Catastrophes

I want to write something I posted several years ago concerning what is happening to our nation and region concerning the flooding we are witnessing.

I have thought to rewrite it since it is a difficult task to get since it is possible it got lost when my computer crashed some time ago.

I also can’t look for it on my blog because there are over six hundred messages that would require a substantial amount of time to trace yet I can just write it.

I will therefore write the message as I feel God wants me to share at this time, trusting that someone will hear what God is saying concerning what is happening. I will also add something on it.

What is the purpose of catastrophes in the life of a believer? And I am saying believer because I am convinced that the world hangs on the lives of the believers. The truth is that all of creation depends on the believer to function right.

Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8: 21 – 23)

Last year, we were informed that El Nino was coming and that there needed to be adequate preparation, just as had happened the time I had shared that message.

Everybody got busy with interventions. Tons of cash was raised.

Then it downgraded itself.

Kenyans complained very bitterly, blaming the meteorological department for raising false flags. But those flags were international.

Then it came, but not as brutal as was expected.

This season not much rain was expected. But it came with a vengeance and is still continuing to wreak havoc.

Why did the weather people not warn us?

That is what I want us to look at.

God sends catastrophes to draw our attention. I compare it with a shout for attention.

That is why He warns before they come so that His people can respond and avert that judgment.

Shifting that information from repentance to human interventions therefore serves to dull our ears to what God is shouting about.

As I said at that time, our interventions will make Him defer that judgment because it will then serve no purpose of His.

I am not saying that there is anything wrong with interventions.

What I am saying is that the main reason God will send something of that sort is to draw our attention; to bring us back to Himself. He brings them to draw us back to His grace, forgiveness and restoration. He brings them to show us the futility of our effort; to demonstrate to us that we are helpless without Him and a right relationship with Him.

Focusing on interventions is therefore counterproductive if it is the only thing we do.

No wonder He will then defer the catastrophes to a time we will be forced to see ONLY His hand in them. Because then we will have the option of deciding how we will need to respond to Him and His revelation.

I am sure that is why God referred El Nino last season and brought it this season.

But I doubt whether many believers know that or can even acknowledge it if it was told them.

Will we return to God?

Allow me to also add something else.

The earth is the Lord’s. He is therefore the ultimate custodian as her creator.

He is in the best position to make it function as it would.

We have had a drought that has devastated nations, and that for a long time.

Could this mega rain be His way of restoring the water that has been lost through that drought? Could it be His way of restoring the water tables to where they should be since we have refused to repent to allow Him to restore them as He desires to?

You see, wells and even boreholes had started drying up.

This flooding, apart from bringing God’s people’s attention to Him, will restore the water table since His people have refused to call for His intervention.

You may realise that it is not only people who are affected by calamity. But as the custodians of this earth that God bestowed on us to manage, we are ultimately responsible for whatever happens.

The animals and plants will not die just because man has refused to go back to God since God has no issues with them.

That is why He will send a flood after a drought.

The plants and animals will thrive even as man is called to attention by his creator.

Plants that otherwise may have become extinct will all of a sudden appear as people desert those lands.

Or do you not know one reason for the captivity; the sabbath of the land that will restore the land?

God is, in bringing those floods, causing the land to replenish itself since man has been unable (actually unwilling) to listen to and obey God.

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2Chronicles 7:14)

Even the global warming narrative is a pointer to our greed. It is the indictment of our selfishness and self-seeking. That is what God is drawing our attention to.

But even there we have completely lost it.

Dealing with everything but greed will also be counterproductive. Dealing with anything but sin will be even more devastating.

God created everything to be completely self-sustaining. There is simply enough for everybody and everything if we chose to be content with our lot.

There is enough land for everybody. There is enough food for everybody.

But we must decide to hold only to what we need.

But we are hoarding. We are not content with what we need. We feel content when we own the whole world and everybody else is our slave.

Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! (Isaiah 5:8)

Is it any wonder that the land itself rebels?

 

Idols 3

I want to close this topic by looking sharing from my heart my own experiences regarding this.

And it spans more topics than provision.

When I responded to God’s call almost forty years ago, there was an excitement about doing God’s will and sharing His message of salvation to His people wherever I went.

Incidentally, God opened a door for me to get into the wards of Kenyatta National Hospital, the only referral hospital in Kenya then.

This happened because I was living in the compound and I was also in fellowship with the nursing school, among other reasons.

I would get into the wards any time I felt like as God had extended favor for me all around. This means that nobody blocked me, from the gate keepers to the ward nurses.

How did I operate?

I would get to the person God led me and share the Gospel when the patient gave me a chance to do so.

Then I would pray for their healing.

Though I am not writing about motivation and the prosperity ungospel, it is important to repeat that as I have written elsewhere, I was a firm believer in the doctrine, having been fed on it since childhood. I therefore believed that sickness had nothing to do with God or faith.

The first person I prayed for (probably the most memorable incident) was a young man with tubes protruding from all over. He was in a bad place. His name was Rotich, if I can still remember.

He communicated through gestures since there were tubes protruding from his mouth and nose.

But when I shared the Gospel, he indicated that he wanted to get saved.

I therefore prayed for him to get saved as he agreed with me.

Then, probably with baited breath, I prayed for his healing. I doubt my faith had encountered that hurdle before.

Then I left.

Two or three days later I returned to the same ward and on asking his neighbors where he was, they told me that he had healed enough to be discharged.

You can imagine what that did to my faith.

I of course continued sharing the Gospel and praying for healing, but now with even more favor.

I will bring you now to the last incident. And I call it last because, like the one I have just shared, it was one I couldn’t ever forget.

I went into the pediatric ward to of course share the Gospel.

Among the first mothers I met was a lady who was a believer. We connected immediately.

I therefore teamed up with her to share the Gospel with her immediate neighbors and they responded positively and we had a great fellowship. I remember even giving her my first Bible, the Bible I treasured since it was the one that set me of into a consistent reading and study of the word.

Then we prayed for healing. And I will hasten to add that her child was not as bad as the children of those we were sharing the Gospel with. I was therefore certain that her child would be the first to receive healing.

Then I come to the same ward probably a day or two later.

The ladies we had shared the Gospel with had been discharged but my sister’s child had died.

To say I was crushed would be an understatement. Whipping could not have inflicted as much pain as I felt then.

Why of all people had this sister’s child died?

I ruled out lack of faith because the others we had prayed for (with her) had healed.

Why then? I cried to God.

As we see in Psalm 73, it is when I resorted to God’s word that I was able to make sense of this hurt. And this is what I am writing about.

God is never at our mercy. God is the Lord and never subject to anybody or anything, even if this is a person who believes in Him.

God heals for His purpose. God heals when and how He chooses.

God does not heal because I believe. I believe because He heals. There is a very clear distinction here.

It is very possible for faith to be an idol instead of a sign.

The bronze serpent was a sign. But we later see it as an idol.

And for me that is the greatest error of motivation. We want to box God into our faith instead of allowing Him to shape that faith.

That is why someone starts as a true prophet and eventually ends up being a false one.

Because God must speak, irrespective of whether He wants to or not. Irrespective of whether He needs to speak or not.

That is why preachers regurgitate other preachers’ sermons since they have no time to wait for their own word. That is why those people called Gospel musicians produce spiritual trash and error because they must produce those songs in their season and not God’s.

It is idolatry because our focus shifts from God to what He does for us. It shifts from Him to the faith that accesses what He has to offer.

And that idolatry does not happen all at once. It happens after we have gone some distance with God, a distance where we have established that He is all He says He is.

We then become too familiar with Him and are able to ‘accurately’ know how and when we can access Him and His.

We were full of faith when we were growing. Then that faith became the focus, many times because it starts getting the accolades of those around us.

It feels nice when our faith is applauded. Until we forget the object of that faith and transfer our commitment to that faith instead of the object of the same.

Incidentally that is the reason some ministers buy miracles so that they continue being relevant in their performance.

 Miracles started becoming more important, not only than the one performing them, but even than the purpose of the same.

When people attend our meeting because of the drama those miracles become, we will be afraid to declare that they are not the focus of those meetings at all. The purpose of those meetings is the message of the cross that will connect each and every respondent to the miracle source.

But that will diminish our status because we want all those fans to follow us, and especially those miracles.

That is why prophets must have that word whether God speaks or not. Because everybody is coming to hear that word from our mouth and pointing all those people to the source of that word will diminish our relevance.

That is idolatry.

But it is important to realise that God still heals. God still speaks. God is at work on our behalf.

But on His terms.

So God continued healing and saving as I continued ministering in those wards.

Allow me to close with a demonstration of that.

I was in school when I responded to God’s call. My first assignments were therefore in the school setting amongst fellow students.

I started a devotion in the morning before the assembly. Initially I was with a friend I wish I could be able to contact, Joseph Wafula. We would share a word of encouragement and pray. Then we would leave for the assembly.

In a short while, almost half of the school (and it was a Catholic sponsored school), would attend that devotion. Until the school started giving me a chance to share in the assembly.

I was also discipling as I was being discipled.

One day, I became very sick. I think it was that bad malaria that refused to respond to medication.

I felt that my time had come. And I was at peace because for the few months since I responded to God’s call, I had given my all to following everything I felt God leading me towards.

I felt like Paul that my assignment was complete and that I was ready to go home and shared the same to the small group I was discipling. I asked them to release me to go to my rest.

They said something very interesting.

You have taught us to know God. You have taught us to believe God. You have taught us to pray. We will pray and believe for your healing.

And that is what they did.

And God healed me immediately.

I hope you can understand what I am sharing.

Shifting the focus from the object of your faith is idolatry. And it becomes so when you have waxen fat from feeding from that faith that you slowly detach from the object or focus.

Terminator Genes 3

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (2Corinthians 6: 14 – 16)

Over the years, these verses have been used to warn believers against getting married to unbelievers.

Though it also applies there, I feel we have overlooked the graver warning inherent therein.

The worst part is that it will ultimately end in marriage somewhere down the line.

And I will start with our godly friend, Jehoshaphat.

Though he didn’t get married to the wicked, his association with them, however innocent it was, ended up having his son getting married to them.

Allow me to explain.

It is in the nature of friends or partners to spend an inordinate amount of time together since they must be doing many things together.

As a result, their children will interact even more as they will be accompanying their parents to those places.

It does not take much imagination to know that those children will connect with each other in deeper levels than their parents could ever do. Meaning they will have no blinders in their relationships as their parents have in their interaction.

Faith to them simply becomes a distinction, an interesting and pleasant and attractive variety. It will bring color to the dull existence of the single-colored fabric of the faith of their fathers.

However dogmatic you could be, it will be impossible to warn your children against the children of your heathen friend or partner since it will be an act of self-condemnation on your part.

The termination gene is not therefore introduced at marriage. It is consummated there, long after it has been allowed to thrive ‘innocently’.

That is what the Bible is warning us against in that verse.

And you realise it was the same way with Israel when they were getting into the Promised Land.

They were ordered to eliminate the Canaanite and never seek their peace for that single reason.

Their presence would defile the purity of their worship since in a relationship, even a relationship between enemies, will have an impact on both parties.

Or do you not know that your enemy is your most loyal follower, though he will be following with the intent of being the first to witness your fall?

Have you realised that break away churches and ministers become clones of the churches and ministries they acrimoniously left?

Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. (Deuteronomy 12:30)

Israel failed because they did not think it was vital to eliminate the people they were to displace. Because they then started becoming friends in little ways until they mated with their gods and were punished for that.

Saul was rejected because he refused to clear everything and everybody as god had said because what remained had the capacity to corrupt them.

How radical is your obedience in the face of innocent friends? How innocent are you amidst ministers that question your level of obedience?

Naomi

And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: (Ruth 1:16)

Allow me to use this popular verse to speak about something completely outside the messages that have been preached and taught out of it.

I want to use it to speak about evangelism and the whole topic of being a witness. And I will want us to walk with Naomi from the time she left Bethlehem.

Again, I want us to look at this with a backdrop of all we have heard and know about mothers in law.

I do not think we can call Naomi a strong woman if we used the standards used for such from what we read. We cannot comfortably call her the family matriarch with the little information we have. She was not as assertive as we have been raised to think about strong women.

What is not in question is her faith and the impact it had on these Moabite damsels.

Why am I saying that she probably was not a strong woman?

We know it was wrong for her sons to get Moabite wives and they got them anyway after the death of her husband. She probably ought to have gone back home after her husband died but couldn’t, probably because she couldn’t convince her sons as much.

It is also probable that she suspected she was the reason for all those deaths around her from her confession to her daughters in law.

Allow me to leave speculations for now since as you know I never concentrate on anything not clearly written in the word

What was Naomi as a mother-in-law? I think that is the question that brought me to this point.

Naomi was a woman of faith, the kind of faith that slowly seeps through any crevice it gets to just as water does.

Her surrender to her fate in the midst of such suffering and loss is a clear demonstration that her faith was not academic. It ran her whole life.

The fact that Ruth could so conclusively call Naomi’s God her God is a clear demonstration that she knew that her faith was not only sweet, it had a transforming power that nothing in her past had the capacity for.

Interacting with a foreign mother-in-law is for the most part difficult. The fact that people have even coined the term mother in love is clear evidence that a good mother-in-law is rare.

Yet we see these Moabite girls clinging to her and even weeping when she wanted to leave them.

Eventually she was able to speak some logic to Orpah. But even that was a difficult task.

Why was that?

Naomi was, like her name, sweet to be around. Her faith gave out an aroma that drew everybody towards it. Her personality was magnetic.

That was not aggression. It is her faith that was aggressive and expansionist.

Yet it was so in the living.

Nothing in the narrative shows Naomi as someone who always talked about her faith and her God. And it would have been difficult for her to do so since she was more or less living in sin.

What of leaving Bethlehem for Moab? What of her sons marrying forbidden girls?

We always laugh at a young man who sticks in a relationship with a heathen trusting that God will bring them to faith. Because it is simply impossible.

Yet wasn’t that Naomi’s experience?

But her faith was able to win Ruth to an unwavering faith in the God she served, be it in rebellion or not. Her lifestyle was able to convict a heathen to abandon her faith.

That for me is beyond impressive.

Do you realise that this is the reason Peter wrote this?

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands: (1Peter 3: 1 – 5)

She didn’t fight her husband or sons when they chose the wrong path.

She chose to follow the right path when she was in charge; after all her bosses died. That is the reason she did not want any baggage when she was returning.

There is a very pivotal point I need to make about this topic. It is the fact that it is in adversity that we are able to release that sweet aroma to the world.

Look at the women in the Bible.  The majority of those who stood out were not the normal women in perfect marriages.

They stand out because they were the products of perilous times.

Abigail stood out because Nabal was a churl. Tamal stood out because Judah got a wife who raised sons who had no connection to his faith. Hannah stood out because of her barrenness and persecution.

That was possible only because their faith was such that their ‘pressing’ and ‘crushing’ were able to produce the faith that could not be produced otherwise.

Good times produce envy or craving for a replication for it.

Who doesn’t like to live a trouble-free life? But there is not much craving for the faith that produced it since at that point very little faith is evident.

But faith can never be hidden in adversity since crushing must produce the aroma resident in the vessel. Remember even the alabaster bottle had to be broken for that expensive perfume to anoint Jesus?

The reality is that Peter was not addressing women in perfect marriages with husbands who know their position and handling their responsibilities just right.

Those verses are addressed to women in abusive marriages, women married to churls like Nabal.

Though a woman will always struggle to submit even to the perfect husband, it is imperative for her faith for her to submit to that churl because that is where her faith shines the brightest.

There is no effort required eating your best dish. Nobody will therefore be applauding you for the same. It may many times be detrimental to your health.

But taking medicine is difficult. Eating food you must eat is not exciting. You must force yourself. You must first convince yourself about their usefulness and necessity. No wonder they are called medicines or nutritional requirements.

That is not different with our faith.

Our witness is never as effective and visible as when it is under pressure. In short it is when nothing makes sense in our life that our faith shines the brightest.

I believe this is what happened to Naomi.

The pressure caused by the disobedience of her husband and sons made her faith stand out.

But it did even more. It made it sweet and desirable.

It became such that someone could opt to leave their comfort, promise and future in its pursuit. Since that is what Ruth was ultimately committing herself to.

David the king lived in adversarial times. Yet we see very many people from the nations following his faith. We also see enough losers joining him.

Solomon on the other hand, lived in peace and prosperity. He also had many guests. But we do not see any of them joining his faith. Many joined to corrupt it.

What am I saying?

The harvest of our faith brings enough fans, followers, admirers, etc. But it rarely (I don’t have any scriptural evidence of even one) converts. But the battle of our faith, the test of our faith, ends up convicting enough people to join that faith under fire.

That is why motivation is so delusional. It is also anti witness since like with Solomon it never wins any converts however successful it becomes.

And that is why we have a verse like this in the Bible.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

And this

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. (2Timothy 3:12)

At what stage is your faith?

What is the pressing producing? Is it the pleasant aroma Naomi gave or the stench bitterness from feeling short changed produces?

How many people are willing to join or faith because it is under intense pressure? Will you be content to allow God to complete the process instead of crying for the harvest before the crushing?

Abomination in the Holy Place

And he brake down the houses of the sodomites, that were by the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the grove. (2Kings 23:7)

Ever wondered why abominable characters seek recognition though they know that their conduct is against societal norms?

Why should a harlot seek to be recognized by society when she knows that her whole profession thrives on secrecy? Or have you seen a man visiting a harlot, or even a brothel in the full glare of society? Have you ever heard a man informing his wife that he will be passing by a harlot before coming home or when on a working trip?

On the other side, have you ever heard of a woman informing her husband that she will be out to make an extra coin as a harlot?

And Judah said, Let her take it to her, lest we be shamed: behold, I sent this kid, and thou hast not found her. (Genesis 38:23)

Sin thrives in secrecy. Or do you not remember Adam hiding from God?

Why then is there so much effort at making sin that thrives in secret visible?

It has all to do with rebellion. It has to do with the evil one’s strategy of overrunning and probably overthrowing God’s strategy of leading the world into His redemptive agenda.

I have recently written extensively about rebellion and so will not dwell there much though it is the backdrop of what God has me share.

Normalizing sin is the first instalment of a whole cocktail of stratagem of turning society against God. And it is so because it is aimed at children.

You see, a child has no values but the ones he sees. He has not developed the mechanisms to assess everything he sees because he has no prior experience dealing with them.

That is why a child will comfortably play with a venomous snake or ferocious wild animal without a worry in the world.

Children have no awareness of tribe, race or color. They will pick those prejudices from their exposure to the people they respect, especially the parents.

A child will know they are different when they encounter another child with a prejudice against them and not when they meet a different person or community.

The strategy is therefore to saturate the child with wickedness and abomination so that he will think that is the norm. he will thus defend that norm against anything seeking its overthrow, even if the One seeking that overthrow is God Himself.

That is the reason we read of sodomites operating by God’s house. And for me that is amazing in its blatancy.

We may think of this as an affront to God but I think that is not the end game.

The leadership wanted to make sodomy normal to God’s people, especially the next generation.

Imagine seeing them every time you were going to worship!

One will initially be appalled at the audacity of that abomination. But do nothing much because it had the green light of the temple leadership. And how it got that greenlight will eventually become more painful to your spirit.

Is that not happening in the church of our day?

How many senior clergymen are bold enough to call out sodomy for starters? How many preachers can openly and boldly speak against sexual immorality?

How many church and Christian leaders are willing to call out the witchcraft being practiced in church packaged as anointing?

Not so long ago I met some infuriated members of this mega church. Why were they so mad?

An openly gay global celebrity visited their church and was given a chance to address the church, not to repent.

Is that different from the verse I have quoted?

What was that church leadership saying to their children, more so in this age and time?

Fame is more important than morals. Being a celebrity is more important than living according to God’s laws. That fame can open doors even God has closed.

What kind of damage has that leadership caused in this impressionable mind, however much the offering this celebrity gave?

What will guide this young mind when the time comes to make pivotal decisions concerning their life and walk with God?

And you will realise that this happens in many and varied ways according to the compromise level of the leadership. It many times happens because of the level of compromise in the leadership.

Let me give an example.

A very key leader of the church divorces but can’t be removed from leadership because he is the key to the church’s expansion trajectory. Another is caught in corruption and can’t be removed because they brought their whole company to church and could in anger redirect a majority of them to another church if he is removed. Another is caught in sin but can’t be removed because he is the single funder of the prayer program in the church.

Before the spiritual leadership notices, the church has been taken over by characters whose only qualification for leadership is the money and people (same thing) they are bringing to church as opposed to their spiritual stature.

Those are the people who are then used to build those sodomy cubicles around the holy place.

A bishop didn’t just start saying that people should be allowed to love whichever way they would (the latest buzzword supporting homosexuality). He was slowly held captive by compromises, initially innocent compromises to what he believed was God’s revealed truth. And not because he stopped believing that truth.

Lot first built overlooking Sodom. But at the end of the story, he was a leader in Sodom. And do not tell me he didn’t know what was happening. That is why he was in such a hurry to take the angels inside his house before ….

Why was he unable to dent the morals of that rotten place with his righteousness?

Once you allow a small compromise to touch you, it later becomes impossible to deal even with rampant sin.

At first, Lot was a neighbor. Then he probably got a friend or two. Later he needed the city for security. Until he became part of that abomination as we see with his daughters and wife. Not forgetting his daughters had even found spouses in Sodom.

I therefore do not want you to think that what I am writing about is far-fetched. It is closer home than you think.

That innocent compromise is the first step in the journey to exhibiting abomination in the holy place.

That fear to confront a loved one when they stray ever so slightly from the straight and narrow is the first step towards having a Jezebel taking over your kingdom like Ahab or infidels overthrowing your worship as happened to Solomon.

Allow me to leave this post here to give you a chance to examine your life in the little light I have shed.

 

 

Terminator Genes 2

Now when Jehoram was risen up to the kingdom of his father, he strengthened himself, and slew all his brethren with the sword, and divers also of the princes of Israel. (2Chronicles 21:4)

When I wrote about Ahab’s descendants and the devil’s strategy in using them to terminate the promise, I had used the book of Kings. And there only one aspect of that grand design is reported, the final part.

But in the book of Chronicles the complete design is recorded. And that is what I will want us to look at.

I called Athaliah the submissive and obedient wife and daughter in law to the godly king because I had not looked at this other aspect of her life.

Look at what Jehoshaphat did to secure his posterity.

And their father gave them great gifts of silver, and of gold, and of precious things, with fenced cities in Judah: but the kingdom gave he to Jehoram; because he was the firstborn. (2Chronicles 21:3)

Why then did Jehoram kill his brothers since they were not in the least posing any threat to his reign?

Athaliah was starting to carry out the devil’s scheme of terminating God’s promise to David and ultimately Abraham and even Adam.

Killing her grandchildren could not have accomplished much since there were other princes who had the royal blood and so could have taken over the kingdom legitimately.

Moving her husband to destroy all the royal blood was therefore intentional. It was a precursor to what was to be done later.

But Athaliah was not alone in that scheme. Do you remember that some other kings came and destroyed all Jehoram’s sons and left only the youngest, and I suspect because God hid him like He would later hide Joash?

Howbeit the LORD would not destroy the house of David, because of the covenant that he had made with David, and as he promised to give a light to him and to his sons for ever. (2Chronicles 21:7)

But I want you to appreciate the fact that the evil one’s scheme was elaborate and foolproof.

Imagine killing three generations of the promise! And all that because of an innocent marriage through a partnership of kings.

Let us look at it step by step to appreciate the fact that the devil can also develop a long term project.

It starts with a godly king becoming friends with a wicked king.

That friendship was sealed by marriage; the wicked king offering his daughter to the eldest son of the godly king, most probably as the first wife, giving wickedness a foothold in the running of the kingdom since she was the queen.

After the godly king dies, the son, now in the clutches of the wicked scheme, is driven into killing all his brothers for no reason since his godly father had dispersed them to enable him to reign without any hindrance. He therefore remains the only link to the promise.

As we know God, He must judge that wickedness and so the sons of this wickedness leaning king are also killed. But that was not enough because his last-born escapes that purge.

The bride from hell now remains with a grandson who probably has no idea about rulership. He is therefore in the clutches of his grandmother, the same bride from hell.

Of course, he also dies. But he leaves children, David’s seed.

That is where Athaliah finally goes for the kill, clearing all her grandchildren and in effect killing the promise.

But God.

He knew of the scheme long before it was crafted, leave alone hatched.

That is why there is always a remnant however watertight the enemy’s scheme is.

What am I saying?

I am simply repeating what I wrote last time.

God has released something in your direction.

Please watch out for the Ahabs and Athaliahs because they know what God has released in your direction and will spare no effort or cost to nullify or hijack it.

Maintain your focus. Otherwise you could as well end up worse than David’s line since you might be like those sons who joined the devil’s scheme unwittingly yet reaped beyond anything they may have imagined.

Watch those innocent alliances. They could be being brought with a termination gene in them.

Idols 2

And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians. (2Chronicles 16:12)

I want us to look at Asa to get the point I was illustrating in the last post. This because the Bible talks of him as a godly king, and especially the fact that he had trusted on God when faced with a million strong army armed to the tooth. And his faith was vindicated.

In this chapter we see him faced with a weaker army. But then he had really prospered. He had enough money and so used it to hire another army to fight his battle.

Incidentally, when his backslidden state was confronted by a man of God, he, instead of repenting, imprisoned the messenger. He also oppressed some other people as well, probably people who were not willing to walk in his backslidden state.

In the verse above, we see him getting sick, and terribly so. Yet he did not seek the mercies of God or His intervention, resorting to using his resources to deal with his malady.

There is nowhere in all the narrations about Asa that we are told about him worshipping an idol or even seeking the intervention of one like we saw in Saul when studying rebellion. Yet it is very clear that he had deserted his earlier faith.

What is also clear is that it happened when God had prospered him.

Why pray to God when He has given me enough money to buy another army to fight for me? This must have been his guiding principle then.

Why get into prayer when my money can pay for the best treatment?

Why do I need faith when I have everything I need?

Allow me to requote our guiding verse.

For when I have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat, then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break My covenant. (Deuteronomy 3: 20)

I might have to leave this post here so that you may examine your own life to see whether you have drifted ever so slightly from the faith that brought where you are. And this because it will eventually lead you to the point Asa got to.

We are not told he killed anybody or even committed adultery.

However, his latter life had very little relation with his former in terms of his relationship with God.

That is what God is addressing in the verse above. It is the reason God is talking about turning to other gods, gods that were nowhere near your system when you were on your journey.

That is the idol I am talking about. INDIPENDENCE.

No wonder it stifles prayer. No wonder it kills the great desire for God that was part of our makeup when we were searching.

That is why I have chosen Asa. Because he did not fall in all the depravities we associate with backsliding.

Sadly, many of us are always on that journey. I have many times seen myself leaning the Asa way when things are working. I have become like him when I have very solid networks. I have leaned his direction when my life is on solid ground. And I am a minister God ordered to leave everything and give Him a chance to sort me out on everything.

It is not easy to pray for provision when I have a team that will drop everything to meet my needs after my smallest prompt. It is not easy to pray for healing when I have hospitals all around me who have offered their everything to treat me or I have a very solid health insurance package. It is not easy to pray for security when my house is next to the police station and the chief is my personal friend or a member of my parish.

Yet we do not think of it like that. We will many times associate those freebies with God without realizing that they are actually the tools taking us away from Him.

I have been there, many times. It is actually a struggle to release myself to God wholeheartedly when things are smooth and predictable. It many times takes God rattling me to shake me back to sense.

Think about this. If a minister totally depending on God prompting His people to provide for all his needs can fall into Asa’s trap, how will it be for someone having a permanent and pensionable job that pays him very well? How about someone whose business is growing and growing without letup? How will it be for a person having a solid inheritance?

What am I saying?

God was not warning Israel for the fun of it. He knew it was a present reality that grows in intensity as the comfort level grows. Allow me to give us a related verse.

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. (Ezekiel 16:49)

The first time Sodom is mentioned it is likened with the garden of the Lord. It means that it was the perfect well-watered land.

This means that there was more than enough food from the smallest effort.

Then what happened?

They reached (or is it arrived?). They became independent. They became self-focused.

As a result, they became proud (of their achievement) and due to that neglected the needs of those around them.

That is how they became the way we know them today.

I hope you are getting me so far.

What I am saying in summary is that each of us is on that journey Sodom took. We are on the same journey Asa took. It is only that our journey has not gone as far as they got but will do if we do not make drastic changes to our lifestyle, first by reconnecting with the faith that brought us to the point we are at.

But it is also important to point out something that can easily get us back to where we have drifted from. And I will take us to another king.

Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor; if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity. (Daniel 4:27)

Why did Daniel not advise the king to just repent? Why did Jesus order the rich fellow to sell all he had and give to the poor?

The needs around us connect us to our faith if we reconnect with them. It is as we meet those needs that we are able to constantly remember the art of gratitude.

It is very difficult to be proud when you are dealing with someone who is up well before daylight to look for a job, works all day and at the end of the day does not make enough to feed his family.

Dealing with the downs and outs is a very humbling experience, an experience that will result in raising our gratitude constantly because we will know that we are not much better than they are but for the grace and mercy of God.

I hope this has offered us a solution.

Idols

For when I have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat, then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break My covenant. (Deuteronomy 3: 20)

We love talking about idolatry as the worship of Baal, Ashtaroth and Molech and many others.

Today I want us to look at how it happens as well as demonstrate that many times it has nothing to do with real or imaginary inanimate gods.

God does not call us idolators because we have images in our bedrooms.

God calls us idolators because our passion for Him has waned.

Remember the Ephesian church in Revelation?

He calls us idolators because we have shifted our focus from His worship to our own things. In other words, our things have increased in prominence compared to the way they were before we got them.

That is why I have chosen a verse dealing with our good times.

Have you realised that very few people sink into sin when things are hard? Ever noticed that very few will go the way of sin when they are searching for their breakthrough? Ever realised that very few people neglect prayer during their hard times?

What happens when that job comes? What happens when that spouse arrives? What happens when that business explodes? What happens when that house is completed? What happens when your security is guaranteed?

That is what God is speaking about here.

We will gorge ourselves with the plenty that our faith was able to access for us.

Sadly, for even the best of us, it becomes very easy for us to forget the spiritual connection that opened that largesse for us.

Initially it is simply our preoccupation with that bounty as we are getting fat as that verse says.

Then we realise that we have drifted from the faith we valued so much.

Sadly, again for the majority of us, we realise that getting back into that faith we have drifted from requires a little too much from us, things that may require us to lose some of that fat we have accumulated.

What fat am I talking about?

There are those late evening meetings where clean deals are cut that we would need to cut from our programs so that we can attend the once very key fellowship or prayer meeting that opened that door for us.

There is that golf club membership where government contract deals are cut over coffee that you will have to cut to be able to go for those outreaches that were a very fundamental part of your church experience.

There are those salons with the best hairdressers you must cut because of the gossip, gossip that makes your effort at sharing your faith trash because they are so juicy.

There is that neighborhood you moved to when you ‘arrived’ that you must cut because of their requirement for membership to fund questionable projects.

There is that friend you met on your way up whose innovativeness accelerated that climb you must shed because he always leads you to do things that compromise your faith.

Some of these are monumental, especially because they are rubbing your new status very roughly. Yet these come toward the end of your lostness.

The shift occurs subtly, many times in very small unnoticeable ways.

When you were a junior, you preferred a disciplinary letter to leaving the office late for that prayer meeting.

But as the boss, it becomes difficult to hurry a junior who pleads a few more minutes to finalise a report you may need in the next few days.

When you were searching, nothing could get you to the office on Sunday. But as the overall boss, some investors or partners tell you that they are only available on Sunday for that essential meeting. Pleading with you to allow them just that one time.

You hated what you knew about golf membership. But then you were offered that membership without requesting. Then they pleaded you to go just one time before deciding to shove it aside and you found the abundance of opportunities and networks that were in that club.

I am sure someone is wondering why I am talking about those high fliers.

But I will also reach out to you who is not that up there.

How did you start sampling alcohol? I am sure you did not decide that from this time I want to become a drunkard, or even take a sip.

Yet you are now imbibing.

It started subtly. You were probably invited by a friend or workmate for an innocent party just next to the office and then, somehow, you were softly but forcefully drawn to sample what now obsesses you.

How did you become a sex maniac? Again, nothing was black and white. One thing led to another so slowly that you did not notice anything wrong.

What am I saying? Nobody stops being on fire for God in one swell swoop. And nobody consciously chooses to turn his heart from God.

But we do it. We have been doing it since Adam.

Let us start with Adam.

Adam has a very good relationship with God.

Then the blessing comes. And with this blessing comes choices.

The blessing became more important for Adam than his relationship with God.

It becomes very hard, nay impossible, to disappoint the wife God gave him and he gets into sin.

Then he discovers his nakedness and has to hide from God, the giver of that wife.

His wife had thus become an idol.

I hope you are getting my drift so far.

I will be building on this in a later post

  

Terminator Genes

But when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah. (2Chronicles 22:10)

I want us to look at God’s promise and the enemy’s relentless effort to bring it to an end.

And he has been doing it since the garden of Eden by subtly, yet powerfully, pushing the recipient of that promise to be part of that nullifying.

It is important, however, to realise that God is competent enough to carry His promise to fulfilment.

That is amplified by how He is able to use the enemy’s grandest designs to accomplish His purpose. That comes out clearest when we read verses like this.

For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. (Revelation 17:17)

Here the Bible is dealing with three enemies of God’s purpose.

But allow me to get to that promise.

If you look at Abraham, you will realise that the enemy knew that Isaac was coming since he was the promise.

What did the enemy do?

He brought around Ishmael, the single most troublesome character in this world to date.

You also remember Amalek and his schemes.

But I want us to look in glancing at a few such incidences in the holy writ.

Remember Judah and Jacob’s prophecy? By prophecy I mean simply repeating what God has already said, though it at times appears so new.

‘The scepter shall not depart from Judah’, simply means that Judah will provide an unbreakable leadership to Israel.

Yet see what happens to Judah at the very beginning.

He gets a Canaanite for a wife who gives him three sons.

The first is wicked and God kills him. The second one (and you will allow me to wade into controversy) uses a condom and God also kills him.

I suspect that even the third could have gone that way since they were raised by a Canaanite mother.

But in the process they had gotten a God-seeking wife that I think God did not want to pollute with the wickedness in those sons.

Eventually, this God-seeker deceives Judah to give her the seed, or the promise if we go by what I am writing about. And this woman becomes the carrier of the promise.

Look also at David

He is offered a wife by a heathen king.

Isn’t it interesting that one of her sons overthrows him and the second one seeks to shortcut the process of becoming king?

Solomon was even worse. Do you realise that his heir was of Moabite stock? No wonder backsliding for him was almost automatics.

Allow me to get to the focus of this post.

Jehoshaphat was a godly king. Or do you not remember he was the one who sent a choir ahead of the army to war?

He becomes friends with the king of Israel, the most wicked of them.

As per those times, he was given a girl by the king, Ahab’s own daughter.

For one reason or the other, he decides that it was his son who needed that girl for wife.

But that son did not have the spiritual stamina of his father. Meaning he was ‘sat on’ by that wife from hell, if you allow me to say that.

This means that this daughter of Jezebel (the original Jezebel) called the shots in his leadership as recorded in the scriptures.

But that was not the end game.

You see he also got married to other wives and produced sons. You will also realise that even Athaliah’s sons had David’s seed that couldn’t be utterly corrupted as to nullify the promise or kill God’s program.

She knew her assignment before she was released into David’s court as queen. And it was to terminate David’s seed and thus nullify God’s program for not only Israel, but the entire world as was envisaged by Genesis 3:15 and all the resulting covenants.

I want you to realise that God continuously narrowed that promise or covenant as time went on and the devil knew it because there was always a proclamation.

She became queen mother when her husband died and wielded even more power on her son who became king. I believe she became the power behind the throne, anybody who needed to access the king had to be in her good books.

Or do you not remember her mother killing an innocent man and his lineage when the king sulked after being denied some piece of land?

That is what I think she was like, amassing the ultimate power of the kingdom without holding any title.

Then her son died.

And you must know that her grandson was the automatic choice for the new king.

Yet that was not her assignment.

Her single assignment was to kill the promise. Her assignment was to terminate God’s redemptive agenda. Her assignment was to nullify all of God’s promises.

That is why she used her power to literally kill all the males in the kingdom, including her children and grandchildren because that was the sure way of terminating the promise. And since she had ultimate power in the kingdom, there was no one who could have stopped her.

And she almost succeeded.

And the reason she didn’t was because God’s program cannot be stopped.

You see, God had known of her assignment long before she embarked on it and had adequately prepared for it.

Or do you not remember the same thing happening during Moses’ time?

Why am I writing all this?

God has released something in your life. God has a purpose for your life. God has released a call for you. And God has you in His program. And the devil knows that, most likely better than you do.

You see, Athaliah did not just happen. Even Jezebel did not just happen.

They were in the devil’s long-term program to terminate God’s redemptive one. Call it ultimate sabotage.

I will not have succeeded in writing all this if I do not challenge you to look at what God has told you. Do you know it? Do you know its reach? Do you know your part in it?

That is because that is the single most important target for the enemy of our souls.

He does not mind you riding the longest limousine or having visas to all the countries of the world. He does not mind you having billions, even trillions of dollars in your accounts or jaw dropping investments wherever anybody cares to look. He does not mind you having the best family on earth.

Provided he can disconnect you from what God has in store for you. Provided you disconnect from your assignment. Provided you are a wandering star sampling everything the world has to offer.

He in fact will ensure you have everything you could ever desire if it could disconnect or even distract you from God’s assignment.

We have this story because Jehoshaphat, in all his spiritual stature, had no idea that his association with Ahab had a longer-term target. He could never have imagined that that beauty was a bride from hell with the single purpose of destroying everything Jehoshaphat held dear. He had no idea that the innocent girl before him was being brought for the single reason of destroying the program of the God he worshiped.

I hope you are getting something so far.

This because I am not just writing about Athaliah. I am actually writing about me and you.

You see, we all have a godly seed in us, especially us who are following Christ.

We all have a prophetic mandate that God has set in place for our completion. And the devil has some inkling of the same.

He therefore released the strategy to abort it from the day we believed and will never stop pursuing it until we exit this world.

This of course means we are in a continual state of war with the enemy of our souls and that his central focus is our assignment or prophetic mandate as I have mentioned earlier.

It therefore means that there are always Athaliahs being packaged and released to us.

As was with Jehoshaphat, Athaliah was not a direct threat to the king or even his son. She was patient enough to wait for the opportune moment, when she had amassed power and the kingdom was at its weakest.

He does that with us all the time when we are not watchful, eternally watchful.

Athaliah may be that deal too sweet for your pocket. She might be that piece of land too irresistible for its attractiveness. She might be that relative too eager to please you even before you request anything. She might be anything and anyone.

Her most potent weapon is her patience. She is not demanding. She is not pushy. She is the all beautiful and submissive wife.

All that because she is biding her time. She is waiting for her time to come.  She is waiting for her plan to mature.

Then she will release her whole power. She will leave nothing to chance.

What is the conclusion of this whole issue?

Connect with what God has for you and nothing else.

Seek to know what that is will be your only redemption. Not knowing that will lead you to play in Athaliah’s league.

Losing focus of what God wants of you may appear innocent and even harmless. It may even be fulfilling since the enemy will withdraw his arsenal from you since not being against him is actually being in his team.

Your erstwhile enemies might even seek your friendship, sometimes even apologizing for disagreeing with you since they really need you to be outside what God has in store for you.

But they, like Athaliah, are simply biding their time. Then they will knock you down cold because they have been able to get into your sanctum even as you were thinking they were a part of your team.

I am presently dealing with such a case in the church I fellowship in.

Some very close friends of the pastor, boasting of a friendship spanning over two decades, have finally unleashed an arsenal on him that only God can rescue him from. They have cooked allegations and clear falsehoods and disregarded plain scriptural admonitions and even simple logic to smear to smear an old man with so much muck as to deny him any breathing space.

But I know that as happened with Athaliah’s scheme, this too will fail because God is about glorifying His name through His servants. But it is a tough call on some of us who have joined the fray because the same rotten characters have now started smearing me and creating stupid allegations to stop me from questioning their wickedness. And they can lie so blatantly without batting an eyelid. They can say something in a meeting and say the exact opposite in another meeting.

But suppose this pastor had suspected them of being in Jezebel’s employ when they met. Would he have allowed them so much leeway? Would he have even allowed them in his ‘neighborhood’, leave alone his confidence?

But he didn’t know. He had no idea that there was a Jezebel in his team, a Jezebel whose only agenda was to abort God’s program for him.

But as I have said earlier, they will not succeed. And that because God’s program cannot be aborted. And that is what I use to encourage him even as things have been so hard for him over a few months.

This in itself confirms one key thing; that warfare is the product of an obedient life. That people and structures will fight you for the simple reason that you are submitted to Christ and serving Him.

Otherwise you could be having the time of your life, even in ministry.

As per the common saying, it is the tree laden with fruits that the boys throw stones at.

But I want to finish this by repeating what I have said again and again in this post; the devil’s sole purpose is aborting, weakening, distracting and when he succeeds, terminating God’s assignment for you. Everything else is a side show to keep you occupied with other things.

Will you focus on your assignment or will Athaliah be allowed room to gain leverage?

Do you know your assignment?