The Boy Prophet

God saved over a million lives through one faithful boy. The story begins in the rocky foothills of Mount Ararat. In what was then part of Armenia, sits the peaceful, little village of Kara Kala. The year is 1853. Here, we find the Boy Prophet, a devout, Spirit-filled, Christian boy of Russian origin who’s just eleven years old. His name is Efim Gerasemovitch Klubniken. Born 17 December 1842 in Tambov Oblast, Russia. His father, along with many others, was ordered out of the heart of the Russian Empire by the Tsar, who considered their charismatic form of Christianity an embarrassment to his kingdom. So two years before Efim was born, his godly Spirit-filled parents had migrated by royal edict to Armenia, with other Pentecostals.  

From childhood, Efim had shown a gift for prayer, frequently going on long fasts, praying night and day. When Efim was eleven years old, he had heard the Lord calling him again to one of his prayer vigils. This time, he persisted for eight days and nights and during this time, he received a vision. The boy is in the midst of days of unceasing prayer, just as God has called him to, and then, the unexpected happens. After eight days of unbroken prayers and vigils, he had a vision. 

Efim could neither read nor write. Yet, as he sat in a little stone cottage in Kara Kala, he saw before him a vision of charts and a message in beautiful handwriting. Efim asked for a pen and paper. And for seven days, sitting at the rough plank table where the family ate, he laboriously copied down the form and shape of letters and diagrams that passed before his eyes. When he had finished, the manuscript was taken to people in the village who could read. It turned out that this illiterate child had written out in Russian characters a series of instructions and warnings. 

At some unspecified time in the future, the boy wrote, every Christian in Kara Kala would be in terrible danger. He foretold a time of unspeakable tragedy for the entire area, when hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children would be brutally murdered. The time would come, he warned, when everyone in the region must flee. They must go to a land across the sea. 

Although he had never seen a geography book, the Boy Prophet had drawn a map showing exactly where the fleeing Christians were to go. To the amazement of the adults, the body of water depicted so accurately in the drawing was not the nearby Black Sea, or the Caspian Sea, or even the farther-off Mediterranean, but the distant Atlantic Ocean! There was no doubt about it, or about the identity of the land on the other side: the map plainly indicated the east coast of the United States of America.

But the refugees were not to settle down there, the prophecy continued. They were to continue travelling until they reached the west coast of the new land. There, the boy wrote, God would bless them and prosper them, and cause their seed to be a blessing to the nations…

Well, many people in Kara Kala smiled at these romances of a little boy. Surely there must be some explanation of the ‘miraculous’ writing. Perhaps he had secretly taught himself to read and write, just to play this trick on the village. Others, however, took to calling Efim the Boy Prophet and were not at all convinced that the message was not genuine. Every time news of fresh political troubles reached the tranquil hills around Ararat, they would get out the now-yellowed pages and read them again.

Move forward in time to the early 1900s. Efim is now a tall, white-haired man in his sixties. People still respectfully refer to him as the Boy Prophet in spite of his age. Once more, God instructs him about the events that were to unfold. Efim announced that the time was near for the fulfilment of the words he had written down nearly fifty years before: "We must flee to America. All who remain here will perish." Here and there, families packed up and left the holdings that had been their ancestral possessions time out of mind. Efim and his family were among the first to go. As each group left Armenia, they were jeered by those who remained behind. Sceptical and disbelieving folk, including many Christians, refused to believe that God could issue pinpoint instructions for modern people in a modern age.

And did the vision come to pass?

Over a decade would pass - nothing. And then, sixty-two years after the vision, it happened. In 1914, World War I began, and in 1915, the horror came to pass just as God had revealed with the genocide of one and a half million Armenian Christian men, women and children. Those who’d believed that God-given warning and who’d responded were now in California, safe. They heard the news with distress, knowing that God had warned them all to leave. In their new land, they were positioned to experience the unprecedented blessings that God had promised them just as the Boy Prophet had written: ‘God would bless them and prosper them and cause their seed to be a blessing to the nations.’ Efim Gerasemovich Klubnikin was a prophet of no small repute. God used him to save an entire generation of Armenian and Russian Christians. Very little is said or written about this unsung Russian hero. Efim Gerasemovich Klubnikin died in August 1916 in Los Angeles at seventy-four years of age. 

There are so many life lessons you can take from this story.

A boy obedient beyond his abilities and learned skill set stays faithful and delivers the message just as he received it. Those who took that prophecy to heart must have spent the years of waiting in preparation, storing up the means as they could to be ready when the time came. And he and others responded when God finally told them to leave. It must have been hard to leave their ancestral homes for an unknown outcome, in a faraway land.

God communicated to His people, and they responded faithfully. An eleven-year-old boy had received a vision from God, conscientiously recorded it and broadcast what God had revealed. Christians who knew their God received that instruction and patterned their lives accordingly. As a result, God blessed them, prospered them and caused their seed to be a blessing to the nations.

And now, what about you? You’ve read those amazing life stories in the bible and this remarkable one set in our times. Are these people exceptions to the rule? No, they’re people just like us. And like them, if you listen to God and respond to His communications, be assured that doing so will bring you His richest blessings. 'Help me, Lord, to have a listening ear and a responsive heart to how You’re unfolding the things You’ve said to me about my life.'

God's leading in your life may not be as dramatic as saving millions, but who knows what God is leading you to? The lessons that came from this story show people responding and obeying God's leading, finding sanctuary in a new land where they prospered. If you follow God's leading, you will prosper, and He will show you the way you should go. God leads in many ways, and your response to the various ways He leads will bring reward. We have authored 'He Leads Me: Adventures in God' that explores God's leading and how you can experience the fullness of His leading. Explore key ways God leads and how you can become more sensitive to that leading by recognising God’s voice in different situations. There are many ways that God leads, some subtle, some clear. Being able to recognise the leading of God in your life, no matter what method He uses, will open untold blessings to you. Using biblical and modern life examples of God’s leading, this book will show you steps to enhance your sensitivity to God’s leading. Written as a workbook, you'll increase your ability to be led in a wider range of ways. This is life-changing.

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