Chapter 10: Nations – Prophetic Purposes
There is a verse in Deuteronomy that I have recently asked others to help me to understand. This verse was passed over by a speaker who simply said that they don’t understand it, and that they have never heard anyone speak on this verse. It is found in the song of Moses, Deuteronomy 32. Verses 8-9 read, “When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided up all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.”
Do you find this to be as interesting as I do? For starters, Abraham was not called out of his father’s home for a couple generations after Genesis 10. We read of the descendants of Eber, and then eventually Abram was the sixth generation after Eber, the son of Arphaxad. This is incredibly interesting, because the passage in Deuteronomy 32 claims that God had set up the boundaries of the nations in accordance with the number of the people of Israel. Yet, in Genesis 10, and certainly with the dispersion from Babel, there aren’t any offspring of Abraham – let alone Israel. Abram was not yet alive to give birth to Isaac, who would then give birth to Israel. Do you see my point?
It seems altogether bizarre that God would tell Moses that all of the nations that have been set up upon the earth have their boundaries allotted to them in accordance with the sons of Israel.{cclxvi} First question: why? Second question: what relation does Israel have to all other nations? Third question: what relation do the nations have with Israel? We read in Acts 17 in the life of Paul an episode upon “Mars Hill”. Paul gives a message to the Greek philosophers and highly educated of his day. The truth is that there should be an entire chapter devoted to that message. However, the message itself is not a piece of eschatology. There are eschatological statements within it, but our main focus here is upon the statement, “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwelling, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us…”
I think that Paul understood the mystery that was being expressed to Moses. He understood it and he proclaimed it to the Greeks. God has established the boundaries of all nations, and has even established the times that they shall be allotted to dwell upon the earth, and that is given them for one purpose: that they might seek the Lord in the hope of being found of Him. Where it has been my understanding for years to assume that this was a verse speaking of individuals, the truer exegesis of the text would say that Paul is still speaking about the nations. With that in mind, Paul then does change the conversation to speaking about individuals when he says that God is not far from any one of us. But, that is not to be used as a reason that Paul can’t be talking about nations here. In fact, if we continue onward in Acts 17, we find that Paul uses that statement to make the point that God now commands all men everywhere to repent. From there, Acts 17:31 once again seems to take up the issue of nations before God. Why has God commanded all men everywhere to repent? “He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has ordained.” That judgment that Paul is speaking of is understood from Old Testament prophecies as the judgment of nations.
For example, we find in Joel 3:1-3 that God has established a day when He will gather all the nations together to enter into judgment with them in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. This judgment of the nations is at the end of the age, when Christ returns and all the holy angels with Him. How do I know that? Jesus has said so. In Matthew 25:31-32, Jesus proclaims, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” Notice that the emphasis is not on separating the people, but that the nations are gathered. We understand the second phrase, “separate the people”, in the context of, “All the nations will be gathered before him.”{cclxvii}
God has a jealousy over nations. Each one has a prophetic destiny and purpose. That prophetic destiny and purpose of the nation in which we live is determined by the number of the sons of Israel. The coming calamity upon Israel, the number of the Jewish people in our land, and the number that will be sifted through our nation are all factors that determine our prophetic destiny and purpose as a nation. Ironically, those three factors are intimately tied together with what patriarch we descend from. God has established the nations in Genesis 10 as the peoples that are scattered throughout the earth. Whether we are from Ham, Shem, or Japheth actually matters, because each one of those three patriarchs were given a very specific role in the end time paradigm.
Discovering Your Nation’s Purpose
In American history, we have seen a couple great awakenings. We have seen several revivals. The First Great Awakening came in the early 1700’s before America was a nation. While the nation was still only colonies, immorality and drunkenness were rampant. The people of America, though claiming religion, were very much living immoral lives. The Puritans were even known for their violence against the Anabaptists. This First Great Awakening swept the nation and caused for many men and women to consider holy living once again. The people of America devoted themselves to Christ, and the rampant immorality was neutralized.{cclxviii} That is, until the Revolutionary War. Once war came, the effects of the revival began to dwindle until they were eventually only a memory written down in the pages of history.
In the late 1700’s, America was actually quite a bit like what we see today. The schools and universities were mostly atheistic. Society and culture mocked religion, especially Christianity. Drunkenness and sexual immorality were rampant across the land. Yet, through men such as John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards, the spiritual and moral climate of America shifted. It is known as the “revival of 1792”. Others call it the Second Great Awakening. Yet, after this revival came the war of 1812. The spiritual climate degenerated again, and people were once again given over to debauchery. Our land was a place of immorality and mockery of religion. Though the effects of the Second Great Awakening continued to linger, they slowly died until there was only a history written about it. Many men were not content to allow it to die, and so they gave themselves to prayer. Finally, the last few that remembered “the glory days” passed away, and the others were content to have their eyes glazed over with only memories.
This led to a Third Great Awakening in America. In the year 1857, revival began in Canada and went south into America. This was the time of men such as D. L. Moody, Surgeon, William Booth, and Hudson Taylor. This revival caused for the moral landscape to once again be converted toward holiness. The preachers insisted upon devout and holy living, and the people responded positively. People were giving themselves to the cause of Christ. They were claiming that the devil no loner had a hold upon them.
And then we move toward the 1860’s, and the Civil War broke out. During the time of the Civil War, the revival continued. In all of these cases, the revival did not cease simply because war began. Yet, we find the pattern that there is revival, and then devastating war. The moral climate is given to sexual immorality and drunkenness, and then there is revival, and then another war, which brings forth drunkenness and sexual immorality, and then another revival. This is the pattern of American history. Now, in 1904, there was a revival in Whales led by a man named Evan Roberts. The judges in Whales were given white gloves, because they had a whole year without any crime. The men that worked in the coalmines had to retrain the horses because the miners were no longer yelling and cursing. The horses didn’t know how to respond.{cclxix}
That revival in Whales was found continueing in 1906 through William J. Seymour, an African American. The Azusa Street revival was in Los Angeles, and the people came from miles to see it. Out of Azusa Street came the modern Pentecostal religion. Just like John Wesley before him, Seymour had no intention of creating a new denomination. What is it that happened after these two revivals in Whales and Los Angeles? We found ourselves in the midst of World War I. After the war was the Great Depression. After the Great Depression came World War II. Interestingly, there have not been any revivals that we can call legitimate with certainty.{cclxx} Though there are spurts here and there, the truth is that America has not had a nationwide reformation like in the previous years.
Now, in the question of what caused for the revivals to come, the short and simple answer is prayer. When the Christians of our nation got on their faces and began to pray, God sent revival. People saw the sin, and they were broken. They saw the nation going into atheism and mockery of God, and they cried out on behalf of America. What no one seems to ask, however, is whether revival is the answer for today. Out of all of the prayers for revival, the many pastors and preachers that are declaring revival is coming, the desperate hope among the youth, and the uncountable riches that we’ve been given to stir us to prayer and expectation, my only question is this: Why are there not streams of blessing flowing in the streets? God does not ignore the prayer of the righteous. We don’t simply cry out to God repeatedly until He answers, always hoping that if we maybe pray just a little bit more that He might hear us. The prophets of Baal might have prayed and prophesied in that manner, but we serve a living God who hears and cares.
We don’t serve Baal. Our God hears the cry of the oppressed. Though it took desperate prayer in the past for revival to come, I think that we’re missing the point. It wasn’t about the prayer. The prayer caused for the people of God to get back to holiness. They began to come to a place where the things of this world, and the lifestyle and culture that they grew up in, did not satisfy. They were no longer willing to give self over to the ways of the world. Instead, they desperately pleaded with God on behalf of those who did not know Christ, and all the while they encountered the resurrection life in their own day-to-day activities. Is it possible that in our modern day we want the cheap fix? Have we stopped obeying and started praying in hopes that God would answer?
In all sincerity, I’m not one who believes in revival. I used to. But what it seems to me that God has been communicating is that we can continue to pray about the problems we face, and they will go. We can continue to cry out to God about the issues, just like the generations before us cried out when they saw the land wholly given over to drunkenness and wickedness. We can continue to seek that God would bring the hearts of Americans back to Him, and that the mockery of Christianity would be silenced. We can pray all these things. Many of us do pray these things. I believe that God will honor the prayer of the righteous. Yet, the truth is that even when God sends revival and the spiritual atmosphere of the nation shifts, it is only a couple decades later before our nation is given wholly to idolatry again.
To pray for the nation, stop praying merely about problems and start praying for God’s prophetic destiny. God has established America for a purpose and destiny. He has established all nations for a prophetic purpose and destiny. If we want to see reform that lasts, we need to move past seeing the branches and look to understand the trunk, and eventually the roots. When we pray about problems that we see, whether immorality or spiritual laziness, we are only praying against branches. The problem is much bigger and deeper than that. There are ways that the enemy desires to destroy a nation. All of these ways ultimately go back to one thing: abolish the prophetic destiny of that nation.
Devastation and sickness are only manifestations of spiritual warfare. Hurricanes, plagues, drought, floods, devastation to crop or animals, viruses and illnesses that sweep the nation, and all of the like are only outward expressions of a spiritual battle between darkness and light. God will send devastation as preliminary judgment upon the Church in a nation when that Church has given itself over to the same immorality and idolatry as the rest of the nation that does not know God. Any judgment of God that comes to America will not come because of homosexuality or grotesque sin of the people. Judgment comes because the people of God no longer act like the people of God.
We need to recognize the spiritual battle between darkness and light. It is the enemy’s hope to have possession of the western world. He desires to have nations such as America and Canada under his control. That is not to say that third world countries are not also under attack. I believe that the enemy also wants control over the Nile from Egypt through Rwanda. The reason is because that region around the Nile has a prophetic destiny and purpose in God that the enemy desires to stifle. Likewise, there is a certain purpose to the western countries, whether in North America or in Europe. To understand the spiritual battle over America, we need to look back into our history and understand the struggles over our nation between darkness and light. We need to see the patriarchs from Genesis 10 that we are descendants from, and seek to understand what character or spirit broods over that patriarchal people. Those spirits can be introduced into the country through the immigration of settlers, and then perpetuated by the refusal to repent (let alone acknowledge) of the sins in our history.
This is true for all nations. Seek to understand the principalities constricting your nation throughout its history. God has a prophetic destiny for every nation, every region, and every people group. Those destinies are not to be lived out by individuals within that nation, region, or people group, but to be lived out by the nation as a whole. Either the nation as a whole lives out their prophetic destiny, or no people within that nation live out the prophetic destiny. The same is true for the region and people group. The remnant within these three areas can only go so far. Without an open heaven, where the whole of the nation, region, or people group are given over to God, our anointing and calling are constrained. The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Each nation and people group will have a peculiar anointing and blessing to give to all other peoples and nations. When the nation is misaligned with its prophetic purposes, the ministers of that nation will be stunted and neutered.
When ministries focus upon their congregation and community at the expense of the Church of the nation, they will never fulfill their calling and purpose. We need a view of the Church as Christ Jesus and the apostles teach it. We are one Body with one Spirit. We are not a bunch of local churches that meet together separately, but together compose a bigger, or “global”, church. The understanding that we are all one Body, and that there is no separation between they in California and myself in Ohio, that understanding alone is the necessity for engaging the powers of the air. If we are willing to split the Body, whether by congregations or by denominations, we then forfeit our corporate authority.
In America, the Native Americans had a certain spirit over them. From what I have researched, it seems as though the Native Americans come from two patriarchs: Magog and Tiras. Those that are descendants of Magog are typically the more violent of tribes. Yet, the majority of the Native Americans were not hostile. They came from Tiras. Now, Magog is the patriarch of other nations like Mongolia, the Huns, and certain fierce peoples of that region. Some of the early Irish Celts also trace their lineage back to Magog. Yet, Tiras is quite different. From Tiras come other peoples like the Scandinavians, the ancient city of Troy, and the Tuscan area of Italy. The people that descended from Tiras are said, by Josephus and other ancient Greek historians, to have been typically in a state of drunken and tipsy excess.
This would help explain why drunkenness pervades both the Native Americans as well as the nation of America as a whole. It is a spirit that has not yet been dealt with. When the European settlers came over, they also brought their history of spiritual conflict with them. In my area of the United States, we have mostly German descendant people. From Germany come the Gauls, the Franks, the Assyrians, and several other peoples. It is likely that we cannot truly discern just who all has come into our nation, and what spiritual conflicts they have brought with them. What we can do is look into the history to discover the patterns. The annihilation of the American Indians (150 million were executed during the event of the “Trail of Tears”) would reveal to us the same Germanic spirit that comes from Assyria. Ever since that terrible atrocity in our nation’s history, that spirit has pervaded over the United States of America. To sweep it under the rug, and pretend like nothing ever happened both perpetuates and hands us more fully over into the hands of that spirit.
There is another spirit that was introduced into Canada and the United States during the 1990’s. There was a dubious revival that swept the land. It was called the “Toronto Blessing.” When the Church of Jesus Christ did not stand up in the authority of Christ to battle against that spirit of witchcraft, but instead many in the Church sprinted to behold the phenomenon, we handed our nation into the demonic spirit of witchcraft. That spirit has pervaded our countries ever since, and has even come into the Church of Jesus Christ. Because of the Toronto Blessing and our lack of authority to challenge it, the spirit of witchcraft has brought forth other dubious revivals and blessings. As if that weren’t terrible enough, we have seen since the middle of the 20th century a rise in the sales of tarot cards, ouija boards, and other sorts of “play” witchcraft. To a large degree, people don’t know what they’re getting into, but I’ve known some that do. There has been the increase of wicca and other magical religions. There has been an increase in popularity of mediums, spiritists, occultists, and other forms of witchcraft in Hollywood and television.
I remember in the 1990’s when television programs and movies started to push these kinds of things. There was an increase in the late 1990’s for these sorts of shows – mediums that consult the dead, people that “whisper” to animals, demonic possessions, séances, and other forms of witchcraft. Where did this spirit come from? It comes from the inception of the Satanic Bible via Anton Lavey.{cclxxi} Now, I’m not about to say that it starts with him solely, and I’m not about to say that one man brought in a spirit over the whole of America. This man’s influence led to artists such as Jimmy Paige and the Red Hot Chili Peppers becoming members of the church of Satan. With the popularity of the occult and witchcraft introduced into the mainstream, this spirit spread like wildfire. It eventually culminated in the Church of Jesus Christ through so-called revivals.
With Anton Lavey came Alister Crowley. Alister Crowley wrote up a manifesto on “sex magik”. This would introduce the spirit of sexual “liberty” that pervaded the 1960’s. That so-called liberty eventually snowballed into the grotesque sexual immorality of college orgies, swinger parties, the trend of homemade sex tapes, child pornography, and even darker types of sexual explicitness than I’m unwilling to acknowledge in this writing. True, sexual immorality has plagued our country for centuries. The sexual spirit most likely has its inception from the Greek world. The ancient Cretans inspired the sexual disgustingness of Sodom and Gomorrah. They also inspired the sexual practices of the Greek philosophers – you aren’t simply a student, but a sexual partner. That kind of sexual immorality was not limited to the philosophers of Athens, but was projected through all of Athens’ culture. That same Greek spirit has traveled over the ocean and into our land.
In recognizing some of the spirits that are over our country, we need to understand that there is still a deeper realm of understanding. The purpose of knowing the spirits is not that we can “name” them, but instead to come out from them and break the generational chain upon our own lives. These spirits are at work in every person born into our country, for we as a nation are given over to their influence and teaching. The first step is coming out from these demonic influences on our own lives, but the second step is seeing the prophetic destiny for America. We need to understand our purpose in God. Intercession for our nation is not to be negative, but instead positive. We don’t merely “pray against”, but instead live in the reality of what God has called us to be.
Now, there are two ways that the enemy uses to fight whole nations. Obviously, there are more than two ways that the enemy uses to fight. We’ve already expressed a few ways that the devil has come against the Church in America. There could even be more than two ways that the devil fights against whole nations, but these two I have discerned. First, Satan has a strategy of torment and oppression. Second, Satan has a strategy of ease and slumber through luxury and convenience.
When we look at the oppression that is taking place in nations such as Iraq, we find Islamic extremist groups (such as ISIS) terrorizing everyone. This is a strategy of the enemy that needs to be prayed against. I believe that this kind of tactic does not work against every nation. Yet, it is extremely possible that this tactic will be worldwide. I think that the second strategy of ease and slumber might be preliminary to torment and oppression. A people that are still willing to fight against such oppression will rise against the minority. In Germany, the Nazi party only reached a maximum of 6 million people. While that is a lot, it only consisted of about 7% of the population of Germany. How is it that such a small minority came to such prominence and power? The first strategy of ease and slumber caused the people of Germany to continue to remain at ease and slumber until they were now oppressed and tormented, but couldn’t fight.
The hope of the enemy with ease and slumber, I think, is to eventually oppress and torment. While people are sleeping spiritually, Satan robs them of their intelligence and authority. The casual Christian no longer knows they have authority, and they no longer know how to use that authority. Issues like homosexuality, abortion, etcetera are only manifestations of the lukewarm condition. No amount of proclaiming and organizing will work until the root issue is dealt with. To come against that root of ease and slumber through luxury and convenience requires a people that have come out of that condition, and can now recognize the spirit behind that condition.
Do not expect to wrestle against that power by naming and claiming. It is wrestled through a lifestyle. Our mode of living must be the antithesis to the principality. While the demonic forces promote selfishness, intimidation, personal gain, coercion, manipulation, violence, and self-preservation, it is the way of the Kingdom of God to live according to selflessness, sacrifice, turning the other cheek, lavish generosity, truth, sincerity, and peace. That kind of lifestyle is not easy. Everything of the world comes against it. If you don’t look out for yourself, who will? It’s a dog eat dog world, after all. Yet, that kind of mentality is unbecoming to any kind of spiritual maturity in Christ.
The ultimate hope of the enemy is to oppress and torment. If oppression and torment is only available in the form of rape, hate crimes, and other acts of violence, then that will be the degree to which the enemy creates oppression and torment. If, however, the people have been lulled to sleep, and he is now open to bringing violence and terror, then the enemy will invade the nation with a demonic extremist group. Whether that demonic extremist group is Nazism or Islamic hatred, it does not matter.
The intention is that the people of the nation would be so consumed with desire for revenge, self-pity, and ‘Where was God?’ that they do not pray for, nor manifest, God’s wisdom and love. When Satan can grieve the hearts of the people within a nation so that they are turned to vengeance, anger, hatred, and all of the fruits of the flesh, then he has stunted the possibility of that nation fulfilling its prophetic purpose. And know this: the greater the call on the nation, the greater the confrontation. When in the midst of that confrontation, to turn toward politics, witchcraft, idolatry, etc actually hands more authority over to the devil.
Idolatry is one way to give the nation into greater bondage. The funeral for Princess Diana handed over Great Britain into such spiritual bondage that I don’t think the Church of England truly understands. To allow that kind of celebration to go on about a jet setter, where even the most prestigious religious leaders spoke such words that you would think that Christ Jesus Himself had passed away, is to allow for a demonic spirit to enter the nation that had not previously been there. Likewise, for the kind of idolatry that has filled America over the death of celebrities like Elvis or Michael Jackson, we too have crossed over a threshold that cannot be undone. We have entered into a new realm of demonic possession for our nation. That kind of willing submission to their authority and power, and invitation to their occupancy, can only be uprooted by a corporate son – the Body that is truly an apostolic glory.
We have given ourselves over to idolatry. I would go so far to even say that we have given ourselves over to witchcraft. Ouiji boards, tarot cards, horoscopes, television, orgies, freemasonry, and prostitution are all examples of witchcraft. Anything that is not God’s Spirit, kingdom, and power is ultimately a willing surrender to the principalities and powers of the air. That kind of deference lends our spirits over to greed. Greed is to desire anything over God. Greed comes when we are not content, but instead of looking to the only one who can satisfy, we look anywhere else. With greed comes deception. Deception is anything that we believe to be truth, but is not truth. We deceive ourselves into thinking that everything is okay, and that we are indeed content. The truth and reality is that we are everything other than content. We are not okay. We are being plagued by demons, and we don’t even know the bondage that we’re in. That is deception.
The devil makes strongholds in the nation through these means. Yet, there is another mean: unresolved injustice. A wounded people are a weak people. Unresolved injustice perpetuates wound. A wounded person wounds other people. They are filled with anger, bitterness, vengeance, resentment, etc. They will lash out instead of helping. It is through torment and oppression that Satan continues to beat down a nation and a people. When they are bruised and wounded, they are weak. Instead of attacking the true source of the problem, they attack one another, thus resulting in more bruising and wound, and thus perpetuating the problem.
When we do not wrestle the powers and pull down these strongholds in our own lives, families, communities, cities, and nations, we give our nations over to their rule and influence. They influence the mindsets of the people, which then blocks them from the Gospel. Whole cultures, societies, and peoples are influenced in attitude and disposition away from the Gospel of God. This is why we’re told to “cast down vain imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”{cclxxii} It takes the whole of the Body of America to come together in unity – out from Babylon, and unto Zion. When God has a people from sea to shining sea that have come to Zion, which is the heavenly glory of the Kingdom of God, then He has a people that can engage those powers. It might only be 10 people per state. Numbers do not matter. There is even one time where God claimed, “I sought for a man to stand in the gap.”{cclxxiii} If there were only one man, God would have stilled the judgment to come.
I’m not convinced that we need numbers. What I’m convinced of is that we need authenticity. When we have, as a people, come out of Egypt, delivered by the Sprit of God, then we have devastated the principalities and powers. Our prayers will shake the nation. We have currently stopped obeying and started praying, and we have neglected to realize that obedience is more important than sacrifice.
Fulfilling our Purpose and Destiny
What hope is there? After coming this far, we’re confronted with a burden. The true condition of our walk before God will be expressed in our reaction to what has been stated thus far. If we are content to say, “Well, there is nothing I can do about that,” then we show we’re actually void of the Spirit of God. Yet, the heart that is truly God’s will break. There has to be something that we can do. Indeed there is. We can become a little more educated. We can learn the history of our nation, and we can seek God to give us the discernment of the root issues. People that prayed against the branches generated all of the revivals in American history. They successfully prayed against those branches. Their success was not only because of their prayer, but rather was the outpouring of a lifestyle lived in the presence of God.
Our first mandate as the Church of Jesus Christ is to live a life separated from all of these things. When we are devoted to Him, and Him alone, only then are we in a place that we can begin to understand the spiritual implications of such things. As an example, I stopped driving on the highway. God had called my wife and I to take the back roads. It was not until after we submitted to that that we began to realize how much of a mindset we had to ask, “Why is it taking so long?” Somehow, taking the highway seemed to bring us into a mindse