There is a time for everything, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to tear down, and a time to build up (Prov. 3:2,3). God has His appointed times and we need to pay attention to those moments when He says that IT IS TIME!
A music composition called It Is Time, was composed for percussion instruments – those instruments that usually gives the timing in a piece of music. The composer commented that each instrument’s unique sound and each musician’s unique expression was taken into account when he wrote the piece. In the music, you can hear the individual patterns of rhythm. Yet, when the end draws near, all the instruments come into unison until the last beat can be heard.
In the same way, everything has been created by God, to come together in unity for the final moment when Jesus returns. A part of God’s plan, for instance, is that all nations will one day stand before His throne to worship Him (Ps. 86:9). If that is His will for the nations, we as representatives of Jesus on earth, have a responsibility and a mandate, to ask Him for the nations and to become instrumental in preparing the nations so that all nations will on that day stand before His throne in worship (Ps.2:8). For this purpose, He has made us warriors to fight for the fulfilment of His plan (Eph.6).
God has also pre-determined times when for instance, certain key leaders need to move into place, or when great changes need to happen. These are usually times of heightened spiritual warfare, as the Enemy will try to have it changed according to his plans. In times like these, the Lord will make His children aware that they need to wake up as warriors so that they can move into action.
When the children of Israel did evil in God’s eyes, He often allowed them to be oppressed, as a result. One such time, the Israelites called out to God for mercy. He heard their cry and called Judge Deborah. She heard the words, ‘Awake, awake, sing a song!’ which, according to commentaries, meant ‘Open your eyes Deborah, become aware of the time because it’s time to sing a war song’ (Judg. 5). Deborah, who was also a prophet, had to pick up in the spirit, that it was time for a governmental change, and that she had to prophetically declare the time for war.
Deborah’s name means ‘bee’, like the ’honey bee’. What is an appropriate fact about the queen bee, is that when it is time for war, she will make a certain high-pitched sound as her war cry.
Deborah had to call up Barak, the chief warrior. The command to him was, to arise! This chief warrior’s name means ‘beam of lightning’. He didn’t need to wake up. He needed to be called to attention, to stand up, and to do what he was destined for. He had to take on the commander of the army of the oppressor, who had nine hundred unbreakable chariots of iron. Deborah prophesied that the Lord would give Barak the victory. God then gave them the victory, but He did it in an unusual way – through a woman, named Jael, who lured the commander of the oppressor’s army, who was tired after the fight, into her tent. After he fell asleep, she pierced a tent peg through his head, which led to a forty years period of freedom from oppression (Judg.5:31).
Another example of a warrior, who was called up when God said that it was time, was Gideon. The Israelites were in a period of suffering – God allowed the Midianites and Amalekites to steal and destroy their cattle and their land because they did evil in His eyes. After they called out to the Lord, the Angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon where he was hiding in fear, addressing him as the “mighty man of valour” and commissioning him then, to save the Israelites from the Midianites, the very people that he was hiding from. His first command was to tear down His father’s Baal altar and to cut down the wooden image next to it (Judg.6:25). The point of note here is that this first command was in line with the meaning of Gideon’s name, which is ‘to tear or cut down. God’s command was in line with the meaning of Gideon’s name.
Someone else whom the Lord used when the Israelites called out to God in their oppression, was Ehud. He is mentioned in Judges 3, as a man who was born left-handed. As a soldier, he could thus use both his hands as strong hands (1 Chron. 12:2). Ehud was from the tribe of Benjamin. Ironically Benjamin means, ‘son of my right hand’. So in his tribe, he stood out as someone that was different. After the Israelites cried out to God, God called up Ehud as a deliverer. The Lord used Ehud’s strong left hand, to kill the evil king so that the Israelites could be freed after eighteen years of oppression.
Another warrior that the Lord used to deliver His people, was Jephthah. He was a mighty man of valour. But the Bible says that he was also the son of a harlot, thus an illegitimate son (Judg.11). His dad Gilead, had other sons too, who was born through his wife. These sons, when grown up, chased Jephthah away. He fled and went to live in a country where he surrounded himself with worthless men, or terrorists, as one Bible translates it. They used cruel force to raid people. There came a time then, that the enemy made war against the Israelites, against the city of Gilead. The elders remembered Jephthah and asked him to come and help them. When he went willingly, to fight against this enemy, the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah. He made a vow to the Lord if the Lord would deliver the enemy into his hands. The Lord then did deliver them, and Jephthah kept his vow, under challenging circumstances. This son of a harlot, who previously was a refugee and a friend of terrorists, was mightily used by God and was added to the list, of men of faith in Hebrews 11.
Samuel was an example of a prophetic warrior – he had to anoint Saul to become King, to overthrow the Philistines, after God heard the cries of His people, about their oppression under the Philistines (1 Sam. 9).
At the beginning of 2017, the Lord gave a word for the nation of South Africa. The word was from Is. 52:1, that the nation must stand up from the dust. At that time, the nation was lying in the symbolical dust. We heard God’s call. We gathered at the It’s Time events. There we called out to God while kneeling in the literal dust. As a nation we repented, cried out to God for mercy, and rose up, to follow Him.
Now, at this time, He is calling us in South Africa, according to our individual callings, to wake up and to move into action, for change is around the corner. He is calling His Deborah’s and His Jephthah’s to arise!
In each country circumstances are different, and therefore the type of warrior that the Lord wants to use may also be different. The Israelites needed military warriors to free them from oppression. In another country, another type of warrior is needed to free the people from the slavery mindset of the past.
In Israel’s history, the Lord often used prophetic warriors to call up the military warriors. He used Deborah to call up Barak, and the Angel of the Lord to call up Gideon (Judg. 4, 5). In Judges 11, the Lord used the elders of Gilead to call up the warrior Jephthah.
Today, the Lord is calling you as a warrior to arise. You may need to rise up from the dust, after you were humiliated by your spiritual enemy (Is.52). You may need to clean your spiritual armour, before the Lord can use you again, as His mighty warrior of valour.
You may be the warrior who is different from your family, like Ehud the left-hand man. When you were younger, you perhaps hated yourself for being different. But the Lord wants to anoint your differentness, for He wants to use it in this season, where He needs you to bring change in your nation.
Maybe you are more of a Jephthah, the man who was born out of wedlock. You surrounded yourself with rebels and you stole from others. But the Lord needs you now, with your background and ability, to turn the course of a nation.
You may be like a soldier in Gideon’s army, who had suffered in a war. You fought many battles under your leader’s command and did it because you saw the anointing on him. But you have since retired, after the battle, but emotionally and spiritually your clothes are still full of old blood and your shoes are falling apart. To you, the Lord is saying today, “Arise My faithful one, for I want to use your bloodied clothes and your torn sandals, to fuel a new fire within you” (based on Is. 9:4, 5).
Perhaps you are like the elders of Gilead, who knew out of experience, what type of warrior leader was needed to lead the people to victory. Then you need to trust God to get into a position of authority, where you will have the freedom to do it.
You may be a prophetic warrior, like Deborah. The Lord wants to show you who the next governmental leader is, to lead the people into real freedom, in order to fulfil the dream that God has for the nation. You may need to ask God for an understanding of His timing and His choice for His appointed leader so that you can pray and prophecy over him or her until God’s will comes into fulfilment.
Maybe you are someone like Samuel, the one for whom the Lord has already shown, who His chosen leader is. You may need to go and anoint that one, as a declaration of God’s appointment of him or her.
This ministry is dedicated to mixing anointing oils for the fulfilment of God’s purposes. When the Gideon Anointing Oil was mixed for the purpose of the warrior anointing, the terebinth oil was added, because of the prophetic meaning of the terebinth tree under which the Angel of the Lord stood, when He spoke to Gideon. The nature of this tree, a tree that grows in the rocky desert of the Middle East and Israel, is exactly what God saw in Gideon, as a mighty man of valour. It has a unique ability to grow and sustain itself from a little bit of soil. It grows into a huge tree that can stand on its own amidst the strong desert winds. This is unlike other trees which need to stand in a group to be strong enough against the desert winds. This tree is big enough to give shade to caravans of people and camels, passing through the hot and dry desert. It has the unique ability to withstand bacterial and fungal diseases, because of a natural anti-biotic in the leaves of the tree.
God saw in Gideon a man with the ability to stand strong on his own, against the obstacles of his time. He could sustain himself as a warrior with only a small quantity of nurturing. He wasn’t influenced by the spiritual fungus and bacteria in his surroundings, but kept himself Godlike, in spite of his evil surroundings – he destroyed the false gods of his ancestors, and with strategy and strength, he overthrew the Israelite’s enemy in totality.
May God anoint you to arise as His warrior, to hear His voice, and to obey!
(The Gideon Anointing Oil is available online from our website www.itistime.co.za)
Written by Marelize Nolan [29 December 2019]
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