Let me confess that I probably belong to the unenviable class of people bracketised as having a phobia for Information Technology advances, as I seldom patronise the very attractive network the social media offers for strictly personal reasons.
For a little while spanning three straight weeks I could not be in my local assembly or any church for that matter because I was out of the country to be part of some conventional professional conferences as well as spend some time with family members on a short vacation.
I was, therefore, naturally expectant when I returned to my “Source” where the Pastor is privileged to enjoy unique divine revelation when it comes to biblical exposition. This Sunday (September 18, 2016) he was on fire again and because it had to do with Nigeria I was unduly attentive.
The man of God reminded the Church on the need to be focused in our attempts to seek redress to the turbulent times. He said that God gave man three major mandates, which are the political, economic and ecclesial/spiritual.
Our political mandate stems from Genesis 1:26 which states thus:”And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness and let them have DOMINION (emphasis mine) over the fish of the SEA and over the fowl of the AIR and over the cattle and over all the EARTH and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
The dominion that God gave us was the AUTHORITY to be in charge of all creation in the air, sea and on earth. This was our political mandate.In Genesis 1:29, he gave us our economic mandate. Genesis 1:29 states inter-alia: “And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat.” We can look no further for any source of economic empowerment than this.
The creator gave us an ecclestical mandate very unambiguously in Genesis 2:15 which posits thus: “And the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and keep it. The Garden of Eden was God’s house and so the directive to dress and keep God’s house was a direct call to worship the creator of Heaven and Earth.
In Genesis 3 which graphically depicts the fall of man when the Adam ate from the tree he was forbidden by God, he lost and surrendered both his political and economic mandates to the devil, but he continued to retain his ecclesial/spiritual mandate.The relevant issue here is that Man continued to reverence the Lord in worship despite losing the political and economic dimensions of his mandate in the Garden of Eden.
True to the often reflected position in the Bible that the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, the strategy of the devil has always been to distract mankind by afflicting him in realms he does not really prioritise to making him vulnerable to the real target which has always been stealing the ecclesial/spiritual mandate. In other words the devil torments us politically and economically such that we easily compromise our ecclestical/spiritual mandate through embracing strange doctrines, bowing down to images and ultimately worshipping lesser gods instead of the true God.
The major tool of the devil has always been to create images either physically or in the hearts of men to take the place of God.The modus operandi of the devil was on display in the Babylonian days of King Nebuchadnezzar when he made an image of gold whose height was threescore cubits (90ft) and the breadth thereof six cubits (9ft) which was set up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.
Biblical numerology teaches us the spiritual significance of the use of a 90ft long image which when analysed adds up to 18 (9+0+9=18). The number of the anti-Christ is 666 which also add up to 18.
This shows that as far back as the Babylonian times the image of the anti-Christ was already being showcased. More instructive, however, was the pattern prescribed in the worship pattern after the dedication of the image of gold in Daniel 3:5 which reads “that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer and all kinds of music, ye shall fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up”.
The similitude employed by the devil who is the counterfeiter is to encourage praise and worship through music just like we do when we serve the true God. It is important to put on record that each time images are created for mankind to worship, many do not resist and therefore they submit their ecclesial/spiritual mandate to the devil. This reference explains why great nations have drifted from God through surrendering their spiritual mandates to the devil. Even our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ was not spared by the devil in the account of the temptation graphically depicted in Matthew 4.
In Matthew 4:3, he attempted to take His economic mandate through the charge to change stone to bread. Matthew 4:6 reveals he told our Lord to throw himself down from the holy city which was the political capital of that season. This was an assault on his political mandate.
The apogee of the absurdity was taking our Lord to an exceedingly high mountain in Matthew 4:8-9 with a charge to the Saviour to fall down and worship him. This was the ultimate attempt to steal the ecclestical/spiritual mandate of even the Lord Jesus Christ by the devil.
Folks, you may be wondering why I took this up myself. It is only because of a strong conviction that this recession stuff is another device of the enemy to truncate our destiny as a people which we must resist. Call it extremism, religious bigotry or whatever analytical minds naturally would do, it will not change my resolve. Nigeria is the land for end-time revival which makes it a spiritual force. Israel remains the nation epitomizing the physical representation of God on earth, while Nigeria best symbolizes the spiritual. It is not an error that we have the largest deposit of true end-time Ministers of the gospel in this clime.
If one out of every four Black man is a Nigerian, it is logical to infer that Nigeria is the destination for end-time revival.The devil who is the counterfeit of the Lord sees through this reality. That is why he will not give up the fight to throw confusion at us to truncate our spiritual destiny. From political problems, including the 1967-1970 civil war to austerity measure of 1982, from the June 12, 1993 imbroglio to the global economic meltdown of 2007/2008 which was not significant in Nigeria from recent problems of transiting from Jonathan to Buhari on the political front to this current economic recession, the enemy will always continue to attempt to steal our ecclestical/spiritual mandate to make us embrace false gods. The ultimate desire, however, is to destroy our God given and guaranteed greatness which he knows all about since creation.
In a nutshell we must realise this is not all about rational logic with regards to persons, political parties and related things. This is about returning to our first love, our God, Who is the ever present help in time of trouble.
We must pray that God turns the tide in favour of Nigeria. Let us uphold President Buhari and his team because if Heaven does not endorse their policies we all shall suffer.
God is, however, able because with him nothing shall be impossible. Let us, therefore, continue with human efforts laced with hard work to do the needful by growing the real sector, reduce import bills and increasing exports, granting tax holidays to get more SMEs into the tax net and of course diversifying the economic base beyond oil exports. These are all good but the saving grace lies in keeping our ecclesial/spiritual mandate to consolidate other gains.
Akintayo lives in Lagos
