A weekly Devotional by Gbile Akanni

This Present Distress 1

“And He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" So I answered, "O Lord God, You know."” (Eze 37:3 NKJV)

Several circumstances and diverse situations of life come to bring despair and doom. Family crisis; marital disharmony has brought so many a wife unto agony; tears refused to dry off their eyes day and night as they lamented the day they said “Yes I will” to the priest who officiated their matrimony. Others have faced the excruciating pains of diseases that defy diagnoses and cure. Yet, others battle endlessly with the invisible forces of darkness bringing oppression and conflict. Children and adults are alike subjected to the forces of decay.

In search of answers and solutions, many patronized medical doctors; native herbalists; demon conjurers; psychologists, to no avail. Others went into prayer houses, syncretic cults; oriental religions; professional seers and even churches, seeking relief. On the global scene, the whole world is going down the drain, as wickedness, sophisticated crimes, murder, ethnic clashes, territorial wars and religious crises are on the increase by the day. Epidemics claim so many lives without any foreseeable remedy. Governments of the nations seem helpless in tackling the complex web the world has got entangled in.

The youths have grown reckless and heartless. They have become disrespectful; unthankful and disobedient to their parents. Every vice, that was once a shame, is now proudly paraded and advertised on the TV screens and the internet. The whole world is drifting unto its final destruction. The stage is being set for the reign and rule of the man of sin – the reign of lawlessness.

At the Church level, the walls have collapsed. The boundary between the Church and the world has been adjusted… The ancient landmarks (which our fathers had set) have been removed. The Church of Jesus has gone awhoring into the world and the world has found a big enterprise in the Church. Righteousness and holiness are becoming a strange message on the pulpits. While greed, personal ambition and covetousness are being tucked behind Bible verses, as several quote the scripture and use it to say what is contrary to its content and the whole counsel of God. Those who seek the old time religion are becoming the object of scorn and ridicule; as loud orations are rendered to celebrate arrogant men, who exploit the anointing. The decay within the fabrics of the Church has made her another mere institution in several parts of the developed world. In all these, the unreached peoples of our age are still largely unreached.

To the human eye, all things appear out of control. Pessimism and fatalism would easily become the choice. Some have actually concluded that there can be no reverse. While the world will grow worse and worse, we have a definite Word of promise for a divine visitation of God to His Church shortly before the appearing of the King. He is coming for a Church without spot or wrinkle – a glorious, triumphant church, whose robe is in fine linen of righteousness. There is the promise of revival and restoration, in preparing the Church for the groom.

All who seek the good of Christ Church in this generation and so labor for her revival must pay close attention to the issues the Holy Spirit is raising for us here.