Discipling Nations: The Real Game & the Real Opponents

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dennis peacockeBy Dennis Peacocke

May 2012

«If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?» (Psalm 11:3)

They can engage, or wisely re-engage.
Nearly four years ago, I began writing a book on the coming economic crisis and its causes and potential cures. Little did I know where it was headed. What started out as socioeconomic commentary has ended up as a strategic plan. The plan that emerged is designed to help «disciple nations» (a term Jesus used in Matthew 28:18-20). That plan is designed to give us all a fighting chance for a measure of justice, freedom, prosperity, and extended community, based upon love and respect as we apply biblical principles to the nations’ primary social systems.

Successfully confronting a worthy opponent is not possible unless their core strengths of both offence and defence have been identified and factored into one’s engagement. Our «opponents,» as the Apostle Paul reminded us, are spiritual forces. Ephesians 6:12 says, «For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.»

These spiritual beings are using human beings to construct culture and social systems even though these humans are oblivious to being used by these spiritual powers. These major demonic officers in Satan’s army work under him as «the god of this world» (2 Cor. 4:4); they undergird social ideologies and systems, and exercise control over the lesser demonic forces in specific geographic territories. These opponents are currently driving the worldviews of secularistic thinking and their social values globally through economics, education, media, the arts, and the political philosophies developed in Western culture over the last several centuries. Their major «promises» are guaranteed and designed to appease and control the nations through the pursuit of economic materialism, freedom from sexual restraints, and the ability to function as one’s own ultimate source of moral and spiritual authority through the pursuit of personal self-development and pleasures as the source of guidance for one’s life.

Challenges will severely increase in the coming years of this global economic-values crisis as citizens are increasingly disillusioned with their diminishing economic opportunities and growing sense of insecurity. This will serve to «soften up» the control of these demonic forces over the nations due to their inability to deliver on their unsustainable promises. Secular control is about to face challenges that are wholly unexpected and for which it is ill-prepared to defend itself. This brings about the important question, «Is the church prepared to take advantage of this historic opportunity to reposition itself from its current repose of social irrelevance?» We must, therefore, also ask the question, «Can a nation be born in a day?» (Isaiah 66:8) We are about to see that question both «get on the table,» so to speak, and be answered by God’s Spirit as He engages those believers who see what is at stake.

The Spirit of God is brooding over the waters of humanity waiting for a new release of a proceeding word. When it comes, it will be self-evident as it gains momentum in the hearts of God’s people. To those of you waiting for that proceeding word, having known that it was coming for years, take heart—you will yet live to see it, and that is……the bottom line.