That I may Know HIM - A Devotional

Day 30 : The Spirit of Sudan

Early in September 2011, while fasting and praying for the national prayer retreat of The Preacher scheduled for later that month, the word of the Lord came to me, “Pray against the Spirit of Sudan.” South Sudan had become independent from the oppressive Islamic north only a few weeks earlier, on July 9.  I understood the word to mean that the Satanic principality that had sponsored Sudan’s very oppressive anti-Christ Islamic regime, and sustained twenty cruel years of a most ravaging civil war between the Christian south and the Islamized north, having lost that territory, was seeking another abode, in Nigeria.  I took it as a personal prayer point even though, later, I had to send out sms’s to a few friends.  The message as I understood it seemed well explained by Luke 11:24-26, especially the first half of verse 24:

24 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man[a territory, Sudan], he walketh through dry [desert] places, seeking rest [alternative accommodation]; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.

25 And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.

26 Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

This reminds me so much of the Kenyan experience decades ago, when a group of intercessors in a teacher training school suddenly had a vision of furious red horses galloping towards their country. Intercepted by timey prayers, however, the horses diverted from the border of Kenya into Somalia next door. Somalia has not been a normal country ever since, with little rest from wave after wave of Islamic insurgencies.

In September 9-11, 2011, there was the retreat of The Preacher in the Middle Belt city of Jos, Nigeria.  In the process of the prayer vigil on the second night of that retreat, a sister with remarkable prophetic gifts raised a prayer concern about Nigeria. She used the same words to describe her burden as she called us all to pray against “the spirit of Sudan.”   I was frightened. It was no mere coincidence.  I realized at once that God had confirmed His word in the mouth of a second witness.  Anyone who has gone through the horrors of one civil war will never wish to experience another. Ask them in Liberia, Sierra Leon, Libya, and ask the elders in eastern Nigeria who suffered the Biafran war.

Four days before Christmas, we posted the online message, “When Feasting is Unpardonable Sin ,” warning that in this season of Christmas festivity and the threats of Islamic jihads in Nigeria, it might not be permitted for everyone to enjoy a feast when the land mourns.  Yesterday was Christmas, but it was not to be for everybody.  I had been fasting for many days, and could not but go on fasting.  St. Theresa Catholic Church at Madalla, on the outskirts of Abuja the capital city of Nigeria, was suicide bombed at the close of Christmas service as worshippers were queuing to leave.  Over 40 deaths have been reported, besides several injured and inestimable property damaged.  What jolted me was the Yahoo News on the tragedy: “Boko Haram [the Islamic jihadist group that has been taking responsibility for the recent assaults on Christians and the government] is trying to ignite a sectarian civil war in a country split evenly between Christians and Muslims” http://news.yahoo.com/islamists-kill-dozens-nigeria-christmas-bombs-081417359.html It sounded so much to me like the word of the Lord about the agenda of the Spirit of Sudan. Could that be a third witness from the mouth of a prophetic internet donkey?

What further bothered me in that news were the remarks attributed to Muhammadu Buhari, who had also contested at the last presidential polls.  In the opinion of that retired army general and former head of state, these assaults are a pointer to the failure of the present government of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, a man who has been under the severe assaults of high level sorcery and political snares; such manipulations and sorceries that it takes more than a Sunday school T-shirt to bullet proof.