuilt it for our home, though we ended up needing some of the space for my invalid father and his care givers. I also had my personal office and meeting areas designed from what would have been an attic. It served us very well as a home for seven years.

So we lived in Charlotte for seven years before moving to Moravian Falls, and then we lived there for seven years before moving back to Charlotte. I felt like I had worked seven years for Leah and then seven years for Rachel, and it was time to go to the promised land, our inheritance. It was indeed at the end of the second seven years in North Carolina that many prophecies that had been given to us as a ministry started being fulfilled in rapid succession. Because this is meant to be a prophetic history, we will need to backtrack a bit in the next part to fill in some important events and relationships, which began then. 

Printed with permission by Triune Last Days Ministries

From MorningStar Journal

Vol. 18, No. 3