AND THERE WAS WAR… And there was war… and the dragon fought… (Revelation 12:7). A great prophet perplexed me lately when he wrote about “the vision” that he “saw,” prompting me to open anxious eyes to also see what he had seen, but he proceeded to announce a message rather than narrate the signs that I supposed he should have seen in a “vision.” A little later, he puzzled me even more when he added, “The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem” (Isaiah 1:1-2; 2:1). Does one see words or hear words? According to Isaiah, he “saw” a “word” (or a message); he saw a word-vision; a weighty word about an endangered nation and its capital city of Jerusalem. I leave that to the prophets. I look into 2015, the ominous year of presidential and other gubernatorial elections in Nigeria; I look beyond 2015, and I hear the frightful sounds of an approaching factional war. Someone might argue that the nation is already at war, yes, except for the media conspiracy to undermine the deaths, the guns, the bombs, the myriad battle fronts. The present Boko Haram conflicts, sadly, are a foothold already, but what the enemy intends is an escalation that would leave no part of the country out. For what I see, my heart has been in anguished trepidations, like a prisoner awaiting the inevitable hangman’s noose. I am unable to find my place at the jamboree vigils and recreational church services. There is coming another Christmas when we might not, should not, be feasting. I recall the prophetic warnings of three years ago: The Spirit of Sudan! I have sobbed to some I hoped could hear what I hear, in case we both might see God’s way out. This afternoon, I look through the window and see children at play, and fearfully wonder how much longer the fun would last before we are refugees in some far flung forest, or raped or captured or conscripted to fight with an army we do not support. I lately warned at a Christian gathering that we might be having our last church parties, if we do not penitently wake up now. Our children might be doing their last terms at school, unless God shows us mercy. We could be holding our last annual church conventions and enjoying the last rides in our fanciful cars, unless the mercy of God again descends. We could be savouring the last fantasies in our sedating beds, and eating the last dainty meals in our comfortable homes from which we soon might flee to nowhere, unhelped and unhelpable by the gods we have multiplied in bank accounts and many other altars. All that you have amassed for life, if it be spared by the bombs, will be looted by the gangs, or acquired by another who never laboured with you. There are some projects starting now that will not be completed, and were better not started, should the tremors begin. Some children, in the next thirteen months, may have become fatherless and motherless, some wives widowed. Some husbands will see their wives taken away from them by force of the barrel of the gun. It will be the jungle justice of war. 8 Their land is full of idols; the people worship things they have made with their own hands. 9 So now they will be humbled, and all will be brought low— do not forgive them. 10 Crawl into caves in the rocks. Hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord and the glory of his majesty (Isaiah 2:8-10, New Living Translation). An ancient prophet once assured, “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). In the past twenty-five years until now, there has been no shortage of dreams and revelations of wars, of blood, of a nation drenched in a north-south conflict; a conflagration between Muslims and Christians. If this had been the warning only from prophets, that should have been serious enough, but ordinary church members have received these warnings; old men and old women have had these dreams; little children have had these visions, turning to their parents for explanation. Not only respected intercessors but also simple Christians have received the warning. You probably are one of those many witnesses. I spoke on phone today with three preachers in different parts of the country, and each of them, on this same day alone, has had a revelation or some frightful afternoon dream about the approaching war. If we were to ask for everyone who has ever had such a dream or revelation to come forth with them, we would have an encyclopaedia spanning decades, from all strata of people, from all corners of the nation. Could God have been doing so much for so long so that we are without excuse should that unfortunate storm somehow someday burst? That makes me tremble. If God were not about to redeem Sodom and Gomorrah, would He have bothered to reveal and discuss the matter with Abraham (Genesis 18-19)? That is my consolation. I believe in the power of God; I believe in the love of God, but I fear. If God would ‘sell’ off Israel, His own ‘first born,’ into cruel exile (Judges 4:1-2); if He would so harshly deal with His own covenant people because of their wicked ways, I wonder what ‘favour’ excuses Nigeria whose priests and rulers compete to outdo each other in lies, greed and wickedness. The Father said to Abraham that if He could find ten righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, the whole population would be spared the pending fires. I plead with the Father that there are more than ten righteous people in Nigeria, and I tell Him I am one of them. (I hope so.) May we not go the way of Sodom. Over twenty-five years ago when these pages began to sound this alarm, it was said, “A prophet of doom.” Now, that doom hangs palpably over us like a dark low cloud; now, more and more are beginning to be scared by the eloquent rumblings in the sky. Now, mails and SMS’s pour in, asking, “What do we do?” I ask the question myself. Days ago, I got the following SMS from a missionary up north: This is an alert, sir. Yesterday afternoon, I was praying over the work I did at the mission field in Benin Republic when suddenly I saw myself standing on a vast map of Nigeria; the sand was boiling from the northwest to the northeast, pumping blood across down south, flowing like a river. I was shown big trees falling as the flow of blood continued. I was startled at the sight. I prayed, but there was a repeat of the revelation at about 2am, so I am moved to call you and others to watch and pray over this Islam fast. (Rev. Isaac A.) A river of blood needs no interpretation – it means widespread deaths; the big trees are mighty fellows in the land – religious, political, and business leaders: bishops, apostles, army generals, great politicians, powerful millionaires and billionaires, all swept off like the commoner by the deluge of blood (Daniel 4:20-22). That the revelation should be repeated… I fear to say the meaning… maybe Joseph’s words in interpreting Pharaoh’s dream might speak for me: 28 This is the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh: What God is about to do he sheweth unto Pharaoh. 32 And for that the dream was doubled unto Pharaoh twice; it is because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass (Genesis 41:28, 32). From the multitude of these recurring disturbing dreams and revelations of war, it would appear that in every congregation of a hundred, there would not lack ten who have had the experience. For what reason does God do this? To entertain sleepers? To leave us without excuse if our wicked ways should urge us sleepily on into the threatening storms? If Dr Goodluck Jonathan should win the presidential elections, the Islamic army that so long has threatened the land with blood and fire seems poised to escalate the war; should he lose or be schemed out, the same trained army in the disguise of being his ‘southern brothers’ defending his ‘political’ rights to the national cake, is already warming up again in the creeks of the Niger Delta to resume from where they had paused, according to Alhaji Asari Dokubo the ex-Deeper Lifer now turned Muslim fighter. Those are not a kinder breed than the Boko Haramians. In the hills of Ebonyi State in the south-east, intelligence had long notified us that they had also been training. Some of those are indigenous Ibo Muslims. Repeated signals from above suggest that the west itself would soon be in for a rude shock. Lagos, Ibadan, beware! Rifles and bullets could soon be. speaking in tongues. Also, I don’t know where or what, except that we should pray for the nation against the dates of Oct 7 and 9.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 21:58:29 +0000
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