Last weekend, I had an errand to run. It was a journey of a few kilometres there and back, within my neighbourhood and I figured that it was a weekend so the round trip would not take me more than 30 minutes. As I began what should have been a short journey by car, I could not help but sense the atmosphere of heaviness all around me. There was traffic, but somehow it existed amid an eery quiet – not calm, just quiet. There were cars on the road but no real hustle and bustle, no sense of optimism, no laughter, no parties at the main event centres, not even that many horns blowing! Just a grey listlessness, a feeling of hopeless surrender. The pandemic and the lockdowns that have accompanied it are about a year old but pre-pandemic living seems like it was decades ago. The economic news is bad. The political news is bad. The social news is bad. This past year seems to have forced us to accept a reality that we have long been avoiding about the spiritual and by extension, socio-economic condition in our land; The Emperor has no clothes!
As we look with our natural eyes across this nation, like Goliath and the Philistine armies at Sochoh, it seems that lack, darkness, chaos, lawlessness, even death stare defiantly back at us, waiting for anyone that dares to challenge them; waiting for a command that they cannot defy. The good news is that there is precedent for this seeming wholesale chaos.
Genesis 1:2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Then God said…
If the past year has taught us one thing, it is that we need to go from ‘managing’ to creating. We have watched systems fail around us, home and away, and we have seen many hopes dashed. We have seen those with vast tangible wealth cut down and taken out by a tiny, intangible virus. Our social calendars have been emptied and we have learned to work from the isolation of our homes. Lockdowns have meant that we have had little or no diversion from looking in the mirror, spirit, soul, and body, and studying the image staring back at us. Suddenly, there is nowhere to run from the reality of our relationships, our habits, our values, our priorities, our expectations, our declarations, and all that it has produced. And if we are to be honest, many of us do not like the harvest before us. For some of us, the quiet of the year 2020 served as an Elijah season, akin to 1 Kings 19, 5-8 when the Lord commanded the prophet to arise and eat on account of a demanding journey ahead. If any of us are able to make this boast, the year 2020 was unusual but was a year well spent.
Our nation is seemingly ‘without form and void and darkness is on the face of the land ..….’
So, what to do? We are sons and daughters of the Lord God, most High. We are made in His image and likeness and we have been placed on the earth in a position of dominion – the bible tells us so:
Genesis 1,26-28 AMPC
26 God said, Let Us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make mankind in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the [tame] beasts, and over all of the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth.
27 So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them.
28 And God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it [using all its vast resources in the service of God and man]; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves upon the earth.
Psalm 8, 5-8 (TPT)
5 Yet what honour you have given to men,
created only a little lower than Elohim,
crowned with glory and magnificence.
6 You have delegated to them
rulership over all you have made,
with everything under their authority,
placing earth itself under the feet of your image-bearers.
7–8 All the created order and every living thing
of the earth, sky, and sea—
the wildest beasts and all that move in the paths of the sea—
everything is in submission to Adam’s sons
Paraphrasing, He says, ‘I have made you as kings in the earth, a Holy Nation and a Royal Priesthood with a command to be fruitful, to increase, to steward all the vast resources of the earth for good that reflects Me and My Kingdom. You have authority to exercise dominion over resistance to this agenda and to subdue it.’ The Lord Himself told us that He would build His Ekklesia and the gates of hell would not prevail against it or conquer it or overpower it or be victorious over it! The Lord’s choice of words informs us that the gates of hell will certainly try to thwart the forward march of His Ekklesia and the resistance would be rigorous enough for Him to give us assurances upfront.
The enemy we face is 100% darkness. Even if his actions appear moderated, it is never on account of any residual virtue – his actions and intentions are always to produce death and destruction. It is either immediate or slow release but the full bloom of his plans and actions, assuredly, is theft, destruction, and death. Now that we have cleared that up, we can stop with the shock and outrage and turn our attention to the Lord!
In readiness for this mission, we have been reborn from the Seed of God, we are endowed with His nature and Holy Spirit lives in us, having promised to never leave us nor forsake us. He is working on the inside of us to bring us to maturity, to the fullness of the stature of Christ, causing us to bear fruit that remains for time and eternity. Love, joy, peace, patience kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control are being expressed through our lives as we yield to Him, disarming and displacing darkness and for this fruit, we shall be eternally rewarded. He has made gifts available to us that demonstrate the superiority of His Kingdom and reflect His heart of love towards those who have received Him and to those who have not. He has promised to reveal all things to us, even the plans through which the enemy seeks to prevail over His Ekklesia. He has revealed powerful truths to us that serve as impenetrable, infallible weaponry as we advance, driving back the armies of darkness, taking territory with the sword of the Spirit. As we abide in His Word and His Word abides in us, we open our mouths and from the overflow of our hearts, we speak, and it shall be done. As we declare, our words create.
So, my brethren, as darkness covers the earth and deep darkness the peoples, we align with Truth! We remind ourselves that of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end. Just like king David before us, we encourage ourselves in the Lord and declare that which our Lord already spoke over us; the gates of hell shall not prevail against those He has called out to gather unto His Kingdom’s cause. We wait upon the Lord for sight and insight concerning our land and its peoples for He has promised that He shall lead us into all Truth and will not do anything in the earth without first revealing it to His servants, the prophets. We set aside our declarations of outrage with every seemingly novel manifestation of darkness, seeking to assault our eye and ear gates. Instead, we shall proclaim that which He reveals and see the atmosphere shift and resistors bow in obedience to that which He sends forth to this realm through our hearts and from our lips. After all, he has assured us that His Word will not return to Him void but will accomplish His purpose and prosper in His mission. Brethren, we rally in the knowledge that all that the Lord desires for us to have on this side of eternity, to accomplish His purposes, has been made available to us through Christ Jesus. No matter how outrageous things may seem, there is nothing new under the sun! Like Joshua and Caleb on the edge of promise, we face the land, and we declare that we shall take the mountains. Without question, the next move is ours.